Eiga: Kakegurui

A rather unique Japanese movie based on the theme of gambling at a school academy of for elite students. The movie immediately follows up on the television series of the same name (currently available on Netflix). Surprisingly focusing less on the sexual proclivities of students of this age group, the movie elicits a strong emotional and compelling storyline about the intrigue and deception that occurs at this exclusive school. Yumeko Jabami arrives as a transfer student and eventually plays a key role accepting invitations to gamble challenges. This mystery, drama thriller often entertains with its brash but at the same time subtle, nuanced performances and dialogue steeped in the obscure Japanese culture and tradition. Even though some of the actual gambling outcomes seem more manipulative and artificially created for dramatic effect rather than realistic strategic gambling technique, there is always the surprising twists that occur throughout the movie. Dazzling in set design and both the outrageous and deliberately underperformed acting, this movie captures a different vib worth experiencing. For English viewers, there appear to be at least two versions of English subtitles, one pretty bad and another sufficiently decent that greatly impacts the level of enjoyment that can be derived. Available at present on YouTube.

Right, well I wasn't particular much a fan of the animated series of "Kakegurui", so I wasn't really overly thrilled about this 2019 movie either. But still, I opted to watch it, on the off chance that the movie might actually surpass the animated series.

But it didn't. Nay, the 2019 movie "Eiga: Kakegurui" (aka "Kakegurui: The Movie") from writers Tsutomu Hanabusa and Minato Takano was even worse than the animated series. So this was really a swing and a miss of a movie in terms of entertaining me.

The storyline told in "Eiga: Kakegurui" was just downright rubbish and it utterly failed to capture my interest. Not only was the concept of the storyline a swing and a miss, but the characters were insanely unlikeable and the music was just difficult to listen to. There were so many annoying things going on here. And the movie introduced about a million different characters, none of which I could remember, and none of which I cared one bit about.

I am sure that fans of the Manga will enjoy the 2019 movie "Eiga: Kakegurui". However, as a casual viewer, then this was just not worth the time, money or effort. And trust me, I have zero intentions of sitting down to watch the 2021 sequel movie.

My rating of "Eiga: Kakegurui" lands on a generous three out of ten stars, and that is solely based on the production value and effort they put into the movie.

Working my way back from Bet, to live action, to anime...but this one of live action, well the acting is so bad its really being hard to get thru it...the actress Yumeko is pretty enough as long as they don't don't close ups of her jacked up teeth, some of the scene's it looks like crude is on her teeth or some really bad cavities on other's with black spots. Actresses/actor's should have decent hygene at least. BET (2025) at least has much better acting in it and plays the parts well...so its a huge jump from this japanese version who seemed to just pull their acting people off the streets...

I actually really enjoyed this. The acting style is overdone in an intentional way to look like a real life anime cartoon and I think it takes a lot of skill for actors to pull that style off convincingly, but yet they do. Slow and excessive in a few places, but otherwise a great show and one I greatly enjoyed.

I just wanted to say that all the actors look so good and they are all great actors~