Battle Royale II (by Kinji & Kenta Fukasaku): Rating 5/10
Having been a huge fan of the Original movie, I was hesistant to watch this movie because as we all know that sequels hardly live up to the original. And in this case, the sequel is muddled, confused and a plain mess. Part of the reason could be that the original director, Kinji passed away before the movie was completed. As a result, his son Kenta took up the job of finishing the movie. The movie looks to be in two different mind sets.
Also the original was based on a book which laid the foundation for the material really well. The second one had to work on an original script. Anyway, on with the review...
BRII takes place 3 years after the first one. In the first one, the adults had come up with a game to teach the youth a lesson -- every year a class of troubled youth is selected & put on an island where they to have them kill each other. Only one survivor should remain otherwise all the students would be killed. Well in the first one, there were two survivors (one male and female). The start of BRII shows us that the male student (Nanahara) has started a terrorist organization to take revenge on the adults. Nanahara is tired of adults waging wars and killing innocent children all over the world, especially Afghanistan. His terrorist organization is residing on an island (just like the island in the first one, hmmm). The adults decide to send the new group of BR students to the island to kill Nanahara.
The movie starts off as the BR game, transforms into a war movie (the landing on the island is eerily similar to Saving Private Ryan), morphs into a terrorist/political movie before turning into a tribute to Afghanistan and ending as a journey movie. Yes there are comments relating to a certain country which bombs other countries whenever it feels like it, yes this other country hardly shows any adult behaviour, but the comments do not fit in the movie. They seem forced.
On a positive note is the role of Takeuchi Riki. In the first movie, Takeshi Kitano was the impressive teacher. This time around the role needed someone with more edge, more hatred. And Takeuchi (of Dead or Alive movies) is perfect for the role. But even his evilness falters near the end and....
Enough said!! I was hugely disappointed with this movie.
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