"Welcome to the ultimate survival arena. 100 enter, only 1 survives. Are you ready?"
The veteran. A survivor of a previous game, Kawada brings the "battle royale" experience. He acts as a mentor figure, and his knowledge of the game’s mechanics provides some of the film’s most tense moments.
Beyond the gore, the film is a "virtuoso" satire on authoritarianism, the generation gap, and the loss of innocence.