Kinji Fukasaku directs this Japanese action thriller adapted from the novel by Koushun Takami. With schoolchildren all over the country growing increasingly delinquent, the totalitarian government takes decisive action and introduces the Battle Royale Act. The Act sets forth a plan whereby a class will be chosen at random and flown to a remote island where each student will then be given a weapon and set loose to fight their classmates, all the while knowing that only one of their number will be allowed to leave the island alive.

When Class B of Zentsuji Middle School are chosen to take part in the massacre, the different students quickly take sides against each other, but Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (Aki Maeda) form an alliance in an attempt to survive the experience together.