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NEWS
9/27//03
BRII
to screen at London Film Festival: It looks like the UK
is going to be the first Western nation to officially screen
BRII. The London Film Festival (http://lff.org.uk)
has scheduled the film for a single screening on November 1st.
Click here for more information (thanks to Soupdragon for the
heads-up).
Mission Box prizes: in keeping with the "Mission
Box" packaging of the Limited Edition DVD release in Japan,
a few super lucky people are going to get something extra: either
one of 100 BRII Casio G-Shock watches, one of 20 AK-47
replicas, or one of 300 BRII toilet paper rolls.
Bootlegs on eBay: some apparent DVD bootlegs (presumably
cam versions) of BRII have started to pop up on eBay.
We're awaiting word from the winners of the auctions that have
been held so far to see if the items truly are what they seem
to be. We do know that at least one auction misrepresented a
DVD of BRII Gaiden
as one of the film itself.
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9/10//03
Thailand
BRII opening date: barring postponement by the Thai
government over censorship issues, the movie is scheduled to
open on October 23. Take a gander at the Thai
poster for the film.
Essays on BRII Characters: The Ota Publishing website
has begun posting a
series of essays written by Sugie McKoy in which the
author of the official BRII novelization discusses the
characters in detail. The first installment deals with Boy #15,
Shintaro Makimura, and draws parallels between his character
and the character of Smith in Alan Sillitoe's book, The Loneliness
of the Long Distance Runner.
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9/4//03
BRII
domestic totals
The Japanese run of Battle Royale II is now projected
to have a total box office tally of 2 billion yen (about 17
million dollars), respectable but half of what Toei was hoping
for after the film's big opening weekend, and a distant second
to Bayside Shakedown 2, the top-grossing Japanese movie
of the year so far with 12 billion yen (well over $100 million)
and still topping the Japanese b.o. 6 weeks running.
By comparison, the first Battle Royale made 3 billion
yen domestically, but this also takes into account money made
from the Special Version that was released months after the
original run.
And, in case you were wondering, Kenta Fukasaku confirmed in
a recent article
(which mainly deals with the drug-related arrest of an actor
who had a minor role as a soldier in BRII who happens
to be the son of one of Kinji Fukasaku's frequently-used stars)
that he IS working on a Special Version of BRII that
will hit Japanese theaters as early as the end of the year.
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8/30/03
BRII
Cam Version available online
Visit the battleroyalefilm.net
forums' General Forum for information and links about
a RealMedia version of a camcorded bootleg of the movie, with
English and Chinese subs, and a split audio track with Chinese
on one channel and Japanese on the other. The bootleg appears
to be missing up to a half hour of footage, including: the opening
minutes of the film; the introduction of the teacher Riki and
his description of the game's objective; part of a lengthy speech
by Shuya; and the final few minutes of the film. Still, the
bulk of the movie is there, and those of you who are willing
to watch the movie for the first time in fuzzy Real Video finally
have your chance. |
8/27/03
"Mayonaka
Shounen Totsugeki Dan" Translated
Mink from www.bobmink.com
(now mad as toads), who has in the past done the BR fans
a great service by providing translations of parts of the first
novel (prior to the Viz release) and of the Battle Royale
theme song "Shizukana
Hibi no Kaidan Wo," does
it again with a translation of the BRII theme song, "Mayonaka
Shounen Totsugeki Dan." Thanks a million, Mink!
Cast Interviews
The BRII site at theater.nifty.com has put up streaming
video of interviews with Kenta Fukasaku and members
of the cast of BRII.
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8/25/03
BRII DVD details announced
Yes,
the details have been on this site for a while from unofficial
sources, but Toei has just put up a page confirming the contents
of the regular and limited edition versions of BRII's
DVD release, including a picture of the limited edition "Mission
Box": Link
here.
Novelization
doing well
While
the movie may finally drop out of the Japanese top 10 this
week, sales of the novelization are still going strong in
Japanese bookstores, where as of Wednesday, it's at #4 of
the novels charts.
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8/21/03
BRII cam DVD out in Hong Kong
In
what must be the least surprising news since "there's trouble
in the Middle East," camcorded pirate versions of BRII
have made their way to the streets of Hong Kong, and new fansite
www.br-2.com has screencaps
(WARNING: significant spoilers ahead). On the upside, it appears
that the film *does* have English subtitles, which brings to
light the possibility that the VCD will have them, too.
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8/20/03
BRII *not* at the Toronto International Film Festival
The
film list for this year's TIFF was
revealed
yesterday, and sadly, BRII did not make it to this
year's program. Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi, Takashi
Miike's Gozu, and Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On *are*
on the schedule, though, for fans of Asian cult cinema.
