The Japanese horror-action-thriller-satire Battle Royale (Fukasaku Kinji, 2000) was released in British cinemas in September 2001. It was the fifth film released in the later-branded Asia Extreme series, but the film's theatrical release pre-dated the invention of the label. Following the limited but significant success of Ring and Audition, Tartan Films decided to distribute the controversial Battle Royale. Paul Smith, Tartan Video's Press and PR Manager, suggested that the notion of ‘Asia Extreme’ did not come from the company itself, but rather was inspired by critical commentary. He recalls that it was British film critics who first started noticing the connections between these films, and seized on these films as linked by neither theme nor genre, but rather their extremity. Ring had been universally praised by British critics, who saw the film as one of few original horrors released at a time of genre stagnation; Ring was something different, something better. The intense shockhorror of Audition, meanwhile, sparked a debate on the virtues of transgressive and explicit gore; though opinion was divided over the merits of the film, critics agreed that it was a significant release and almost every review carried with it a ‘warning’ to the faint-hearted. Audition's success launched the philosophy within Tartan Films that their releases did not need to be liked; they functioned better as ‘cultural hand grenades’, creating recognition through evoking revulsion and offence as much as pleasure and admiration.

Tartan began to create an identity for their as-yet-unbranded Asian releases by increasingly courting controversy. Battle Royale first appeared in the pages of British newspapers when the film made international news by sparking parliamentary debate in Japan. The film faced censorship over fears that it would be morally harmful to Japan's youth. These stories appeared in the UK in December 2000. Following these morally hysterical newspaper reports, Tartan capitalised on a British perception of Japan as (stereotypically) culturally and morally distant, fuelling controversy by playing up this angle in its pre-release marketing.