**play the music before you continue reading** Hi all! I'm back (after quite a while, oops) and I've decided to do a review on one of my all time favourite dramas, Liar Game. Of course, this review is based on my own personal preference and although I try my best to be objective, let's be real - it's bound to be subjective at some point. So take this review with a pinch of salt.
First off, I should let you guys know that I'm reviewing the Japanese version of the Liar Game and not the Korean one which came out recently. Initially I wanted to do a comparison of both, but I felt it would be unfair as I didn't finish watching the Korean one (until now) and I was already prejudiced against the KR version. So there's that.
LIAR GAME (JP)
From start to finish, it was an exhilarating ride. The main casts, Toda Erika as the gullible and just stupid honest Kanzaki Nao and Matsuda Shota as the genius swindler Akiyama Shinichi did an excellent job at portraying the true meaning of Liar Game: the betrayals, the "100% sure-win strategies" as well as the stunning final reveal (or what we call plot twists). Okay, let me back track just a bit and give the synopsis to let you know what exactly is happening in this drama.
Basically, Liar Game consists of many stages which involves entertaining games to crown the true Liar King, according to the Liar Game Tournament Office. Nao (the female lead) was selected to partake in this thrilling Game: with the first round to steal 100 million yen (around 1.2 million SGD) from her opponent. Needless to say, she was already losing with her extreme disadvantage of being stupidly naive. She then gets the help of the genius Akiyama to help her win the round, and subsequently accompany her (as another player) through the other rounds.
Liar Game manages to combine both wits, humour as well as a not-so-subtle lesson about the love of money. The games in the different stages as well as the various memorable characters make this show a pleasure to watch - the games are refreshing with different ones in every stage (with the exception of one game, which had a repeat in Season 2) and the strategies to win are, in all honestly, absolutely brilliant. I've never felt any smarter after watching the drama.
On top of that, the sound track of Liar Game (both Season 1 and 2) are composed really well with elements of electro-pop in most of them and occasionally a seemingly innocent piano score which really brings out the plot and heightens the suspense. I've linked one track above to just let you listen to how good the score is. Of course, there are some aspects that I wish the drama had or did to make the experience a lot better. There was a filler episode (under the guise of a special 2 hour long episode) which showed all the stages played prior to the last stage and it was just pure torture to watch everything all over again. This may also very well be just my whining as you can very easily skip those parts and fast forward to the present. However, one major downer of Liar Game is that the true maker of Liar Game never really did appear and this show has not since come to a definite close even after the last movie debuted quite a few years back. This leaves the audience somewhat hanging even at the end because we never really would know when Liar Game would be revived in the future. Another aspect that didn't bode very well with me was the way some strategies were explained to the audience. Although most of the times it is easy to understand as they show various (funny) animations, there are times when they are awkwardly explained and you need to rewind the few minutes to really get a wind of what the hell just happened. This dampens the excitement of the reveal and may be frustrating to some viewers who really want to understand the entire plot fully (me). With regards to the cast, I believe that it was an excellent casting as most, if not all, actors did a marvellous job. Toda Erika did well portraying Nao, making us hate her for her stupidity and yet root for her to win the Final Stage. Matsuda Shota on the other hand, took me a while to get used to. His acting in the first few episodes of Liar Game wasn't too good (in fact, slightly sloppy) but it got way better in the later episodes and subsequently Season 2 as well as Final Stage, making him one of my favourite Japanese actors. Another honourable mention would be Fukunaga Yuji played by Kosuke Suzuki. He was one of the best actors out of the entire cast and he brought the show to a whole new level of entertainment with his dramatic antics and cunning and greedy mindset. All in all, this is a spectacular drama to watch for most ages (seriously, since I first watched this in Secondary School and my mother enjoys it) - just make sure you're not too young, as the dealers may give you nightmares and/or you may not understand some of the strategies (to this date, I am still unable to fully understand what happened during the Contraband game). I highly recommend people who are into dramas or shows for their ingenuity and are looking for a mindblowing ride (e.g. viewers who loved The Prestige, Donnie Darko and Inception) to give this drama a chance! Rating: 9/10
**play the music before you continue reading** Hi all! I'm back (after quite a while, oops) and I've decided to do a review on one of my all time favourite dramas, Liar Game. Of course, this review is based on my own personal preference and although I try my best to be objective, let's be real - it's bound to be subjective at some point. So take this review with a pinch of salt.