BRII opens in Hong Kong at #1
"Spidey"
from the battleroyalefilm forums lets us know that BRII
opened in Hong Kong this past weekend (Thursday, to be
exact). User reviews again seem to be widely mixed. "RigVertigo"
from the forums adds that the film debuted at #1 with a take
of $64,104, and is right now #2 (behind Jackie Chan's new
flick "The Medallion")with a gross of over $320,000
in its first six days.
BRII's rankings during its run:
How did BRII do during its primary run in Japanese
theaters? Not too bad, but probably not as good as Toei had
hoped. Visit this
thread in the battleroyalefilm forums for the box office
charts for the six weeks of its run.
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8/16/03
BRII wrapping up its theatrical run
The
film officially starts to end its run in Japanese theaters today
(just in time for the anniversary of the end of WWII), dropping
down to less than 50 screens this week, 30 by next week, and
15 by the end of the month.
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8/15/03
Video pre-order page up
I've
put up a new page in the Video
section with links to the BRII video pre-orders.
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8/13/03
Battle Royale II 2-Disc Special Edition Box Set
CDJapan
has put up a preorder
listing for a "Special Edition Box Set" of BRII
that is almost twice the price of the apparent regular edition
listed on YesAsia (thanks to Dan Wang for the tip).
This
probably is separate from and doesn't preclude a different "Special
Version" that Kenta Fukasaku says he wants to work on for
a late 2003 theatrical release.
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8/12/03
- UPDATE
Battle Royale II DVD in December!
Yesasia has also put up a
preorder listing for the domestic R2 NTSC DVD release of
BRII, due out December 21! This is the Toei domestic release
and likely won't have subs. Still, it's going to be a Merry,
Merry Christmas...
8/12/03
Battle Royale II VCD in November!
Yesasia.com
has put up a listing for a
BRII VCD slated for release on November 11! Unfortunately,
the listing also doesn't mention any English subtitles (Traditional
Chinese subs only). But still, some exciting news. Thanks
to BRY!G member "Lil Fujita" and BRF member "Akira
7" for the heads up.
How's
BRII doing?
Facing Hollywood summer blockbusters, BRII has dropped
from over 260 screens its opening weekend to only about 60
theaters throughout Japan showing the film, a not unexpected
set of events. The movie still lingers at #9 in the Japanese
box office, and #3 among domestic movies. The novelization
has crossed the 300,000 copy mark in sales, and is at #6 on
the Japanese bestseller list.
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7/25/03
Whoa,
10 days since the last update? I must be losing my touch...
BRII novelization a best seller: Reuters'
Japanese bureau reports that the BRII novelization
by Kenta Fukasaku and Sugie McKoy hit #3 on the Japanese bestseller
list this week.
BRII: The Manga?: Find out more in the
Manga section.
BRII: The card game: An official site
for the non-collectible card game (all the cards are included
in the game set) has opened at http://www.tenky.co.jp/br2/.
Don't forget--for more up-to-date news and discussion about
all things BR, visit the battleroyalefilm
forums.
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7/15/03
Streaming Video of the 500,000-viewer announcement:
at goo.ne.jp
.
The
ceremony also includes the actors and director signing the giant
Kinji Fukasaku poster in Ginza that many fans have signed over
the past few months.
More reviews:
Three more reviews, one submitted to Ain't
It Cool News, another on Asian Cinema site MidnightEye.com,
and (finally) a Japanese perspective at Yomiuri's
English site. The AICN one is extremely negative, but one
should consider the source, who starts off his review with "I'm
not a big fan of the first film, but I did enjoy it for the
violence." The Midnight Eye review is a little more thoughtful,
and while it admits that the sequel is flawed and inferior to
the original, it also appreciates what the sequel was trying
to do.
A little editorializing:
I obviously can't pitch in a review of a movie I haven't seen
myself, but from the reviews I've seen so far, the ones who
are disappointed are the ones expecting the film to rehash much
of BR #1; they can't seem to accept that this time, we aren't
going to get to know all the kids as well as the kids from the
first. This time, the students aren't going to pick each other
off. This time, the message isn't "violence is tragic and
sad." If that's what you're looking for, then it's all
there in the first BR; why would you want to hear the
same sermon twice?
The first BR was a call for empathy, a posing of the question:
"would you kill to survive?". The second BR appears
to be a call to arms and a call for solidarity, the question
this time: "would you kill to free others from oppression?"
