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The near future. Forty-two Japanese school kids are dumped on a remote island guarded by soldiers. Naturally bewildered, their teacher (Takeshi Kitano) explains that they're this year's victims of the Battle Royale Act, a bill designed to halt violence in schools. The up-shot being that they're each given a weapon and three days to kill their classmates...
Needless to say, Kinji Fukasaku's violent, delirious picture has caused a seismic shudder, its juxtaposition of gushing claret and 15-year-old players proving too much for American distributors in a post-Columbine world. But taken as a brave, unflinching satire - of both reality TV and Japanese society - it's an incredible concept, a film that'll nail-gun you to your seat gasping in shock.
In execution (ho-ho), however, it's a different matter, an excess of characters and plot holes causing this loaded weapon of a movie to occasionally jam. But then who's going to worry about fodder extras when you've got teenagers going head-to-head with stun-guns and axes?
"Souls-like meets Fable" is all this indie RPG needed to say to meet its Kickstarter goal, but it added in a Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood nod just for good measure
Gorgeous JRPG homage Clair Obscur sells out its collector's edition months before launch, dev says it didn't think "the demand for our physical editions would be so high"
Turn-based RPG Clair Obscur dev says all-star voice actor lineup includes people like Andy Serkis and Baldur’s Gate 3 alumni by accident: "He was like, 'Isn't that Clive from Final Fantasy?'"
