Battle Royale - DVD Review

Battle Royale - DVD Review

Rating: R18
Released by Madman Home Entertainment

Before the Hunger Games was the more critically acclaimed Battle Royale - both its film version and a novel from Japan.

Now it's been released in a director's cut and it's definitely worth your time.

The film tells the story of Shuya Nanahara, a high-school student struggling with the death of his father who is forced by the government to compete in a deadly game, where the students must kill each other in order to win. And it's that simple - though it's quite violent in places but thoroughly trail blazing in so many ways.

The film aroused international controversy and was either banned or excluded from distribution in many countries but was a massive hit in Japan and rightly so.

It's an uneasy mix of violence, great direction and story telling as well as some great central performances and heart in mouth horror moments.  There's little extra in it despite being the director's cut but the extras are sumptuously excessive with trailers, making of, docos, TV spots - just a great collection and how a re-release should really be done.

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