Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル, Batoru Rowaiaru) is a 2000 Japanese dystopian thriller film directed by Kinji Fukasaku and written by Kenta Fukasaku, based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami. Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda and Takeshi Kitano, the film follows a group of junior high schoolers forced to fight to the death by the Japanese government. The film drew controversy and was banned or excluded from distribution in several countries. Toei even refused to sell the film to any United States distributor for a long time, because Toei was worried of potential controversy and lawsuits (until Anchor Bay Entertainment eventually acquired the film in 2010 for direct-to-video release).The film was first screened in Tokyo on more than 200 screens on December 16, 2000, with an R-15 rating, which is rarely used in Japan. It was the highest-grossing Japanese-language film for six weeks after its initial release, and it was later released in 22 countries worldwide, grossing approximately $30 million in eight countries. The film earned critical acclaim and, especially with its DVD releases, drew a large global cult following. It is often regarded as one of Fukasaku's best films, and one of the best films of the 2000s. In 2009, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino praised Battle Royale as the best film he had seen in the past two decades.Battle Royale was the last film to be directed by Fukasaku. He started working on a sequel, Battle Royale II: Requiem, but he died of prostate cancer on January 12, 2003, after shooting only one scene with Kitano. His son Kenta Fukasaku, who wrote the screenplay for both films, completed the film in 2003.
Battle Royale became a cultural phenomenon, and has been highly influential in global popular culture. Since the film's release, the term "battle royale" has been used to refer to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment inspired by the film, where a select group of people are instructed to kill each off until there is a triumphant survivor. It has inspired numerous media, including films, manga, anime, comics, visual novels, and video games; the battle royale game genre, for example, is named after the film.