Wednesday 6 June 2012

Liar Game: Final Stage (2010)



Your Doing It Wrong....

 It's called Liar Game



I discovered Liar Games after being impressed by Erika Toda's performance in Death Note as Misa, Liar Games seems to follow a similar theme's to Death Note and these are few but it could explain the reasoning behind Erika Toda's interest in the role. Liar Game is a movie that originated from a Manga like Death Note or Kaiji, along side many other Japanese movies which have been inspired by other media based products like Literature or even Painting. Liar Game seamed interesting because it has the charm of a reality show, where the contestants show realist emotions toward the main objective which is the money and I would describe the as being like Battle Royale because as much as the film is about competition. It is not about Killing, it is film about mistrust but it is not a film about survival and the being with Battle Royale is that allot of film that have any form of competition are always described to be like Battle Royale. Liar Game is more like Kaiji than it is Battle Royale but instead of card games the constants play with apples for money. There are Gold , Silver and Red apples that the contents have to choose to win the game. the winning apple is the one the most people choose but there are various rules that apply to the game. These extra rules make it harder for the contestants to trust each other and they become engrossed with idea of making lots of money so their makes it harder for them to cooperate.


Liar Games follow many simple theme's, like the title itself is the title itself is the Liar Game but unfortunately not everyone one in the film understood the concept of the title and I could understand why the student of Battle Royale where confused to the rule of their game went they woke up but in Liar Game they know what the game is about or they should. After half an hour of Erika Toda's character repeatedly making the same mistakes and being fooled all over again ; I could feel myself palming my face. It was like everyone understood the game expect from her and all the other contestant throughout the film kept calling her stupid but still there was something pure about her character.

The character that appeared on the screen to present the contestants with their tasks reminded me of the doll from the Saw movies, except from this is not a movie about Death Games but still I feel that the director was inspired a little by the Saw movies just for that character alone.




The films main focus point was on Erika Toda's character, maybe because she was the only honest person their and childishly naive. But another reason this could have been because the audience is seeing the film from the prospective of Erika Toda's character (Nao Kanzaki), the other characters are behaving suspicious and the audience are constantly questioning Erika Toda's behaviour for we see how the other characters behave but still she maintains her naive perspective. in fact the only time she lies in the whole film is when she is basically told to and the only reason she does is to protect the other contestants. Despite the fact most of the people in the group have screwed her over;

The Game is base on the concept of the Garden of Eden and that concept itself depicts greed or just the concept of mistrust.




I know that Erika Toda's Character in Death Note ( Misa) was naive but her character in Liar Game was so past naive that it was too easy of the characters to use her and in fact she kind of encouraged them to take advantage of her. Hence why her character felt almost child like, it was a little disappointing even though the film was enjoyable to watch and her positive energy was refreshing. Still I was disappointed about how weak her character was and would have been interesting to see her stand her own ground because even though she did get everyone to work together in the end. it felt as if she could not manage with out the main male protagonist Akiyama Shinichi;

 
But saying that the concept of the film was awesome, the apple was an interesting choose of voting tool and concept of the Garden of Eden was something i have not seen before. The set that was use; was probably the only thing that we saw throughout the film but it was perfectly designed to the degree that you could believe it to be a real life television show. Liar Game is probably one of those films which have watch over again to make sure you have not missed anything out or just understand it better because there is so much going on in each scene.

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