Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル Batoru Rowaiaru) is a 2000 Japanese dystopian thriller film adapted from the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. It is the final film directed by Kinji Fukasaku, the screenplay written by his son Kenta, and stars Takeshi Kitano. The film tells the story of Shuya Nanahara, a junior high-school student who is struggling with the suicide of his father and who is forced by the government to compete in a deadly game where the students in his class must fight to the death, with only the sole survivor being allowed to live. The film aroused both domestic and international controversy and was either banned outright or deliberately excluded from distribution in several countries.