The director's cut of the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル) will play at the Row House Cinema from May 20, part of its Y2K film series. A summary from Row House's 2019 Pittsburgh Japanese Film Festival:
In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary “Battle Royale” act.It plays from the 20th through 25th, and tickets are available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map).
Battle Royale became a cultural phenomenon, and has been highly influential in global popular culture. Since the film’s release, the term “battle royale” has been used to refer to a fictional narrative genre and/or mode of entertainment inspired by the film, where a select group of people are instructed to kill each off until there is a triumphant survivor. It has inspired numerous media, including films, manga, anime, comics, visual novels, and video games; the battle royale game genre (including Fortnight), for example, is named after the film.
