Finally on the big screen, Kenji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2000) has become something of legend in the U. S. simply because you couldn’t technically see it. It became a smash in its native Japan as well as other countries perhaps due to its super-graphic violence and the nature of the subject matter, which has kids pitted against each other to the bloody death. It didn’t find an American distributor and was for so long a bootlegged DVD (that may or may not have had correct subtitles). Now, after an official release on DVD and Blu-ray—so well timed near the arrival of its American cousin, The Hunger Games—it screens in New York for a brief run.

Battle Royale is the real deal, a truly grim, ultra-violent action movie where the nihilism is completely present from start to finish. If there was one message to the picture, it’s that there’s no hope in a contest of life and death. Where are Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature”? There are none. Not on this island. You better have your gun or knife or paper cup ready because the stakes are raised to the point of no return.

At its best, and it’s often quite amazing, it’s something akin to the movies of Sam Peckinpah. Not to sound too precious about it, but this is the kind of work that makes Japan look like it’s got a pair when it comes to graphic films, not simply for the violence but for its implications—we got to keep the population numbers down, what with the bad economy and all. The spry Kinji Fukasaku surprisingly hit 70 while making the film, though it has the feel of someone just starting out. (He died in 2003.)

Fukasaku slightly skates the line of satire and balls-to-the-wall action flick. When the kids are instructed via video about Battle Royale, it’s like a bit on South Park. But things start to get extra intense with the constant threat of Kiriyama (Masanobu Ando), who has decided to come back for another round after previously being declared a winner. He’s a force of pure animal instinct and savagery, and there’s almost something weirdly comic to his manic violence. There’s also a strange entertainment to all of this, not so much in the expected reality-TV Survivor element (Fukasaku’s too talented for that) but in the deconstruction of all humility in the face of certain death.

Make no mistake, it’s violent, blood red stuff, with just enough outrageousness to make it worthwhile for genre fans, and with only hints of camp. But the mayhem, however unseemly it may be to some, isn’t senseless. It’s all in step with the atmosphere, where dread, inevitability, and a sinking sense of derangement is a marker for most of the scenes.

The only drawback is that the story starts to peter out with a twist after the “end” of the game, followed by more conclusions than the story needs. That being said, this is the stuff of cult-movie legend. It’s the kind of work that gets talked about big time by those who’ve seen it to those who haven’t. It’s built a reputation very quickly as one of the early 21st century’s craziest, most fearless science-fiction thrillers, and it’s deserved.