Reposting a post I made over a year ago on IMDB (with some revisions):

Right after Battle Royale II was released in theaters, there was talk
of doing a "Special Version" of the film just as had been done with
the first BR movie. It was known that there was about twenty minutes
of footage that had been left out of the final cut, so unlike the
first movie, in which much of the new footage actually had to be shot
for the special version, there was plenty of material with which to
make an extended cut, and that was basically what was done for "Battle
Royale II: Revenge."

With the lackluster (though still profitable) box office of the
original theatrical release, Revenge took longer to hit theaters, and
eventually got screened in a theater only once, in Tokyo, in the
summer of 2004. A DVD release was supposed to happen in September
2004, but got delayed in part due to a controversy that arose when a
12-year old girl who slit the throat of her classmate was revealed to
be an obsessive BR fan (The "Sasebo Slasher," aka "Nevada-Tan" incident).

Revenge finally got its DVD release in Japan in February 2005 (Region
2 NTSC, no subtitles).

It doesn't redeem the major flaws of the movie--the enemy soldiers in
the final assault still get taken down like the sitting ducks they are
and take coffee breaks each time a major protagonist is wounded
mortally, and we still don't know why the heck Nanahara felt justified
in killing thousands of innocents in the Tokyo bombings. But I've
always felt that what made BRII worthwhile wasn't the big things--not
the terrorism or the war--but the little things; Not loud, angry
Takuma Aoi and his tantrums, but Masami Shibaki, the guy in the
background whose small onscreen actions best embody the movie's theme
of "comrades" (the more accurate connotation of what the subs
translate as "friends" and "teammates").

Revenge puts in (or rather, puts back) a truckload of those "little
things," some of which we got through the tie-in material (the books
and official website) but was missing from the final cut--prissy Kyoko
Kakei's disdain of her geeky partner Osamu Kasai (she demands to
change partners); Kurosawa's gang (the "Schwartz Katze") and their
thirst for vengeance; Reina Niimi's anime voice; one decent
conversation between Haruya and Saki Sakurai. There's a little bit
more of everything--more Makimura the noble first victim, more Fukuda
the ganguro, more Sonny Chiba as Makio Mimura. There are even some
fleeting flashbacks of the students from the first movie, and the nice
intertitles over black and the big class picture over the end credits,
which tie it a little closer to its vastly superior predecessor.

The film also contains some little "tweaks" akin to the Special
Version of BR that make things just a little bit better--we *see* the
incoming mortar that annihilates one of the students' boats, whereas
in the original cut, we only heard something whizzing in before the
boat exploded. We get a couple of rugby scenes interspersed in the
film the way the basketball scenes were put in the Special Version of
BR. The CGI and the soundtrack have also been given a once-over--more
sparking ricochets and inexplicably bright streaking bullets, more
musical score courtesy of the first movie's soundtrack. And, last but
not least, more of the very cute Haruka Suenaga (Sentai fans will
recognize her as the current Pink Ranger in Boukenger) as Haruka Kuze,
with an extended declaration of love/death scene that almost puts
Chiaki Kuriyama's rendition to shame. It would take a very long time
to list all the differences between the original version and the new
version; in the Japanese release, there's an optional graphic sub
track that flashes an image of Riki in the corner to indicate that
something in a particular scene has been changed or added.

All these new additions do make the film feel a little overstuffed,
and not all of it works (more annoying slo-mo strobes in the early
battle scenes, some extra reaction shots squeezed in that go by too
quickly), but overall, this is a better film than its original cut.

A subbed, R0 PAL DVD has been a long time coming from Tartan Video in
the UK, but the release, which was initially scheduled for September
2005, has been postponed repeatedly; the latest due date is May 22.
The Tartan DVD will be available in two editions--a collector's
edition with a metal tin container and film cel clipped from a print
of the film, and a normal edition without those bonuses; those of you
familiar with Tartan's releases of BR: Special Version have an idea of
what those will be like. Both releases will have two discs, the
second disc being full of subbed extras.

For more BRII discussion: http://p200.ezboard.com/fbattleroyale31415frm8


--- In battleroyalefilm@yahoogroups.com, unlead54@... wrote:
>
> What's the real differences between BRDC2 and the Requiem version?
>
>
> Willie Will
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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