Controversial Japanese film Battle Royale gets US release 12 years later

You read right. One of a very few films that many swore would never see an official release in the US is about to hit shelves here in the states.

Battle Royale, Fukasaku's story about a future world where the population has grown to the point where the Japanese government begins to thin the stock out by choosing a class of students, once a year, to enter into it's Battle Royale Survival Program. The students are gassed and when they wake up, they find themselves in a classroom on a remote island where they are each given a backpack that contains a small ration of food and water as well as a randomly selected tool, which may be something as harmless as a flashlight or as deadly as an Uzi. From there, they are sent out into the wilderness of the island where they must remain until only one of them is left alive. 

The graphic and brutal violence being committed by and against children nearly got the film banned in Japan, but ironically the efforts at banning it helped to make it one of the 10 highest grossing films in Japan. It was even nominated for multiple awards at the Japanese-equivalent to the Oscars and won the award for Most Popular Film. Due to the subject matter, and the age of some of the film's stars, many believed that the chances of an official US release would never occur. We were wrong.
 

Battle Royale will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 20th, 2012. To pre-order, visit Amazon.com
 

Author's update:

Although there have been DVD editions of this film sold here in the states (Region 1), those releases are dubious at best as there is no confirmation of the legitimacy of their release. These "releases" are likely unauthorized, making them fancy bootlegs.