Animal World
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LI YIFENG
MICHAEL DOUGLAS
Quick Fox: B-
Animal World holds enough action and suspense to treat anyone seeking a unique psychological thriller, but a stronger protagonist and clearer character relationships could have helped the emotional appeal of the film.
Winding Dragon
Imagine going on a Caribbean Cruise vacation, but instead of 100 mph water slides or blacklight paintball or competitive Mario Kart tournaments (I’ve never been on a cruise before so I’m just filling in the gaps with my imagination), you’re only allowed to play Rock-Paper-Scissors with the most expensive tarot cards you’ve ever seen. Also, the only reason you’re on this backwater cruise ship is because you owe millions of dollars to an international criminal syndicate. Also, if you lose the game, you’ll be turned into a horrific Alien science experiment. Also, there’s a 100% chance that if you try to cheat the game (say, flushing your cards down the toilet), Michael Douglas will straight-up, point-blank headshot you.
Welcome to Animal World: the live-action anime we all deserve.
Directed by Han Yan and based off Nobuyuki Fukumoto’s popular manga series Kaiji “Gambling Apocalypse” (the series has been a weekly publication since February 1996), Animal World is a psychological fantasy thriller about a young man named Zheng Kaisi (Li Yifeng) who becomes ensnared in a high-stakes gambling/loan shark operation aboard the world’s worst cruise ship. How does he get there? Well, he…erm…you know what they say: sometimes it’s not about the journey but the destination. It’s almost like the film knows that nobody cares about Zheng’s backstory; we’re just here to see people get brutally murdered for being bad at playing Rock-Paper-Scissors.
During the first act, we’re bombarded with a ton of character information that holds no significant impact on our viewing experience. For starters, it’s quite probable that Zheng is schizophrenic. The film never says that, but Zheng’s opening monologue tells us that he believes there is an evil clown (imagine IT but in anime form) living inside of him that is destined to battle humans who are actually shape-shifting monsters that look like they were summoned from Left 4 Dead. This particular character trait never impacts the plot in a meaningful way, but it does let the production companies go absolutely wild with their money, devoting multiple spectacular cut scenes of Zheng’s imagination where we see him dressed in a clown suit in epic battle sequences with alien creatures. And these moments are ridiculous, a fireworks display of color and first-person perspective cinematography that kind of reminded me of Ant-Man… but yeah, they’re super random.
We also learn that Zheng’s mother is in a coma. From what? Only heaven knows. The film doesn’t care so I don’t care. But it’s (slightly) more important to know Zheng has a girlfriend named Liu Qing (Zhou Dongyu), a nurse at the hospital whose only defining moment in this story is when she calls her mother to say she’s thinking about breaking up with Zheng — primarily because he’s a deadbeat who works part-time as a party clown at a children’s arcade and sometimes begs Liu to loan him [more] money. There’s also this strange moment when a middle-aged patient starts sexually harassing Liu (issue 1: why that’s apparently acceptable in this hospital), which causes an enraged Zheng to BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THE PATIENT. It is the most mind-boggling moment in Animal World (despite the bloated sewer monsters and the fact this film later turns into a giant mathematical nerdgasm), because NOTHING happens from it. The hospital doesn’t ban Zheng from the hospital; it’s never brought up again. In fact, for a few minutes, the film plays it like the audience isn’t supposed to know if it actually happened or if it was part of Zheng’s imagination.
Anyway, Zheng’s life isn’t going too well at the moment. It can’t get worse…right? Well, Zheng’s childhood friend Li Jun (Cao Bingkun) offers to fix all of Zheng’s monetary problems — all he has to do is invest in this company called Good Guy Estate. And no, I am not making that up. Definitely a scam — they’re not even trying to hide the fact they’re a black market operation — but somehow both Li Jun and Zheng fall for it. (Yet, they’re both supposed to be highly intelligent?) Both of their financial situations get a gazillion times worse, and Zheng is kidnapped by these loan sharks and taken to their leader: Michael Douglas. Yes, THE Michael Douglas. Like, my brother had to pause the movie we were laughing so hard; it was just so unexpected to see Michael Douglas in a film we thought was purely a Chinese production. (Sidebar: his character has a name but I’m refusing to refer to him as anything other than Michael Douglas.) But all kidding aside, Douglas is really sinister in this role; it’s easy to tell he had a lot of fun portraying this underworld crime lord, and he definitely gave off some Hunger Games vibes. Douglas offers Zheng a chance to clear his debts: join him on the most dangerous and luxurious cruise of his life.
Here’s where we enter the part where Animal World becomes surprisingly good. Any scenes before or after the cruise ship don’t really matter — just fast forward through the movie until you find the cruise ship and watch it from there. Zheng is taken to the ship where he reunites with Li Jun and meets the stereotypical anime sidekick Meng Xiaopang (Wang Ge), a pudgier skittish man sporting circular frames with a broken lens. There are maybe a 100 (or it could be a thousand — the scope of how many people are actually on this ship is lost to me) players, all in massive amounts of debt to Michael Douglas. Basically, the way this game of death Rock-Paper-Scissors works is that everyone is given 3 stars and 12 cards (4 rock, 4 paper, 4 scissors). To be a “winner” you have to have at least 3 stars left and 0 cards; winners ascend to the mysterious 2nd level of the ship (I was extremely disappointed that we never got to see what goes down on that 2nd level). You get rid of your cards by versing other players in games of Rock-Paper-Scissors (don’t flush them down the toilet; it makes Michael Douglas upset), but if you lose that round, your opponent steals your star. If at any point you have 0 stars, you are declared a “loser” and are sent to the world’s worst hockey penalty box: a glass room where, if nobody buys your freedom, the rumor is that you’ll be turned into a horrific science experiment. You can also trade your stars and/or cards with anyone else, or take out a loan for additional stars/cards.
I know that most of review has been pretty harsh thus far, but I genuinely enjoyed watching Animal World. I’m not joking when I say that if you watch this film, you NEED to get past the first act of the film and reach the cruise ship, because that’s when the film really picks up speed. It transforms a standard tie-breaker game into a high-stakes drama with intense psychological warfare. Zheng has to face off against Zhang Jingkun (Su Ke), a suave magician, who appears hellbent on screwing over Zheng and his allies. Zheng is also placed in this crowd of people reeking desperation and greed, making it impossible to fully trust anyone. And although the mathematics and logic puzzles Zheng expounds went over my head, I still was able to follow the gist of what was going on. Plus, it has enough twists in the gameplay to keep the action interesting.
Animal World is one of the strangest movies in my 2019 collection. It’s a movie that feels like it has an emotional peak that feels undeserved, and I’m still not a 100% certain what the purpose of all those fantasy cut scenes, but at least they were put together very well. Animal World is good for a lazy Sunday when you’re just looking for a fun, outrageous action thriller — though if you’re unfamiliar with anime, then you probably don’t watch to touch this film yet.