Dong wu shi jie

Well that's one way to make rock, papers, scissors fun... This movie was a bit silly with the whole premise of deadly child's game but it was fairly enjoyable. Nothing that excited me to my core but it was just below 2.5 stars. Not too bad but not too good either. Only reason i'm giving it 5 stars and not more is that it could've done much more with the plot and premise, but oh well...

We have seen deadly childgames actually be exciting with an example such as "Squid Games" but this was just... bland. It hurts me to say because I usually am a sucker for asian movies like this, but this just didn't hit that very well with me.

It was quite different than the original Kaiji. I did not know what to expect when I saw the weird clown fights, but in the end they were a nice dark addition to the story, can't say the same about the other elements. The worst thing for me was that I could not see Kai Si's ultimate despair mode, and that is a bit lacking because that was the moment when Kaiji came up with all of his greatest ideas. And of course, I missed the "zawa zawa" onomatopoeia, as a mark of Nobuyuki Fukumoto.

It reminded me a bit Sucker Punch, the protagonist dissociation create a parallel universe. Very worth to watch it.

Im not gonna lie, when I first saw the trailer I was excited to see the movie, then I had the chance and it was not even close to what I expected. But at the end it was a really good movie. No regrets

First of all, "gambling for life" is not anything new. We've seen the idea development in many movies and books already. There were all kinds of such games: walking day and knight, card games, labyrinths, TV shows, computer games... Even the extra-dimensional space sliced into cubic rooms (you know what I am hinting at!) So you can hardly be surprised or entertained by yet another kind of a game where stakes are so high.

And you can hardly say that you couldn't guess what would be the plot in general. Really, you can roughly outline it since the very beginning.

Yet, this movie is really good! And what makes it good is how story writers turned a very simple kind of game into a very deep and complex human interaction. How the gaming process melts into background to highlight all the complex things that happen between characters downstage. How the plot twists are really powered by human passions, not just gaming activities. And this is really cool! This is where really good movie making begins!

I won't say this is the best film of the year, but it is definitely good, and entertaining, and also quite beautiful (even with all the surrealistic ugly monsters that appear on-screen). Unexpectedly "western" kind of movie for China, too. See it! It's fun!