Battle Royale II

I used to hate watching foreign subtitled movies. Generally the translations appear to be handled by a 5 year old just learning English, which really puts me off, but recently I've been put onto some good films by resident jap-buff Chase.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Battle Royale films, let me summarise for you (very briefly). A bunch of high school kids are dumped on a deserted island and told that they have 3 days to kill each other. Last man or woman standing wins. They are each numbered and tagged with an electronic collar, that is set to explode if they either a) attempt to remove it, b) are inside a 'danger area' at a specific time (announced previously) or c) Refuse to comply. They are then given a bag, contaning the basic essentials for survival; food, water, a map and compass, and a random weapon of choice. The weapons range from anything to a pair of binoculars and a steel dustbin lid, to a fully automatic weapon or grenades.

Battle Royale 2, however, changes the rules somewhat. Instead of it being a free for all, they have to work in numbered pairs. If your partner dies, your collar will detonate. Danger areas also apply, but your main goal is to kill Nahanara (the survivor of the previous game) who has now setup shop on the Island and is attempting to kill all adults. Simple, eh? Well, it should be.

Instead what we're now left with is an absolute piss poor sequel attempt that really seems to remind me of Starship Troopers meets Saving Private Ryan; complete with a rubbish 'beach storming' sequence and tacky uniforms. One of the main characters is this seriously ugly, annoying little guy with blonde hair who looks like Thom E Yorke from Radiohead, but Japanese - which is very strange to look at. Obviously didn't go to acting school, but learnt how to act by posing nude in a mirror at home.

This movie is absolutely terrible, many many inconsistencies and 'errors', such as:
- The rules state that if your paired partner dies, you die. Yet when reeling out the list of casualities they aren't paired at all, why didn't the partner die?
- 0:00pm is NOT a real time - it should be 0:00am.

But isn't this the reason we watch certain foreign films, to laugh and joke at the mistakes they make with either our language or basic concepts such as time and reality?

Here are some amusing lines from the movie:

"Shit, I'm hit!" (I loved this one 'cos it ryhmes)

"Something's coming out."
- "What is it?!"

"I peed my pants. I peed it all." (A woman who couldn't take the pressure of battle. Strangely enough I didn't notice any dark patches on her trousers. I was most unimpressed).

I felt like I'd wasted 2 hours and 8 minutes of my life, that i could've easily spent making origami instead. Avoid this movie, trust me. 2/10.