Summary
Based on a popular manga and TV series, this self-contained spin-off is a chaotic and energetic introduction to the world of high-stakes gambling in high schools.
If the popular culture of Japan is any indication, attending a high school is a potential minefield of possibilities. If you aren’t fighting off alien hordes, getting overly enthusiastic about a club or falling in love, then there’s straight-up bullying to deal with.
In KAKEGURUI (映画 賭ケグルイ), based on the manga by Homura Kawamoto and Tōru Naomura, going to school is a literal gamble. The prestigious Hyakkaou Private Academy ranks its students by their gambling winnings, and high stakes games even determine their entire life outcomes. School Council President, Kirari Momobami (Elaiza Ikeda) is the Queen Bee of the school, and the only way to restore one’s good graces is by beating her at her own games.
When the deceptively sweet transfer student Yumeko Jabami (Minami Hamabe) arrives, she becomes the first step in a major shake-up of the establishment. Meanwhile, group calling themselves The Village, dressed all in white and led by the charismatic Murasame (Hio Miyazawa), believes that gambling is meaningless and seek to end its practice at Hyakkaou.
Spinning off from the TV series of the same name, my concerns of treading knee-deep into an established set of rules and characters were quickly abated. Despite sharing a cast and a creative team with the 2018-2019 TBS-MBS show, director Tsutomu Hanabusa and co-screenwriter Minato Takano craft a pretty self-contained narrative that only asks you to remember the dozens of characters that they throw at us in the first 15 minutes or so.
It also helps that there are few moments when the film isn’t actually explaining what we are seeing. Like the darker cousin of Chihayafuru, 90% of the dialogue is exposition for what it happening in a particular card game. Even a high-pressure game of rock/paper/scissors comes complete with a running narrative of the tactics and reactions to the surprisingly tense twists that it often takes.
From the extreme camera angles to Michiru’s seemingly Pirates of the Caribbean inspired score, everything in KAKEGURUI is completely and unapologetically over-the-top. Japanese live-action adaptations often attempt this kind of fidelity, recreating reactions and textual styles that should really only work on page or in animation. Haruka Fukuhara as the beleaguered Arukibiju, for example, does an amazing job of delivering this kind of madcap performance.
To the film’s credit, this faithfulness results in a visually exciting piece, albeit a chaotically edited one. Building to an impressively staged battle royale across the school grounds, and an intense game of cards that even James Bond would have trouble keeping up with, this is the kind of fun that is just the right amount of bonkers.
2019 | Japan | DIR: Tsutomu Hanabusa | WRITERS: Minato Takano, Tsutomu Hanabusa | CAST: Minami Hamabe, Mahiro Takasugi, Elaiza Ikeda | DISTRIBUTOR: Japanese Film Festival 2019 (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes | RELEASE DATE: October – December 2019 (JFF)
