Monday, January 21, 2008

Overview: The Liar Game


After the first 2 episode, I was keen to watch more because I wanted to know how each problem was being solved.






The story goes that Kanzaki Nao is an honest college student who receives a hundred million yen out of the blue one day at her doorstep, along with a card saying she has been chosen to take part in the "Liar Game". The aim of the game is to trick the other players out of their hundred million dollars. At the end, the winner gets the to keep the extra winning, return the original hundred million, and the loser is a hundred million yen in debt / or what everamount they loses. The next day, she receives notification that her opponent is her former teacher, Fujisawa Kazuo. She goes to him, seeking help, but ends up getting tricked into handing her money over. Desperate, she approaches the police for help, but they are unable to do anything. However, she is told of a mastermind swindler, Akiyama Shinichi, who is to be released from jail the next day. Desperate, she goes to him for help and the plot thickens from here where he gets her off the hook each time she landed herself into trouble. So why was this game played and who is the mastermind and what is the story behind Shinichi who is so smart?


I love the IQ questions and how Shinichi goes away solving the mystery. The only MAJOR drawback of this drama is that the role of the actress is SUPREMELY ANNOYING because she is soooo frustratingly stupid. She never learn her lessons, always falls senselessly into the trick of the same game, so naive and makes you wonder at the end of the day if she is really just kind of plain stupid. So to watch this series, you must have patience to get through all the bits with her, and u will find the show rewarding with all the "tests" and "quiz". The "MUSHROOM HEAD" guy was initially funny but also got abit irritating for me at some parts.



The lead actor is not bad although facial expression here isnt really much of a requirement. It is the plot that gripped u, not the actual acting. The ending was a little bit of a let down for me, because I personally thought it was too far fetched philosophical and preachy, but that is only like 15mins of it.

All in all, if i ignore the mushroom head and the lead actress nao, I would have rated this drama a good 7/10. However, if i were to rate it overall, I would give it a 6.5/10 because there were so much recap as well that it became draggy towards the end.