Royale With Cheese
Battle Royale II: Requiem
Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, and Shugo Oshinari
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku and Kenta Fukasaku
Written by Kenta Fukasaku

It's a sad time for cheese lovers in Japan, due the shortage caused by Battle Royale II: Requiem. The 133-minute sequel is so packed with fromage, surely there was only a curd or two left in the entire nation by the time it was finished. It stinks that bad.

The original BR (based on Koshun Takami's novel) rolls reality T.V., extreme sports, and Lord of the Flies into a tale of well-armed classmates fighting each other to the death on an island, all for the amusement of the media. Equal parts clever commentary and pulse-pounding exploitation, it's bloody, darkly comic, and surprisingly dramatic.

Requiem has a fresh batch of delinquent castaways fitted with explosive collars dumped on an island, but this time they're in full military gear (no school uniforms or wacky weapons). The common goal is to storm a terrorist stronghold, but when the insurgents disable the collars and recruit the kids, both the horrifying premise of killing your peers for sport and the vital game element are scuttled.

In place of what makes the original so compelling is a contradictory mix of anti-American platitudes (the film joyously compares its protagonists to Al Qaeda), and every Hollywood blood 'n' guts war movie cliche imaginable. The "revolutionaries" led by Nanahara (Fujiwara), the male survivor of BR, have four functions to perform ad nauseum: give self-righteous speeches about the horrors of war, act bravely in slo-mo shoot-outs with the army, sacrifice themselves for their comrades, and impart heart-wrenching wisdom before dying in their friends' arms. Laughably over-the-top acting and an obnoxious score only amplify the cheddar.

It'd be nice to sit back, enjoy the exploding heads and animated blood, and not wonder why the army didn't just bomb the piss out of the island in the first place, but Requiem is stupid to the point of aggravation and long enough to qualify as torture under the Geneva Convention.

Kinji Fukasaku, who also directed BR, died of cancer while filming the sequel and his son Kenta (screenwriter of both installments) took over. Unfortunately, it's a memorial fit only for the fondue pot.

Dave Alexander