After finishing my homework for the night I decided to explore a movie that I’ve heard brought up in several conversations at Arlington High. Battle Royal is a Japanese film, based on the 1999 book by Koushun Takami, released in 2000. Battle Royal won Best Film at the Blue Ribbon Awards and was nominated for Picture of the Year at Japanese Academy Awards. The plot revolves around a Japanese middle school class that has been chosen to participate in a government run death match to rid the country of its growing juvenile delinquent population. The movie was a perfect blend of drama and horror due to the suspense that was felt as these 42 class mates were pitted against each other to fight for their lives. The film has created quite a cult following in America since its release and with the publishing of the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins in 2008 and the release of the Hunger Games movie in 2012 many Battle Royal royal fans have branded it a straight rip-off.
It would be insane to say that these two movies do not have striking similarities. In the Hunger Games, the government of the time passes a law to have a Hunger Game annually where a boy and girl are chosen from each district of the post-apocalyptic country, Panem, to all fight to death in an arena. The Hunger Games were made to prevent Panem’s districts from thoughts of revolution after a brutal revolution of its thirteenth district. In Battle Royal, the Japanese government passes a bill called BR Act after 500,000 students left class and assaulted many of their teachers in the process. The act was passed to prevent juvenile delinquency rates. Both of these fight-to-the-death-events were created to quell rebellion and comprised of children as participants. Suzanne Collins, without a shadow of a doubt, took the themes of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royal.
One other similarity in plot is the romance between the main actor and actress. The Hunger Games features the heroine, Katniss falling in love with another contestant in the games. At the end of the games they are the only ones left and because of their love for each other they decide to kill themselves together but are interrupted by the game masters and both announced winners of the Hunger Games. Similarly in Battle Royal, one couple jumps off a cliff together to escape the government’s tyrannical rule and the two main characters the story follows, Shuya and Noriko, fall in love during the course of events and end up faking their deaths to run away. The romantic relationships of the two books are too parallel to ignore.
Whether the audience wants to acknowledge it or not, the Hunger Games is a total American rip off of Battle Royal. Now I’m not saying we should completely disregard the Hunger Games trilogy because there was still a plethora of different ideas in Suzanne Collin’s books, but her basic concept is a foisted one. If you love the Hunger Games and you want to see the source of its fame, you need to watch Battle Royal. It is on Netflix.