Quick Review #24: Usogui (movie)

Title: Usogui 嘘食い (Lie Eater)

Currently available for viewing on: Netflix (subject to geographical location)

Rating: 1 /10

Recommended for: 

This will be the first time that I struggle to recommend a drama/movie in the quick reviews even to hardcore fans of the cast.

Liked:

None

Disliked: 

- The movie gave a very strong vibe of "Liar Game" mixed with "Kakegurui" i.e. marrying the essence of both by having people call bluff in gambling games with the players' lives and their Kakerou memberships at stake. Online reviews in general seem to suggest that the movie took the best game scenes from the manga and simply put them together but this is something which I'm unable to verify though. 

From the perspective of someone who has no knowledge of the original manga, the story seemed fragmented and the focus seemed to be on the games rather than the characters, their developments and their interactions with one another. I would be fine if the games were handled in an engaging way but the way the games went and how people won or lost came across as very unconvincing and boring. It was almost as if luck or the ability to manipulate the game before or during it played a larger part in the outcomes rather than skills, observation powers, knowledge and guts. Then there's nothing to gamble in the first place since who can play the game dirtier will have a chance of winning anyway.

- Much as it would be tempting to criticise the cast as well for this lackluster film, the issue with the story would mean that it takes a miracle to turn this into something decent enough to watch. For example, the lead character Baku lacked a draw factor for me to root for him and I didn't care if he won or not. Although Yokohama Ryuusei did his best to play Baku, I think it will be challenging for most people to like Baku just based on this movie even though the character may be very different in the manga. As for the rest of the characters, there wasn't a lot of time devoted to them so it's kind of hard to form an opinion on whether I like them or not. Nonetheless, just for the efforts of the cast and how they had to dress and behave in a way quite detached from reality (at times it just was so painful yet funny to watch them keep up the pretense), I chose not to give this movie a zero in the end.