Kaiji: Jinsei gyakuten gêmu

The problem with this movie is that it has to compact the material of 13 volumes of manga into a 2 hour long movie. The very format forced some of 'Kaiji's strongest points to lose much of its impact, namely the gambling aspect of what is a very brainy and interesting manga. The movie cuts down on the mental gymnastics that make Kaiji able to beat the odds in a believable way. As a result the viewer cannot quite grasp his genius as everything is edited to the point of losing coherence. The manga is plotted in such a way as to cover several arcs, each with its own crazily high stakes and particular flavor. The movie cannot frame a transition of the moments of the narrative without coming undone at the seams.

Some choices in the adaptation were odd such as changing Endou's gender and changing the order of some events and there are other changes that may seem minor on the surface but end up diluting the tense do-or-die atmosphere that had readers of the manga flipping the pages anxiously and sitting at the edge of their seats. Such as the terrifying ear perforation device or the finger guillotine, both if which are completely absent in the movie.

Kaiji's inner dialog is hyped mostly as an emotional appeal without the counterbalancing effect of his quick mind. The manga's eponymous hero is known for bursting into tears rather often but he remains a very clever young man whose gambles have plenty of reasoning behind them, the movie shows us only flashes of this. It is also unfortunate that some of the more intense moments of the 'Kaiji' saga take place in material that is not covered by the movie.

The acting is solid, namely Fujiwara who plays Kaiji flawlessly, a completely different role of Death Note's Light that first introduced me to him. Having a woman playing a loan shark lends itself to romantic vibes but these never materialize.

Fans of the manga may enjoy seeing Kaiji in 3D but this movie does not match the brilliance of the original work.

It's easy to criticise this film for being very over the top and downright outlandish, and that's because it is. It definitely has some overacting and very silly moments or dialogue, does it really hurt this film? No. The entire premise is over the top right off the bat, the film is about a guy playing a casino game (on a boat for some reason, maybe to bypass illegal gambling laws... who knows?) which is basically rock paper scissors to wipe out his debt and if he loses is doomed to pay it off through slave labour. I can't turn around and say "Aw man, they've managed to make this silly!" on top of that it's an adaptation from a manga, a good adaptation as you would expect from a cast reunited from the live action Death Note (that's right they actually had a good one before Netflix).

This is a very entertaining film and with almost all films you know the hero is going to come out on top, this film is very good at baiting you into thinking he's found a way to basically cheat the system. I like the original idea that there is debt collectors who would victimize people to extort more from them including a sort of underground (ironically) mining operation that pays them a pittance then entices them to give it back in exchange for luxury items.

Kaiji is an awesome movie. It shown how to play Jan-Ken-Pon (Rock- Paper-Scissors) in Japan which very popular games. Which under the debt pressure, he join the other play in Espoir ship (means Hope in French). This is where he lost, work underground as slave, pay with underground money called Peria, and challenge to join Brave Road (to survive and return above ground).

When he made an final, he should play card with Tonegawa. Play E-Card (Emperor-Slave-Citizen) to win his freedom and clearing his debt. He lost because of Tonegawa using cheap trick. Using Chip that control and know the users heartbeat, but he lost cause Kaiji too excited winning the last round and make Tonegawa fallen on his own trick.

"Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler" is a Drama movie in which we watch a young gambler participating on a deadly gambling competition in order to gain some money and wipe away his debts that constantly rise.

I enjoyed this movie because it was interesting, it had a simple but nice plot and it also contained plenty of suspense and mystery. The direction which was made by Tôya Satô was very good and he succeeded on maintaining the tension high through the whole duration of the film while he presented very well both his main characters and the plot. In addition to this, the interpretation of Tatsuya Fujiwara who played as Kaiji Ito was very good and he made the difference. All in all, I have to say that "Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler" is a great start of a trilogy and I highly recommend everyone to watch it.

After watching the first and second season of the anime i have watched this wonderful movie, the movie is not epic as the manga, but it was pretty good, it's very difficult to make a 2 hours movie from one season, but the actors were very impressive, i was very excited from the beginning of the movie until the end, if you didn't watch the anime , trust me you're missing a lot!