Animal World

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I have always wanted to talk about this movie. And since I am going to branch out, I have decided, “hey! Why not!” So I am going to make a super long post on why you guys should watch this movie

I found this movie while trolling though Netflix Foreign films. It is a Chinese movie I just clicked on it because, I was bored and had nothing else better to watch. 

And it is by far one of the strangest and most addicting movie I have ever seen.

So the basic plot is as follows: Young Adult Kaisi works an unfulfilling job trying to support his comatose mother in the hospital while having this on/off relationship with one of the nurses there. His friend gets into trouble with a debt he owed to a evil shadow organization, which is transferred over to Kaisi. To eliminate the debt, he has to play in a high stakes gambling game where you can win millions, get all debts cleared, but losers will die (or worse)

Sounds interesting/basic…but then it gets weird

First, here is the other cover for the movie

Kaisi’s job? He works as a part time clown at an arcade. But the clown is MORE than that. See, he correlates all of his anger (raw unadulterated rage) to be “one with the clown”. He seriously sees himself become a clown whenever he fucking rages and beats the shit out of someone.

And the movie definitely leans in on that.

The first 5-10 minutes of the film you see Shinobi McDonald running on rooftops and trains. You know, being as angsty and dramatic as a clown can get. But the clown has so much anger and frustration, just running around isn’t going to help.

That’s why the movie has this:

LOOK AT IT! It’s basically Sid if he reproduced in space. And he has friends.

There is a ton of these monsters on the train which our Mr. Anger-Pants here has no problem laying waste. I mean he flat out murders then, kills them off one by one in a strange, yet highly engaging battle sequence.

Too bad we never see them again.

No joke guys. We LITERALLY never see this clown/monster battle ever again. Kaisi makes references to the clown in the movie (cause again, that is the representation for his anger issues), but we never see the clown or anything like this ever again.

Instead we jump into Kaisi trying to deal with “containing the clown” while trying to survive and just pay his mother’s medical bills. His childhood friend is a nurse and his not-yet girlfriend. And it isn’t not-yet because any female-friend is the obvious love interest eventually. She does in fact love the guy, and wants to be with him. But he doesn’t want to marry because working as an arcade clown and 3+ other minimal wage jobs doesn’t really make a decent living here. So he wants to wait to be more financially stable before they marry. Something I don’t usually see, and totally appreciate.

But let’s get to the meat of this movie. The Gambling Game.

So after his friend couldn’t pay back evil shadow organization, Kaisi gets taken to the big boss here.

Micheal Douglas.

This is a movie made in China. I did not expect any white person to be in it, let alone Micheal Douglas.

And honestly? He is a great villain. He is in command, in control, not afraid to get his hands dirty (as shown above), and has the resources to support any/every fucked up sadistic desire he has.

He gives Kaisi 2 options. Pay back his friend’s stupidly large 6 billion dollar debt (I may be exaggerating, but the debt was in the billions), or join on his stupidly evil cruise ship of horror to play a life/death game where winners go free and losers die.

But see,this guy, for being a sadistic classical evil guy, is actually a smart villain. And it leads to some clever plot devices. Game on Boat? It makes sure that the “contestants” are completely isolated. No outside help. But my favorite are the ear pieces. Micheal Douglas does not speak Chinese, so how to get away with this? Everyone on the boat has an earpiece that acts as a translator. How cool is that? There are people all over the world on this boat, you can see an Arabic man and an Italian man speak their own languages and still hold a conversation. Netflix provides subtitles for all languages, so there is no need to miss out on anything. It just makes it seem more realistic instead of “everyone speaks the same language”

So on the boat, there is at east 100 other people there. Time to learn the rules of the gambling they are risking their lives on.

You ready for this?

Rock Paper Scissors

I am not joking. The entire movie is them risking their lives playing Rock Paper Scissors. I thought that it was going to be “Phase one” or a next round. But no, in this 2 hour movie, OVER HALF is dedicated to Rock Paper Scissors.

And honestly, it fucking worked. It is weird to say, but I was hooked on people playing rock paper scissors.

The specific rules are as followed.

They start with 3 Star Chips, and 12 cards (4 cards per R/P/S)

You need to get rid of all of your cards, while keeping at least 3 stars.

If you still have cards, or not enough stars, you lose.

There is also a handy counter to keep track of all used cards, and a timer to let people suffer about how much time is left.

So with these rules in place, Kaisi fight to survive in a savage rock paper scissors competition

This is a gambling anime. I swear to god this movie works like a gambling anime.

What makes gambling anime interesting? The strategies. You have so many people playing this game.

Some there to help, others not so much.

To win you need to have a plan in action for any situation. And Holy Shit does this movie deliver. I swear there is at least 10 different strategies used by our protagonist team ALONE! Counting cards, stacking cards, using signals, using statistics. It is amazing how they can adapt and change battle strategies when the next problem comes up.

This isn’t including the different ways the competitors play. Some use luck/random, but a lot play dirty. They also trick, cheat, whatever to get those Star Chips. 

But as long as it doesn’t break the rules, anything goes.

You need three to survive. But you can trade the stars for money, so many people go for the kill. And this screws over Kaisi big time, forcing him to start at the bottom of the heap and crawl his way back up.

Seriously, check this movie out! There are a bunch of other stuff I haven’t even mentions yet. The fact that Douglas’s henchmen look like default matrix men. The out of place car chase that goes ABSOLUTELY no where, but is shot beautifully and fucking entertaining to watch. The fact that it isn’t just death to worry about, since there the losers MAYBE be used in human experimentation. MAYBE. And this is just the TIP people! JUST THE TIP!!!

If you love strategy games, high stakes gambling, and weird ass action scenes, trust me. You want to check this movie out. It will not disappoint.