With the holiday weekend upon us, it is time to think about movies to see. You could see the new MIB or just see The Avengers or The Hunger Games again. But there is at least one movie coming out this weekend which we can whole-heartedly endorse. Though technically the Japanese movie Battle Royale came out in 2000, it finally has gotten a theatrical release here in the States. Think of BR as everything the The Hunger Games should have been.

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku from a script by his son Kenta Fukasaku based on a 1999 book by Koushun Takami, BR boasts a pretty basic plot: for plot reasons, a group of 40 school children are taken to an island, outfitted with exploding necklaces and told to kill each other. Now. And that they do! Over the course of the swift, less-than-two-hour-long movie the kids kill each other and kill each other and kill each other in gloriously grotesque fashion. And if they don't kill each other, well, necklaces go BOOM. You know how some people complained that The Hunger Games was bloodless? That is not BR's problem.

But don't just take our word for it, here's Times critic A. O. Scott's takeaway from the movie:

American fans of “The Hunger Games” may not embrace — or even be permitted to see — “Battle Royale,” which is too bad. It is in many ways a better movie and in any case a fascinating companion, drawn from a parallel cultural universe. It is a lot uglier and also, perversely, a lot more fun.

The movie is currently playing at the IFC Theater on Sixth Avenue.