25th New York Asian Film Festival

July 10-26, 2026

Photo: ©2000 Battle Royale Production Committee

Special Screening

Battle Royale

バトル・ロワイアル

You think you've seen this. You've only seen the copies. Forty-two kids dumped on an island, each one stripped of a name and handed a number. Last one breathing wins. In a near or alternative future (you pick), the Japanese government has made it law. Once a year, they select one lucky ninth-grade class, hand them weapons, lock exploding collars on their necks, and give them three days to murder each other. Kinji Fukasaku, who at fifteen survived a wartime shelling by hiding under his classmates' corpses, made the 2000 film that invented the all-you-can-kill death game. Squid Game and its numbered players, The Hunger Games, all of them live downstream. Takeshi Kitano is the ex-teacher running the game, and he's the killing kind, deadpan mug hardly twitching even when he buries a knife in a girl's forehead for interrupting. In glorious 4K.

Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Screenwriter: Kenta Fukasaku
Cast: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda
Languages: Japanese
2000; 113 min.; DCP
Country: Japan

SCHEDULE:

Friday July 24, 9:00pm
SVA Theatre