What strikes me as funny is that even though the movie takes
a jab at the American "war on terrorism," at heart,
the message in the movie is in line with the American government's
attitude (whether or not there are more sinister motivations
behind it): War--the taking of others' lives, and the sacrificing
of one's own--is sometimes necessary to liberate people from
their oppressors.
But premise and message are one thing; I know that it's the
execution that matters. For all I know, I too will be disappointed
with BRII when I finally see it. But I don't think it
will be because the Fukasakus decided they wanted to say something
different with the sequel.
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7/14/03
| Half-million
mark reached:
On Sunday, Toei celebrated BRIIreaching the 500,000th-viewer
mark (and a box office total of over 700 million yen so
far). Tatsuya Fujiwara jokingly thanked "everyone
who ignored the R-15 rating," and Kenta Fukasaku
"urged" kids younger than 15 to "borrow
their father's clothes" and come to watch the movie.
BRII reached this milestone on its seventh day
of release, two days sooner than the first BR.
Sources: Yomiuri,
Nikkan
Sports, Sankei
Sports, and others. |
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BRII
Gaiden Online: The always-awesome Daniel Wang is making
BRII Gaiden, the making-of documentary, available on
his website Battle
Station in downloadable installments. He'd appreciate some
help hosting the files, so if you're someone who can do something
about it, let him know.
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7/12/03
"Adam and Joe" transcribed:
BR fan Alice ("Mayumi Tendou"/"bleedingdammit")
Robison has kindly transcribed the segment of "Adam and
Joe Go Tokyo" featuring an interview with Kenta Fukasaku
and Tatsuya Fujiwara and posted it to the BR
Yahoo! Group. |
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7/10/03
BRII on the BBC:
Visitor Rory Steele writes:
"I'm sure fans in the UK will be interested to know that
Kenta Fukasaku and Tastuya Fujiwara will be appearing on Adam
and Joe Go Tokyo to discuss Battle Royale II. The show
is on the digital channel BBC3 tomorrow (Friday 11th July)
at 11.30pm and repeated on Monday 14th July for terrestrial
viewers on BBC1 at 12.05am. For those who don't know,
Adam and Joe Go Tokyo is a show where the comedic duo discuss
all the latest happenings in Japan, looking at all aspects
of culture from food to fame, music and movies. If you haven't
seen an episode before, now is a good a time as any. "
BRII Dolls: BA-TSU's 12-inch BRII figure set is available
for preorder at http://www.ningyoushi.com,
purveyors of high-end Asian collectible items for us Yanks.
The set costs $400 (I did say "high-end"),
and there are only 150 sets sold worldwide. Act quickly--the
pre-orders are only being taken until July 16.
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7/8/03
BRII opens big: Screendaily.com
reports that BRII made $2.8 million on 261 screens in
its first weekend, a bigger take than the first BR--and
the biggest box office of any Toei release. It doesn't beat
Spirited Away's $15.8 million opening total (over a four-day
weekend opening), but it's still in a good position to be the
biggest domestic movie this year. The site also offers a
review of the film. |
7/6/03
BRII reviews: Some
English-writing J-cinema fans have seen the movie and are weighing
in with their opinions. Al Kusanagi has written a couple
of big reviews in this
thread (on a Morning Musume forum, of all things);
scroll down to the tenth post, or go to system-zero.com
for his huge review with the
most detailed spoiler summary we've seen to date.
Others giving briefer reviews include: cykeichan
on our own battleroyalefilm forums, TheManWithTheHat
at the KFCCinema forums, and
jefarrens at the BR Yahoo! Group.
More stuff we can't get: Toei has opened
up a page with
links to three online BRII shops--the Biglobe shop, the Digi-on
shop, and a new shop with tons of never-seen-before items, including
replica BRII collarsfor 20,000 yen each (only 300 collars
will be sold). Unfortunately, the new shop explicitly says no
overseas orders. :(
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7/5/03
BRII opens: Battle
Royale II opened in 261 theaters throughout Japan today,
and Chunichi,
Sponichi,
Yahoo
News, Nikkan
Sports
, Sanspo,
and Goo
news covered the event. The president of Toei announced
that he was anticipating a 4 billion yen box office total, exceeding
the first BR's 3.1 billion take.
BRII
to hit the festival circuit:
In addition to the 30 countries that have reportedly signed
distribution deals for the movie, the movie is scheduled to
hit the Toronto, Venice, Rotterdam, and TurinInternational
film festivals!
BRII: Special Version? BRIII? in the premiere
stage greeting, Kenta Fukasaku hinted that we haven't seen the
last of BR; he hopes to follow the film up with a Special
Version by the end of the year, and is hinting that the story
is "yet to be concluded."
