Japan Synopsis
カイジ 人生逆転ゲーム
Kaiji Ito moves to Japan after graduating from high school. Unable to find a job and frustrated with society at large, Kaiji spends his days gambling, vandalizing cars, and drinking booze. Two years later and his life is no better. A debt collector named Endo arrives to collect money owed. The debt collector offers two choices to Kaiji: spend 10 years paying off his loan or board a gambling boat for one night to repay his debt & possibly make a boat load of money. Could the debt collector Endo actually be setting up Kaiji? One way or another, for Kaiji it's going to be the night of his life.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From TOHO
Thriller + Drama in Japan
142 Japan titles in our catalog blend the Thriller and Drama genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler itself).
The 2008–2010 Japan Window
Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler holds position #186 of 386 Japan films in the 2008–2010 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s Japan Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2000s in Japan, 1020 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler premiered alongside 123 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 123 other Japan films in 2009.
The 2246th Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Audience Engagement
64 audience reviews — more than 68% of Japan films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 72th percentile among Japan films.
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- games · 5
- drastic change of life · 5
- cheat each other · 5
- deceive · 5
- chance to make big bucks · 5
- mind game · 4
- mind games · 3
- game of chance · 3
- death game · 17
- japan · 454
- based on manga · 297
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #2,528 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (45th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Among Japan Thriller productions specifically: #94 of 324 (top 29%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Production Companies | TOHO, Horipro, Nippon Television Network Corporation |
| Runtime | 2h 10m |
| Release Date | October 10, 2009 |
| IMDb | tt1309449 |
| Official Site | www.ntv.co.jp |