To live or to lose Anime is anime, and only under the power of the Japanese to create whole worlds where, reign not only chaos and despair, but also faith in the best. And therefore it is so difficult to film anime and cartoons, actors often can not convey such strong emotions as the painted characters, also suffers the very implementation and presentation of the film. Such films as Death Note, Tramp Kenshin, Sailormoon in the most famous anime, unfortunately, were not as successful as their counterparts. In addition, the anime characters always please with their diverse characters and liveliness of mind and actions, which in this film proves the main character Kaiji, he looks weak and spinless, but in reality he acted bravely, overcoming himself and circumstances.
Kaiji is a film based on anime, a film about human weaknesses and vices, as well as the hope for good.
Ito Kaiji is unemployed, a slacker, stealing the emblems of expensive cars and piercing tires. But the monotonous routine changes when a man in an expensive suit knocks at his door. The guest appears as an Endo, a debt collector. The reason for his visit is simple - Kaiji owes money, acting as a certified face of his colleague, Furuhata Takeshi, who was originally owed 300,000 yen on one of the works, but the time passed and the debt rose to an astronomical value of 3850 thousand yen, as the payer himself disappeared, the entire burden of the debt falls on Kaiji.
But Endo offers him a way out of this situation: board a mysterious ship, on which debtors like him will gamble with money borrowed from the founders. Is this the only chance for desperate people to escape from the clutches of poverty or is this a one-way ticket?
The film on the famous anime, by genre is a ruthless thriller although I will not hide it quite funny in implementation. He shows a fine line between freedom and dependence on circumstances, betrayal and friendship, meanness and loyalty to their ideals.
In the roles of Tatsuya Fujiwara, he played Yagami Light in the Death Note, Nanahara Xu in the Battle Royale, Makoto Shishio in Samurai X and now he got the role of Kaiji. His character is a little hysterical and naive, believes in the integrity of people and a bright future, but in fact he faces the dark side of people who only deceive him, but he does not despair. You can scold him for his hysteria and unnecessary tears, but at the same time he is the actor on his shoulders, who holds on to the whole film, he wins on absolutely all fronts, being the most memorable character of the film.
Matsuyama Kenichi, a dungeon worker, looked much better, less tantrums, unnecessary words, his actions were justified and understandable.
Teryuki Kagawa, who played Tenagawa, deserves praise. He is intelligent, calculating and straightforward, despite his sycophancy to the head of the company, the strongest character after Kaiji.
In addition to acting, I liked the thoughts of the characters who sounded funny the whole film, sometimes better than any words.
There are moments that I don't understand, even when I've watched it many times, this final battle between the hero Kaiji and Tenagawa, it's unclear to me how Tenagawa won the first battle, of course, the clock was mentioned, but it didn't make it any easier, it's a strange story. More flaws and shortcomings in the film I do not see, so I can consider this film one of the best adaptations with a frantic heat of passions and tension that beat over the edge.
Director Toya Sato managed to fully transfer the spirit of the anime and make it a full-fledged film, which is much higher and more interesting than Death Note. Such a film is interesting to watch as fans of famous actors, fans of Philosophy Asian films, and just lovers of famously twisted plots, who will find a lot of interesting things.
8 out of 10