First off, I should let you guys know that I'm reviewing the Japanese version of the Liar Game and not the Korean one which came out recently. Initially I wanted to do a comparison of both, but I felt it would be unfair as I didn't finish watching the Korean one (until now) and I was already prejudiced against the KR version. So there's that.
LIAR GAME (JP)
From start to finish, it was an exhilarating ride. The main casts, Toda Erika as the gullible and just stupid honest Kanzaki Nao and Matsuda Shota as the genius swindler Akiyama Shinichi did an excellent job at portraying the true meaning of Liar Game: the betrayals, the "100% sure-win strategies" as well as the stunning final reveal (or what we call plot twists). Okay, let me back track just a bit and give the synopsis to let you know what exactly is happening in this drama.
Basically, Liar Game consists of many stages which involves entertaining games to crown the true Liar King, according to the Liar Game Tournament Office. Nao (the female lead) was selected to partake in this thrilling Game: with the first round to steal 100 million yen (around 1.2 million SGD) from her opponent. Needless to say, she was already losing with her extreme disadvantage of being stupidly naive. She then gets the help of the genius Akiyama to help her win the round, and subsequently accompany her (as another player) through the other rounds.
Liar Game manages to combine both wits, humour as well as a not-so-subtle lesson about the love of money. The games in the different stages as well as the various memorable characters make this show a pleasure to watch - the games are refreshing with different ones in every stage (with the exception of one game, which had a repeat in Season 2) and the strategies to win are, in all honestly, absolutely brilliant. I've never felt any smarter after watching the drama.
On top of that, the sound track of Liar Game (both Season 1 and 2) are composed really well with elements of electro-pop in most of them and occasionally a seemingly innocent piano score which really brings out the plot and heightens the suspense. I've linked one track above to just let you listen to how good the score is. Of course, there are some aspects that I wish the drama had or did to make the experience a lot better. There was a filler episode (under the guise of a special 2 hour long episode) which showed all the stages played prior to the last stage and it was just pure torture to watch everything all over again. This may also very well be just my whining as you can very easily skip those parts and fast forward to the present. However, one major downer of Liar Game is that the true maker of Liar Game never really did appear and this show has not since come to a definite close even after the last movie debuted quite a few years back. This leaves the audience somewhat hanging even at the end because we never really would know when Liar Game would be revived in the future. Another aspect that didn't bode very well with me was the way some strategies were explained to the audience. Although most of the times it is easy to understand as they show various (funny) animations, there are times when they are awkwardly explained and you need to rewind the few minutes to really get a wind of what the hell just happened. This dampens the excitement of the reveal and may be frustrating to some viewers who really want to understand the entire plot fully (me). With regards to the cast, I believe that it was an excellent casting as most, if not all, actors did a marvellous job. Toda Erika did well portraying Nao, making us hate her for her stupidity and yet root for her to win the Final Stage. Matsuda Shota on the other hand, took me a while to get used to. His acting in the first few episodes of Liar Game wasn't too good (in fact, slightly sloppy) but it got way better in the later episodes and subsequently Season 2 as well as Final Stage, making him one of my favourite Japanese actors. Another honourable mention would be Fukunaga Yuji played by Kosuke Suzuki. He was one of the best actors out of the entire cast and he brought the show to a whole new level of entertainment with his dramatic antics and cunning and greedy mindset. All in all, this is a spectacular drama to watch for most ages (seriously, since I first watched this in Secondary School and my mother enjoys it) - just make sure you're not too young, as the dealers may give you nightmares and/or you may not understand some of the strategies (to this date, I am still unable to fully understand what happened during the Contraband game). I highly recommend people who are into dramas or shows for their ingenuity and are looking for a mindblowing ride (e.g. viewers who loved The Prestige, Donnie Darko and Inception) to give this drama a chance! Rating: 9/10
Situated in the sunny island of Singapore, Jolene recently (is 2 years considered recent?) graduated from university and is now working in a job she never expected herself to hold. Besides having frequent quarter-life crises, she also indulges in video games, anime, and aesthetic korean girls documenting their life in vlogs.
Although not as eloquent with words, she still aims to try her best to bring across her thoughts to the Internet.
