BATTLE ROYALE II news archive

4/14/03
Principal Photography wraps, Afghanistan location shooting planned: Yomiuri, Sponichi, and Sanspo covered the official "wrap" press conference at the Toei offices yesterday. Director Kenta Fukasaku announced that domestic photography wrapped up on April 11, revealed that he has carried his father's ashes with him every step of the way, and credited his father for giving him the strength he needed to complete the film. Shugo Oshinari, Ayana Sakai, and Ai Maeda also participated in the press conference. Maeda complemented Kenta Fukasaku, saying that the way he spoke during filming resembled that of Kinji, making the workplace familiar and identical to how it was when Kinji was directing the film. Looking back, Maeda said, "it seemed that Director Kinji was right beside Director Kenta."

It was also announced that the production crew will fly to Afghanistan at the end of April for a final shoot, fulfilling his father's wish to include scenes shot in Afghanistan in the movie (the story apparently has Nanahara spending some time in Afghanistan for training). They had hoped to shoot there sometime last year, but world events prevented that, and their visas were only approved this month. The crew hopes to shoot at the foot of the Hindu-Kush mountain range, where fields of white almond flowers show life flourishing after the horrors of war. The crew is making the trip against the advice of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which still considers Afghanistan a "war zone."

Water Plant Location:
The Yokusuka City Waterworks revealed on their website that the BRII film crew used the tunnels in the town of Tanoura as a shooting location.

4/11/03
Official Site Announces Books and Merchandise: The BRII official site has announced no less than 10 titles to hit Japanese bookstore shelves in June. Go here for details.

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY WRAPS: Principal photography on BRII was scheduled to wrap on April 10. Prior to Kinji Fukasaku's passing, shooting was supposed to end in March, but was subsequently extended to this date.

4/8//03
Veteran actor playing prime minister: Masahiko Tsugawa, who's been appearing in Japanese films since the 50's, announced on his website that he's playing the Prime Minister in BRII.

4/5//03
Foreign distribution deals for BRII already being made: Yomiuri News reports that even now, offers are rushing in for foreign distribution rights for BRII. According to Toei, there are already informal agreements in place with companies from five countries, including the UK and Russia, with the details to be worked out in succeeding days. This is exceptional for a Japanese film to already be assured foreign distribution even as it's still in the middle of principal photography. The original BR was officially screened in 22 countries; the distribution rights for BR had been sold at $2 million a pop. Home video sales in foreign countries have also been bringing in the highest numbers in Toei's history. Hong Kong, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Thailand made their offers for BRII to Toei at the American Film Market held in Los Angeles last week. No word on whether a North American distribution deal is forthcoming, which would be unusual given that the first movie never got distributed in the U.S.

Yoshiko Mita to appear in BRII: Another legendary name in Japanese cinema, actress Yoshiko Mita, shot her scenes for BRII on location in Otsuki City, Yamanashi. The 61-year old actress is playing the mother of Aoi, the student played by Shugo Oshinari. She'll appear in a flashback scene that establishes how Aoi learns to distrust adults.

(From Yahoo! Japan and Yomiuri Shimbun)

Script up for Auction? A seller at Yahoo! Japan Auctions put up an item which he claims is the script for the sequel, titled "Battle Royale II: Jihad" (this runs counter to the previously-mentioned, recently confirmed sub-title "Requiem"). The script, which was only offered for three days, had a starting price of 8000 yen and went unsold. The link to the auction is here, but will probably expire soon. Images of the script are in our Pictures section.

Lastly, based upon discussion at the BRII official site's BBS, I've revised the name of the school that the BRII students hail from, from "Shikanotori" to "Shikanotoride" (though I'm pretty happy to have come so close with my guess).

3/30/03
Added characters' given names to the Wild Seven and Students cast lists. Added pictures from clothing designer BA-TSU's BRII-related clothing line.

3/29/03
The official site has been revamped and updated, and we now have official individual pics of all the students and some of Wild Seven.

3/19/03
Thanks to a scoop from Daniel Wang, more screencaps from the BRII Special Volume 1 have turned up, including our first look at Riki Takeuchi as the teacher of the new class!

3/2/03
Thanks to a tip from Daniel Wang, who runs the fansite Battle Station, we now have a look at the front of the handbill that was distributed with the tickets (now if we only had a look at the back). Link here for the image. Also picked up a couple of pictures of BRII student players in costume.

2/27/03
Yahoo! Japan and Sponichi report that, while speaking at an awards show, "Beat" Takeshi confirmed he will be shooting one or two new flashback scenes for BRII.

Added two more names to the Cast: Hiroaki Ito, who lists himself as playing a "soldier" in BRII on his agency home page, and Nanami Oota, a nine-year-old.

2/23/03
Awesome casting news--legendary martial arts/action movie actor Sonny Chiba will be making a cameo appearance in BRII! In a flashback, he'll be playing the uncle of Mimura, the hacker from the first installment of BR. If you recall, Mimura mentions that his uncle was a revolutionary who tried to blow up Parliament.

Battle Royale fans in Japan lined up yesterday for the pre-sale of tickets to BRII. Among the bonus goodies the lucky ones got (while supplies lasted) were 20,000 replicas of the collar pin worn by the students of BRII, and a brochure for the new movie.