Quentin Tarantino Slams Hunger Games as Battle Royale Ripoff

Quentin Tarantino is the newest visitor on “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast,” the place he began unveiling his checklist of the 20 biggest motion pictures of the twenty first century thus far. The Oscar winner revealed his No. 20-11 picks: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (#20), Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” (#19), Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” (#18), Prachya Pinkaew’s “Chocolate” (#17), Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects” (#16), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” (#15), Richard Linklater’s “School of Rock” (#14), Jeff Tremaine’s “Jackass: The Movie” (#13), Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s “Big Bad Wolves” (#12) and Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” (#11).

The latter choose ought to come as no shock to Tarantino followers, because the director has usually included Fukasaku’s 2000 dystopian motion film on lists of his favourite motion pictures through the years. The movie, based mostly on Koushun Takami’s novel of the identical title, facilities on a bunch of scholars in junior highschool as they’re compelled to combat to the loss of life by Japan’s totalitarian authorities.

Tarantino famous the similarities between “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games,” the ebook and film franchise began by writer Suzanne Collins. The movies kind of share the identical plot set-up, which is why Tarantino can’t imagine the “Battle Royale” crew didn’t sue Collins.

“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every fucking thing she owns,” Tarantino stated. “They just ripped off the fucking book! Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called ‘Battle Royale,’ so the stupid book critics never called her out on it. They talked about how it was the most original thing they’d ever fucking read. As soon as the film critics saw the film they said, ‘What the fuck! This is just “Battle Royale” besides PG!’”

Tarantino revealed he was one of many first individuals to see “Battle Royale” as he was a buddy of director Kinji Fukasaku. Tarantino was in Japan doing preliminary scouting for “Kill Bill” on the time when Fukasaku invited him to a personal screening of the movie he’d been engaged on.

“I had no idea what the fuck I was about to see,” Tarantino stated. “And holy fucking shit! I don’t even know what I saw. It was so wild… three months later I was at the Seattle Film Festival. They were going to be showing ‘Battle Royale’ at midnight. Nobody had seen this in America yet. I got to the midnight screening and that was one of the most exciting screenings as I waited for the movie to start. I knew what they were going to see. This is going to deliver more than they even know! They are not prepared for how this is going to deliver. To have that knowledge was power.”

Elsewhere within the podcast, Tarantino praised No. 20 choose “West Side Story” for being the film that “revitalized” Spielberg as a filmmaker. Tarantino added: “This is the one where Steven shows he still has it. I don’t think Scorsese has made a film this exciting [this century].”

Tarantino known as No. 13 choose “Jackass: The Movie” the movie “I laughed the most at these last 20 years. I don’t remember laughing beginning to the end like this since Richard Pryor… As I was making ‘Kill Bill’ I thought this movie was so fucking funny I had to show it to the crew, so we found a print, and we watched the movie and just died.”

Listen to Tarantino’s interview on “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast” here. The director will reveal his official prime 10 motion pictures of the twenty first century on the subsequent podcast.