sillybuddha Although based on a manga from years ago the plot line of desperate debt-ridden men being exploited is very timely in today's economy. You certainly feel the film is trying to cram a lot into its plot - the underground society, the rich tyrant, the games, all feel like they were explored in greater depth in the manga. You certainly want to know more about the organisation running the games. The whole thing is absurd and not very believable but keeps you fascinated. The pacing is often all wrong, as the scene on the 'brave man road' and the end game is played for melodrama and takes too long as we watch characters emote for ages. Kaiji is the kind of hero you often get in Japanese films - a loser who gets a chance to find some backbone and determination while keeping to a moral code while others around him give in to temptation and fear. The twist ending is an amusing touch although you deal feel a little cheated after everything Kaiji has gone through, (though no doubt so does Kaiji himself). If this was a Western film Kaiji would have figured out some way to destroy the organisation, but perhaps like all of us little people, when it comes to the power of the rich and financial institutions, the best we can hope for is to get out free of debt, like Kaiji did...

george_a_romero The colourful cast of Death Note (2006) reunite for this inspired manga/anime adaptation. It is a riveting sizzler of a movie made with nerve-jangling Japanese brutality. Kaiji is a down and out thirty-year-old blue-collar loser who has no luck in life. He is bored of his dead-end job at the hypermarket, irritated that pompous and prosperous people drive around in Mercedes and depressed that he never has enough dough to rise above his comatose lifestyle. One day, a debt collector arrives at his flat to offer him the chance to change his empty existence: go on a cruise with other down and outs, gamble, and repay his debts in the ultimate game of deception. If you win, you start your life afresh, if you lose, well, you will never want to fool around with rock-paper-scissors again because Brave Men Road is the only way to escape 15-years of forced underground slave labour.Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler (2009) examines the languor of Japanese consumer culture: work, devour, and squander your verve in an everlasting cycle of mass suppression that upholds the lower-class/upper-class divide. This regimented Metropolis style nightmare comes to fruition in the symbolic utopian underground kingdom that blue-collar slave workers must construct for aristocratic city-dwellers. The languid masses march in union, take showers together and buy beer and munchies with their meagre pay to nullify and distract themselves from their authoritarianism. The moral at the heart of Kaiji is simple: if you want to achieve your dreams in this hum/drum existence, you have to wake up, fight, and live recklessly. Would you be willing to walk across an electrified beam between two skyscrapers to pay off your debts while superficial business executives watch you on television screens? If you want to rise above your own worthless comatose lifestyle, why not take up the challenge, you could win lots of money because that is what Brave Men Road is all about, or is it… Verdict: This riveting Battle Royale intoned masterpiece is made with nail-biting suspense, brain-teasing intelligence and mind-blowing wit:-

changmoh This manga-to-screen adaptation by Toya Sato may have 'cult status' written all over it but only for its penchant to irritate and annoy viewers with all that sucks in terms of movie-making. Its sequences are all melodramatic - with the director trying to milk every scene for all the (fake) melodrama and bathos that it is worth.If there were a subtext or satire about how the dregs of Japanese society are caught in a self-imposed rut, it is overdone to the point of being ridiculous. However, if it is to reflect on the ridiculousness of Japanese TV game shows, it hits the nail on the head.The protagonist is Kaiji Ito (Tatsuya Fujiwara), a typical born-loser whose gambling habit lands him with a huge debt. His sins catch up with him when Rinko Endo (Yuki Amani) shows up with a list of his debts - and offers him a chance to repay them - by taking part in a winner-takes-all game on a darkened cruise ship. Those who lose the simple paper-scissors-stone game will end up working like slaves to build a ludicrous underground 'kingdom' planned by Endo's boss. Since every gambler is essentially a loser, Kaiji ends up in the slave detail. Still, since this is a gambling film, Kaiji gets a few more chances at getting out of his 'rut'.The main problem with this movie is that director Sato seems to be interpreting the manga comic for a bunch of morons instead of modern cinema audiences. Every aspect of the plot is over-explained and over-emphasised, stretching the film to an excruciating two-hour nightmare for viewers.Sato, a former TV director, allows Fujiwara to overact and over-talk like he is performing for a campfire. He prolongs every scene, especially the one involving the characters crossing a narrow beam suspended 200 metres above ground. There is nothing remotely realistic about the way the characters behave, especially at a time when their lives depended on it. There is no attempt made to provide backgrounds to Kaiji's character or any of the other cast members from the cult series Death Note. And if there are any funny moments, they are all unintended.Those who like to take a gamble on this movie may end up feeling like a loser, or worse, a sucker. - by LIM CHANG MOH (limchangmoh.blogspot.com)

clumsy1 I know this about Japan, they take everything to the extreme, are a shame culture and are a very conservative people. For them the end goal in life is to get a job for a corporation and work for them forever.This movie does a pretty good job portraying this, as it is about an uneducated vandal who is working minimum wage at a convenience store. He messes with the wrong rich person, a yakuza, who ultimately brings up his past debt which is way more than he can afford. They give him the opportunity to go on a gambling boat to enter a high stakes competition with other "losers" to erase their debt if they win or face the perils of debt slavery.This movie touches on class struggle in a different way than most films. Even though they made the rich people to be bad guys they did touch on why some poor people seem to just be born to lose. What can i say it's the conservative nature of Japan haha it doesn't ever exonerate poor people. It is also a movie about game theory when it comes to the gamblimg games, which any gambler can enjoy.While the expressions and dialogue is kinda ridiculous, like when he's drinking beer/eating yakitori people got to remember this is an adaption from a manga/anime. To me that is the only negative as this is a pretty serious Manga, the Live Action version has unintentional funny moments with the ridiculous expressions.