I have mixed feelings about Battle Royale. I like it, I rated it slightly lower than you, but in a weird way it disappoints me that it is so popular outside Japan when it doesn't actually represent Japanese cinema very well. It almost caters to what the "general public" think a Japanese movie would be like when their cinema is amazingly diverse and there have been many better movies come out of that country in the last 15 years. Takeshi Kitano himself has directed at least three of them - Dolls, Sonatine & Hana-bi. The topic of student violence is quite common but has been done better by Nakashima in Confessions and Iwai in All About Lily Chou-Chou amongst others.
Anyway, I'm probably over-thinking it - it's a good film
Anyway, I'm probably over-thinking it - it's a good film