3 out of 5

Directed by: Takashi Miike

This is a big bundle of WTF until you just accept that you’re probably getting a play-by-play of the manga.

Based on movies such as ‘Gods,’ it would be easy to brush off modern-day Miike as different from the man who used to helm 6-7 pics a year.  But before claims of “sell out” are shouted to the stars, it’s worth assessing the discrepancy in that previous statement: that producing more films somehow equaled more originality, or more quality?  So perhaps the rallying cry is that Takashi exhibited more freedom in those compositions, and thus more control over the themes he expressed, but I think the rebuttal to that is that he’s earned his place as a money maker in Japanese cinema, which could theoretically allow him the same autonomy.  This goes back and forth.  At the end of the day, and having viewed my fair share of Miike’s works from throughout his career, I’d say: the director’s always had some flubs in his lineup.

I wouldn’t exactly called them phoned in, since his pace has always been exhaustive (even 2 films a year, his 2015 standard, would be quick to most), but just that some films are more littered with Miike moments than others (and I don’t mean gonzo gore moments when I say that), and some do feel more like assembly line projects.

‘As the Gods Will,’ while competently made and paced, is pretty faceless.  Apparently the cast are up-and-comers, and the setup – high-schoolers trapped in surreal “death games” which are being televised to the nation – reeks of Hunger Games and the like stylings.  Some of the oddity of the rules of the games seem, admittedly, cultural, but on the whole, based on the way things are shot and reacted to, it’s apparent that we’re supposed to find things humorous or strange in turn, and we do.  To process this, it helps that our characters are clearly divided into sympathetic heroes (Shun Takahata, played by Sota Fukushi) and villains (Takeru Amaya, played by Ryunosuke Kamiki), and that the flick is laced with sequel baiting material via random interludes with other characters.  The winks of subversive jabs that are sneaked are squeezed back out by cheesy summary moments for the crowds, resulting in something that is very much the manga-adaptation equivalent of a popcorn flick.

Which, again, ain’t a new thing for Miike, really, just a rarity.  What has remained consistent is that even his throwaways seemed to be helmed with precision, and blockbuster dollars means he can afford to make this a pretty slick throwaway, supposing you have a tolerance for the kind of quirky CGI witnessed in Zebraman and the like.