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Mistakes

After Kawada gets his bag, he realizes something and returns to the classroom. Tossing the bag back to the soldier who threw it at him, he points to a bag behind him on the cart and tells Kitano, 'That's my bag.' In the next shot, he is pointing to a bag in front of him. See more...

Trivia

In the film, the two transfer students are Kiriyama, the silent killer, and Kawada, the winner of a previous Battle Royale. In the original manga, only Kawada was the transfer student; Kiriyama was in the same class selected for this game of death. He was the main antagonist. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

Battle Royale (2000) - 4 questions

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Genres: Action, Horror, Mystery, Sci-fi, Thriller

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Questions

Question: Is it ever explicitly explained in the novel why Kiriyama never speaks, or why he "volunteered" for the Battle Royale?

Answer: Kiriyama is a psychopath - he is unable to feel emotion after a car crash and lobotomy as a child. He volunteered simply because he had nothing better to do.

Edit Answered by LorgSkyegon

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Question: In the original novel, it was Shogo (not Shuya) who hacked the system to discover how to disable the collars; at the same time he found out that the class would be doing the Battle Royale and transferred into that class to try and use his knowledge to mess it up. In the film, the person who found out how to disable the collars and the person who found out about the Battle Royale and transferred into it are different people. Does anyone know why this change was made?

Answer: Kawada hacked the system, learned about the collars, and transferred voluntarily to the class he knew would be participtaing in both versions. The only difference is when he transferred: in the book, it was right after his win, and in the film it was just for the battle. Shuya never hacked anything in either the book or the film. As to why the change was made, I can only assume that, given the shortening of novels involved in film making, it's easier to make Kawada a complete stranger than a loner that the kids recognize.

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Question: I have heard the following story about this film: one of the assistant producers met with Quentin Tarantino. Quentin talked about how much he liked the film, and the producer asked him which bit he liked best. He replied that he liked the lighthouse scene the best, and the assistant producer laughed out loud, and said that the main producer would be amused to hear him say that - because he pinched the scene from Reservoir Dogs. Is this really true?

Answer: Specific aspects of direction may be from Reservoir Dogs, but the scene itself plays out almost exactly the same as in the book.

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Question: I heard this movie was banned in the U.S. Is this true?

Answer: This is untrue. Read the reason at http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/movie/banned.html.

Edit Answered by Mortug

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