SYNOPSIS:
Kaiji Ito (Tatsuya Fujiwara) leads a hand-to-mouth existence working half-heartedly at his part-time job at a convenience store. He has no ambition and no plans for his future and often relieves his frustration by vandalizing expensive cars that he cannot afford.
One day, a mysterious and beautiful woman named Rinko Endo (Yukie Amami) comes to demand that he clears a debt he co-signed for a friend. That friend has since disappeared and with the company's exorbitant interest rate, the loan amount has since grown to 2.02 million yen!
Endo tells Kaiji that there is a way not only to clear the debt overnight but also make a lot of money for himself at the same time if he boards a ship that leaves Harumi Port. Kaiji is skeptical at first but when Endo tells him that it is the chance to change his life, he accepts the invitation without realizing he has taken Endo's bait...
MOVIE REVIEW:
There is an unmistakeable trend of Japanese mangas making their way to the big screen- the “Death Note” series perhaps the most recognizable- and this film, an adaptation of Noboyuki Fukumoto’s popular manga series about the art of gambling, is no exception. Mangas are a rich source material for a two-hour film, the necessary compression of events usually meaning that the storytelling in the film adaptation tends to be faster-paced. Of course, the transition from comic book to the big screen isn’t always successful, especially since certain dramatic elements in manga tend to be exaggerated and therefore fodder for caricature when translated wholesale.
Toya Sato’s “Kaiji The Ultimate Gambler” inherits both the gold and the baggage of its source material, but remains one of the more entertaining manga-to-film adaptations. The titular character is a thirty-something year-old man who has nothing but a huge debt to show for in his life. Given a chance to repay his debts and start afresh, he joins a gambling competition on board a cruise ship organised by a shadowy corporation but realises the stakes are much higher than he thinks. By the end of the night, Kaiji will end up losing not only his chips, but also his freedom as he is forced into slavery and made to work at the corporation’s underground bunker. That is, until he is given another shot at a new life- though the challenges he will have to overcome turn out to be of life-or-death outcomes.
Yes, in Kaiji’s case, it literally means gambling your life away and director Toya Sato slickly exploits this premise to maintain a palpable sense of tension every step of the way. Be it a gamble on the table, or on the rooftop of a skyscraper, Sato makes sure that his audience feels the apprehension and anxiety of his lead character. The most effective of this is the extended climactic E-card gambling sequence towards the end of the film, a psychological battle-of-wits between Kaiji and Teruyuki Kagawa’s villainous character Yukio Tonegawa. The game and its rules may be simple, but what truly fascinates is the strategies that both parties employ to outwit and outsmart the other. It is in this regard that the film turns out smarter than your average gambling movie, and therefore more intriguing and gripping.
Equally intelligent are its attempts at social commentary, which highlights the exploitation of the poor and unfortunate in society by the rich and well-off. It turns out that the underground labour extreme survival challenges that Kaiji has to overcome are no more than reality games the corporation uses to amuse the wealthy clients the corporation serves. Quite ingenious too is its real-life parallel of how consumerism has become a tool for the rich to keep the lower classes within their place in society, where Kaiji is tempted to part with what hard-earned cash he has made during his time working underground for things which only bring about material benefits.
While the setup makes it easy for the audience to root for Kaiji the underdog, an underwhelming performance by Tatsuya Fujiwara means that you may not end up caring as much for Kaiji as you should have. Tatsuya doesn’t have the dramatic chops to portray his character’s desperation, a person driven to the brink of nothingness that is unexpectedly given a chance at a better tomorrow. Reliable though he is, Teruyuki Kagawa tends to overact in this film- probably mimicking how his character is portrayed in the manga- and ends up less convincing than one would expect.
Despite its flaws, “Kaiji The Ultimate Gambler” still benefits from the richness of its source material, making it an intelligent and suspenseful thriller that has translated into one of the biggest box-office successes last year in Japan. There’s already a sequel lined up for next year, and if this is to be the start of another manga-to-film franchise like “Death Note”, then it’s a good a start as any.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
The “Cast Interview” is about the only interesting extra on this Code 3 DVD, where Tatsuya Fujiwara, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yuki Amami and Kenichi Matsuyama take turns to describe their experience shooting the more significant scenes in the film, as well as what it was like working with each other.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 uses the back speakers in particular scenes to build up the suspense, but is otherwise relatively tame. Visuals are clear and sharp with no visible flaws.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
Posted
on 25 July 2010
|
