Battle Royale ripped-off the Roman gladiatorial games
BR was hardly original
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Really?
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MovieChat Forums > The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) Discussion > Battle Royale ripped-off the Roman gladi...
Just a heads-up but,while it's true the term "battle royale" is derived from ancient Rome, the Japanese film/novel was inspired by the battle royales of the modern Japanese masked wrestling arena. Something Collins failed to research when she copied directly from the original.
Why else would Hunger Games follow the rules of Japanese wrestling even though Collins claims her inspiration was from Antiquity?
When the hell was there anything about Japanese wrestling in the books? Jesus Christ, you're dumb as dirt.
shareWhen the hell was there anything about Japanese wrestling in the books?"Clirby" is one of the sockpuppets of the main troll on these boards so I don't like replying to these sorts of threads. However I think his misleading information about Japanese wrestling needs to be nipped in the bud, so:
The book (and by extension, film) "Battle Royale" borrowed the "many fighters, one winner" concept and title from modern Japanese wrestling. The BR trolls have tried to use this as evidence that the battle royale concept is originally Japanese, and that this was then copied for THG (conveniently ignoring the obvious question as to why a Japanese wrestling concept would have an English/French name...)
However, what this misses is that Japanese Pro wrestling is - like much of modern Japanese culture - a mish-mash of Western and Eastern concepts. The "Battle Royal" (correct spelling) was borrowed from 19th/20th Century American wrestling/boxing, which in turn borrowed it from 18th Century British boxing.
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2013/3/9/4028970/battle-royal-WWE-Boxing-wrestling-with-past-origins-history-combat-sports-part-one
http://www.cagesideseats.com/2013/3/10/4070146/wrestling-with-past-battle-royal-WWE-Boxing-part-two/in/3323215
Significantly (and interestingly, considering that Collins' portrayal of D11 was deliberately based on the Southern slave States), American battle royals were mainly popular in the South and had heavily racial overtones, with black fighters performing for white audiences. These fights continued right up until the 1960's, and yes: they frequently involved children. The singer James Brown actually competed in these when he was a child, and one of these fights is portrayed in the biopic Get On Up: the children would be blindfolded, have their left hand tied behind their back, a boxing glove put on their right hand, and then forced to fight until only one child was left standing. The children would also each have a number painted on their chest to enable the audience to bet on the result. Brown was apparently pretty good at these fights...
So there you have it: the idea of a group of children fighting until there's only one left standing in an event called a "Battle Royal(e)" is actually an American creation - not Japanese at all...
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"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen." share
American battle royals were mainly popular in the South and had heavily racial overtones, with black fighters performing for white audiences. These fights continued right up until the 1960's, and yes: they frequently involved children.
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Ralph Ellison describes one of these in his novel INVISIBLE MAN. I'm a southerner and I never heard of these disgusting things until I read the book.
When the hell was there anything about Japanese wrestling in the books? Jesus Christ, you're dumb as dirt.
I believe it was in 2002 that Takami crafted a forward for his 2000 novel which explained the wrestling fandom influence which Collins copied verbatim. share
ust caught Part 1 of this back-to-back on the Family channel with Battle Royale 2. Did Suzanne Collins ever offer any explanation as to why she lied about ripping off Battle Royale, and failing to even release any "official" statement regarding her plagiarisms of it sequel, "Battle Royale 2: Chingkonka" as well?
shareYou saw an R rated(actually it's unrated, but would be R) film on the Family Channel? And why would they pair the first MJ
with the second BR? Stop making things up.