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7/3/03
Time Asia reviews BRII: a
couple of general plot spoilers, but doesn't go into details.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501030707-461891,00.html
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6/28/03
BRII Wallpapers featuring the students and Wild Seven: Dan
Wang is among the first of the BR fanatics who frequent the
Forums to get the Shuya
Nanahara x Shikanotoride Class 3-B White Paper and DVD,
and he's turned two of the book's coolest images--a strangely
happy class picture of the new students decked out in their
military gear, and the Wild Seven group photo--into wallpapers.
Check them out now at Battle
Station.
BRII "Digi-On" Shop: Another BR-related shop
has gone online in Japan, this one selling desk calendars
and memo pads of your choice of designs. Link
here.
Page
Tweaks: Updated the Island page to highlight Sakito Island,
the island used for principal photography, and streamlined
the info on Gunkanjima, which was only used in a few shots
(though it was the inspiration for the fictional island where
the movie is set).
Spoiler updates: at the BRII
SPOILER FORUM. we've been discussing the recent negative
spoiler review of BRII, and talking about the contents of
the Shuya Nanahara
x Shikanotoride Class 3-B White Paper and DVD, which contains
a few more revelations about the movie.
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6/24/03
First English review of BRII: TokyoScope
author Patrick Macias posted a review of BRII written by his
pal Yoshiki Takahashi. Unfortunately, the review is strongly
negative, but it does have our first working synopsis of the
film. If you want to see this thoroughly spoiler-laden
review of the movie, follow this
link to the post on the KFCCinema Forums.
Student Profiles: Updated the students'
cast page to incorporate some character information
found on Japanese websites and the BRII Book Variations.
Thanks to Kiriyama from the BR
Forums for his help. |
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6/23/03
Stage greeting streaming video: Yahoo!
Japan and Goo.ne.jp. covered the premiere of BR and have
put up streaming video of the "stage greeting,"
where Kenta Fukusaku and members of the cast introduce the
film. Among the cast members speaking: Tatsuya Fujiwara (Nanahara),
Riki Takeuchi (Riki), Ai Maeda (Shiori Kitano), Ayana Sakai
(Nao Asakura), Shugo Oshinari (Takuma Aoi), Haruka Suenaga
(Haruka Kuze), Natsuki Kato (Saki Sakurai), Yuuma Ishigaki
(Mitsugu Sakai), Yoko Maki (Maki Souda), Miyuki Kanbe (Kyoko
Kakei), Ryo Katsuji (Haruya Sakurai), Takeru Shibaki (Shugo
Urabe), and Masaya Kikawada (Shintaro Makimura).
You also catch a glimpse of Aki Maeda standing alongside Tatsuya
Fujiwara early in the clip, as Kenta moves to the center of
the stage and the group takes a bow.
Yahoo's coverage:
Windows Media (56k) Windows
Media (300k)
Real
Media (56k)
Real Media (300k)
Goo's coverage:
includes the press conference that happened on the same day.
http://bb.goo.ne.jp/contents/KYDGNC/KYDGNC200306230001/index.html
Spoiler
updates: starting
today, I'll be posting updates hinting at the spoilers that
have been brought up in the new BRII
SPOILER FORUM. So far, we have:
-Brief character studies of the students and Wild Seven (from
BRII websites)
-A general list of many character deaths (from Variations)
-Fates of a couple of very important characters
-Unconfirmed but probably reliable information about who ultimately
survives
-An explanation for an important plot twist that happpens
partway through the movie
-A screencap from the yet-to-be-released Shuya Nanahara
x Shikanotoride Class 3-B White Paper & DVD set that
reveals how Noriko fits into the story.
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6/22/03
BRII Premieres: Well,
the movie had its first public screening last night in Shinjuku.
Kenta Fukusaku and thirteen of the cast members (Including Ai
Maeda, Riki Takeuchi, Ayana Sakai, Shugo Oshinari, Natsuki Kato
and Miyuki Kanbe) were present for the onstage greetings prior
to the film, and Aki Maeda made an appearance afterwards. |
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WHERE DOES
THIS INFORMATION COME FROM?
Some
of the information here is culled from Japanese BR fansites. Here
are a few that I check up on:
http://www.fukasakugumi.ne.nu
http://gan.musical.to
http://www3.to/Bloody_Race
http://www.battleroyale2.jp
And
of course, I visit the official BRII site at http://br-new.jp
and the official Fukusaku site at http://www.fukasakugumi.com.
Scoops also come in
from other sources at the
BR Yahoo! Group and the Battleroyalefilm
Forums.
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