He is a movie lover and a movie maker at the same time. Maybe it is the other way around, but he is protective of his favorite movies. A film's number one fan will take notice of a major franchise cribbing from a cult hit. The Japanese movie Battle Royale is what the Hunger Games movie was based on, according to an interview with Dana Carvey. The Hunger Games took it off. It would have been great to direct Battle Royale.
Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 film has been praised before, by a director known for violent scenes himself. He called it his favorite film of the last 17 years, saying, "If there is any movie that has been made since I've been making movies, it's that one." The decade-plus since has seen no film surpass Battle Royale.
This is not the first time that The Hunger Games has been compared to Battle Royale. It is an old debate, but with the upcoming prequel, we might as well go another few rounds.
I wonder if The Hunger Games ripped off Battle Royale. Suzanne Collins said that she had never heard of the author of the original novel until her book was published.
The stories are similar, i.e., children are forced into a death match and cannot escape. It doesn't look great for Collins, but at the same time, if one were to set out to write a disturbing story, it wouldn't take long to independently hit upon the idea of "Kids killing each other."
There is no doubt that the tale of child death match was better than the other one. It would be interesting to see what he would do with the film.
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