A few years after the first movie, Nanahara Shuya is now the leader of a resistance group dedicated to bringing down the government. The group, known as Wild Seven consists entirely of "winners" from previous Battle Royales.
In retaliation, the government blames Wild Seven for a terrorist attack which resulted in the death of 8000 people. They use this as an excuse to form the New Century Terrorist Counter-Measure Alternative aka the BR2 Act which sees a randomly chosen high school class being selected to hunt down and kill the members of Wild Seven.
Fujiwara Tatsuya (Nanahara) will be returning, as will Maeda Aki (Noriko). Iwamura Ai who played the little girl with the bloodstained teddy bear and the chilling smile in the first movie now has a bigger role as a member of Wild Seven.
New additions to the cast include Ishigaki Yuuma, who starred alongside Fujiwara in the movie Persona.
On the grown-ups side of things, it's been confirmed that Beat Takeshi will be returning (presumably in a flashback) as will Ryugawa Gou, best known in the first movie for trying to steal Kitano's cookies! New additions include Takeuchi Riki, best known for his work with Takashi Miike and best of all, Japanese movie legend Sonny Chiba has been confirmed to be in the movie! It was reported in Yahoo Japan that Chiba will be playing Mimura's uncle who was mentioned in the first film as being a famous revolutionary. Well-known monster movie star Tsugawa Masahiko will be playing the president of this near-future, oppressive Japan.
As reported earlier in the year, original director Fukasaku Kinji tragically lost his battle with cancer while shooting BRII. His son, Fukasaku Kenta has now overseen production. This will be his first effort as a director and he has some pretty big shoes to fill. However it's worth noting that he was responsible not only for the screenplay to BRII, but also the first movie.
Well to be honest I've deliberately not looked for any information that will hugely spoil the film for me, but here's a few little facts.
- This time the students involved in the BR2 Act will be working in pairs with their collars electronically linked. Meaning if one dies, they both die!
- Kitano's daughter Shiori, only heard on the phone in the first movie will be returning as a transfer student to the selected class.
The Japanese release date has been confirmed as July 5th. As yet there are no confirmed dates for the rest of the world. It's thought that the UK will see the film somewhere in the latter quater of the year.
(Japanese language unless otherwise stated)