Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (2000 – 2003/Anchor Bay Blu-ray Set)/The Tribe: Series One, Part One + Series One, Part Two (1999/Shout! Factory DVD Sets)

 

Picture: B/C/C+     Sound: B-/C+/C+     Extras: B/D/C     Main Programs: C+/C-/C/C

 

 

The Hunger Games may seem new to some younger readers, but the idea of a society killing off their children or said children to be on their own is nothing new, as we have seen with Kent State, ancient civilizations and the literary classics like Lord Of The Flies, Oliver Twist and maybe even Peter Pan.  However, it is still a sensitive issue, especially in major industrial countries that want to idealize youth and childhood as growth years and offer the ideology that children are the future in a sincere way.  They following releases are among a cycle of these tales that touch upon these issues and are no coincidentally being issued as Games makes so much money.

 

 

For years, you could not even find the Japanese hit Battle Royale in the U.S. market and rumors include the makers being concerned over being sued for copycat activities imitating the film, though Peter Watkins’ superior and influential (even on Battle Royale and Hunger Games) Punishment Park (1971) was almost as censored and still made it in a very limited way until a recent DVD release a few years ago in the U.S. (reviewed elsewhere on this site).  With Hunger Games a hit, Anchor Bay has secured the rights to the 2000 Kinji Fukasaku hit and its 2003 sequel with Fukasaku (who sadly died during filming) co-directing with Kenta Fukasaku, his son taking over the helm.  The result is the Battle Royale: The Complete Collection Blu-ray set.

 

In a near future Japan, the birth of youth has been so massive that they have overtaken the country, so the government is sponsoring a “game” to have them kill each other off.  Here, it takes place in a classroom where most people know each other and many are friends, which is further distorted by the arrival of a former teacher they all know.  Being shades of everything from Kamikazes to unique issues with child culture in that country to the shadow of Japanese Militarism and how it disposed of its youth, it is amazing the film was made at all.

 

At first, it is set up well and has a cynical, cold, sardonic edge like Paul Verhoeven’s films in the U.S, especially where a fascist society (especially Robocop and Starship Troopers) are involved, but repetition, some clichés and an inability to stick with the darkest side of the material (as compared to Pasolini’s Salo (1975), reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) eventually allow this to become too comical and less realistic in both versions, though the Director’s Cut also included here is a bit better.  The 2003 sequel does not even start out as promising and can only imitate the played out aspects of the original, yet it is not the kind of film you would see much being made in the U.S., though Norman Jewison’s original Rollerball (1975) comes to mind despite not dealing with a younger age group.

 

Yet, these are films that are long overdue for U.S. release and their lack of availability has led to a cult status for them, especially the first film.  They are must-see films, especially the original and a remake is actually on the way, but I wonder if it will just make the mistakes of the sequel here.  We’ll see.  See these before that one is finished to get a better comparison idea.

 

Extras include trailers, a making of the first film featurette, press conference on the first film, Instructional Video: Birthday Version, Audition & Rehearsal Footage, Special Effects comparison featurette, Tokyo International Film Festival 2000 clip, documentary on the first film, Basketball Scene rehearsal, Filming On-Set, TV spots (including a version with Quentin Tarantino, who loves the film) and general Behind-The-Scenes featurette.  I also liked the bookcase with thick paperboard the Blu-rays and bonus DVD are stored in.

 

 

Not to be outdone, Shout! Factory has issued an obscure TV series patterned after Lord Of The Flies with The Tribe: Series One, Part One and Series One, Part Two (1999) in separate DVD sets.  From New Zealand, a virus has befallen the world and it kills all adults, but not children, so they are left to their own issues and lack of supervision, with violence and worse as a result.  An interesting variant thanks to the locales and actors, the show is still everything we have scene before and will remind more than a few of the Mad Max trilogy, but it is amusing at times.  Each 4-DVD set has 26 half-hours and is really for younger viewers.

 

It is not as shocking as Battle Royale or the like, but some younger viewers might like it if they can get into its soap opera aspects.  There are paper pullout episode guides in both sets and an original Making Of featurette on the second set.

 

 

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on both Royale films are from good 35mm sources and look better than any footage than I have seen of either film before, but they can show their age at times and have some rough spots.  Still, I cannot imagine them looking much better and those in the U.S. putting up with lesser copies or even PAL DVD imports will see the difference.  The 1.33 X 1 image on both Tribe sets are predictably softer, but the first set is especially soft for whatever reason, so they are shot on professional PAL video and are only going to look so good.

 

The Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mix on the Director’s Cut of the first Battle Royale tries to expand the original sound design and that offers an interesting attempt to make it sound good, but it is only narrowly better than the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix on the Theatrical Cut of the first film and its sequel, despite the latter being three years newer, does not improve sonically on the first.  They show their age and some limits in their audio recording budget.  The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on both Tribe sets are even less dynamic as expected, but are as well recorded as could be expected, including some minor location audio issues.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo