Battle Royale(2001 / R)
In near future Japan, teen violence has become so rampant that a law is passed which allows the military to take one random 9th grade class each year and place them onto a remote island where they have three days to kill all of their fellow students. If there are more than one student left standing after 3 days then they all die.
Upon arrival each student is given a survival pack which may contain a useful or equally useless weapon/tool/instrument of some sort that'd maybe help the student survive the 3 days. Each student also has a collar placed around their neck which will explode after the 3 days are up if there are more than 1 student left alive.
Upon receiving their survival packs the students are sent one by one out into the island to fend for themselves. Every several hours there is an announcement to list which student have been killed off and also to list which area of the island is the current "danger zone". The point of the danger zones is to keep the students from squatting in one place for three days. If a student is caught in a danger zone their collar will detonate.
The two main characters are Shuya and Noriko, friends who stick together and refuse to kill eachother. There are also two planted "ringers" on the island to help keep the game moving. One of the ringers is sadistic and the other ends up helping Shuya and Noriko.
I won't go anymore into the plot as It'd ruin experience for you. However I can say that this movie is pretty freakin' cool! This movie depicts teen violence in a way that'd never be explored in the U.S. These actors are all teenagers too... so you have real teenagers depicting all this violence (and some amount of sexual content as well) which as I've read was very controversial in Japan. In fact the Japanese Parliament attempted to ban the movie from being shown.
The movie is at times funny and brutal. I'd highly recommend this movie for anyone not overly sensitive to the concept of teen violence. If you can get by that fact (It is just a movie folks! No actual teenagers were sent to an island to be murdered!) then definately check this movie out!
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