Quentin Tarantino brings up 'Battle Royale' as 'original' 'Hunger Games'

Quentin Tarantino is revealing his top 20 movies from the 21st century, with a passionate rant about how The Hunger Games series is just a rip off of the Japanese Battle Royale.

The Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood director ranked Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale twelfth on his list, which gave way to a separate tangent.

In a recent episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, the 62-year-old began, "Battle Royale is based on a novel. I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every f***ing thing she owns.”

“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,"he added. 

"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 f**k!” Quentin exclaimed.

The Japanese fictional novel by Koushun Takami was first published in 1999, and revolves around high school students forced to fight to death after being forced into a program by a fascist, totalitarian Japanese government.

Notably, the plot of The Hunger Games is strikingly similar, with some minute differences being that the residents of the post-apocalpytic town of Panem are divided into 12 districts with varying intensity of wealth, among a few others.

What is considered Quentin Tarantino's best film?

Quentin’s best movie is considered the 1994 classic Pulp Fiction.