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When I reviewed the first Battle Royale movie, I watched the film filled with anticipation. The manga was awesome, there was controversy surrounding the film and with Quentin Tarrantino's approval, I expected something great! Instead I was highly disappointed! Battle Royale was rushed, had no character development, was too comical and unrealistic. That said, I went into watching Battle Royale II: Requiem expecting nothing but the same.
Battle Royale II: Requiem opens with a little dialogue from a paramilitary group, named the Wild 7. The Wild 7 is led by Shuuya and other graduates of the Battle Royale reality series. Angered by Japanese society's systematic torture and destruction of its own youth, the Wild 7 retaliates bombing a skyscraper filled with businesses. Businesses that represent society's favor of money over the human condition. This moment in the film was eerily reminiscent of September 11, 2001. In fact, the whole film seems to play off those events and their aftermath. The film automatically created an immediate parallel and one interesting reason to watch.
To combat the Wild 7, elementary school children are kidnapped by the Japanese military to be sent into battle. They are given a choice to fight or not, but everyone makes the right choice to do battle. All except one and that child is gunned down to serve as a warning to the others. Scarily, this child's partner made the choice to fight and when her collar begins to beep the stern program leader, played expertly by the over the top Tokyo Mafia’s Riki Takeuchi, tells her that she was partnered with the child who chose not to battle, meaning she also had to die.
This leads to a shocking and well-played scene, as she cries out for help only to have her collar blow up and blood pour from her neck as she died. While cool to see, the novelty of such violence quickly wore off when realized the stupidity of forcing the children to learn
teamwork by protecting their partner or die with them. Needless to say, after a spectacular fight scene reminiscent of the Saving Private Ryan boat landing, the surviving kids join the paramilitary group, have their collars removed but still end up fighting, only this time their captors.
Requiem had several cool shootouts, but the dialogues from Shuuya about why they fight, and over the top death scenes where the victims speak too long before dying really killed the mood (pun intended).
Requiem tries to follow the classic Battle Royale formula, but without school uniforms it lacked the shocking nature of seeing children killing children. In addition the buddy system took away from the intrigue of who can be trusted. In all, Battle Royale: Requiem was a good premise for a sequel, but did nothing to separate itself from the pack.
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