Director: Masaya Kato
Year: 2021
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Living abroad in Japan, a transplanted housewife trying to make friends with a local group of women decides to play a special board game with them but once they awake they realize they’re being forced to play a game where they kill each other one by one for disrespecting a local deity.
Review:
This was a decent enough if flawed genre effort. Among the more likable factors found here is the whole setup of the game and how it works with the girls getting to play together. Using the subject of the Ouija-board-based game with the familiar hallmarks and interplay that makes for an easy immersion into the film despite the cultural difference in the game, the basics here are set up rather nicely leading into the ensuring survivor game that emerges. The idea of installing an app on their phones to aid in the quest that offers the chance at extra lives, weapons, and much more that carries along throughout the film from this starting point is quite fun and ties everything together rather nicely.
This kind of setup is what allows the later confrontations with the girls going through the motions of the game and killing each other quite brutally to have a nice sense of fun for them. The brutality and ease with which they head into the gruesome game of hunting each other down have quite an enjoyable atmosphere to it, and a lot of the scenes have some energy to them with the group engaging in a slew of battles using hand-held weapons or gunfights to try to take each other out. Taking place in a confined setting like it does manage to enhance some tension and action here with the films’ main action sequences following its build-up in the first half, creating the films’ general positives overall.
There are a couple of flaws to be had with this one. The biggest factor with this one is the somewhat cliched and underwhelming beginning which is highly unoriginal and rather dull. The beginning is filled with plenty of utterly familiar and banal drama about the housewives basically running around insulting her for her lack of Japanese or just generally not knowing the culture that’s been done to death and isn’t very interesting.to see play out in these kinds of films. Not only is it uninteresting but it just adds a sense of dullness to the first half with this series of repetitious scenes coming through again in these types of scenes which stall the film at the very beginning.
The other issue here is the film’s somewhat obvious lack of funds that makes for some problematic times to be had here. The entirety of the gore throughout the film, with the blood splatter, wounds from the weapons and gunshots, or the full-on deaths which occur during the game are handled with some atrocious CGI splotches that are rather terrible looking. In addition, the film also tends to look rather flimsy with the completely obvious inability of the other women in the group to know what they’re doing as the slow-motion choreography or the lame stunt-work that tries to showcase the women taking each other out but only exposes the lack of funds for the film, which all end up holding this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
Taking a generally enjoyable idea and offering some notably positive and negative aspects, overall this is a solid and watchable effort that has enough to keep it going in that realm for the most part. Give this a look if you’re intrigued by the style or approach found in this kind of film while most others who aren’t a fan of these kinds of films should heed caution.
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