The Perfect Game

Four college students spend all of their time playing games instead of tending to their classwork. Then they realize they have no money and despite the family connections of ringleader Akira Kobayashi, no prospects. So they come up with a scheme, a variation of the 'The Wire' confidence game, to take some bookies for a huge sum of money. It works, but the bookie won't pay, and they find themselves caught up in a bigger and deadlier game than they had imagined.

Toshio Masuda is a Japanese director who is not particularly familiar to me, although I have seen the sections of TORA! TORA! TORA! he directed after Kurosawa was fired off the project. Here he has directed a very good "busted caper" movie, with some actors who perform very well. Mari Shiraki, as the sister of the welshing bookie, is very good. The disapproval of the post-war prosperity, whern money seemed to be the only standard, is nicely skewered.