Kakegurui is a Japanese movie/series produced in Japan in 2019 and Directed by Tsutomu Hanabusa. It is still running as a series on Netflix.
The story is set at a High-Class Elite School in Japan called Hyakkaou Private Academy. The students that attend the school are all from high profile families with many future leaders in the student body.
The difference between Hyakkaou private academy and other schools is that the Academy focuses on gambling. Students are ranking depending on how much money they give to the Student Council. In the council, students gamble against each other, and if they win, they earn prestige and popularity among their peers. However, if they lose, they become slaves (housepets) to the council’s other members.
They receive nicknames like “Kitty” and “Doggy” and wear tag collars around their necks. These Housepets who have not cleared their debts by the time they graduate pay their debts with their lives.
The Plot
Yumeko Jabami is a second-year student who is beautiful and intelligent. However, she is a compulsive gambler that gambles for the thrill of gambling, not for the money and social standing that the other students strive for.
She does not believe in playing by the rules and does not use logic either, which results in upsetting the other student body members. Added to this, was the fact that she had an uncanny ability to sniff out gambling scams.
The Ending
Most of the series revolves around how the student body frantically tries to shut her down. The scenes show Yumeko Jabami beating her opponents, including the President of the Student Body Council. There are, however, lots of twists and turns and we don’t know the conclusion yet as the series is still running on Netflix, with season 3 due to be released in early 2021.
Kaleidoscope is a 1966 movie directed by Jack Smight. The cast is Warren Beaty, Susannah York, Clive Revill, Eric Porter and Murray Melvin. ( Not to be mistaken with the 2016 movie of the same name )
It is about a pretty girl luring a luckless gambler into a dangerous poker game in a nutshell.
The Main Story
Barney Lincoln ( Warren Beaty ) is a wealthy American playboy who meets an attractive dress designer in London called Angel McGinnis ( Susannah York ). However, he only has one memorable date with her before he leaves for Geneva.
Once he gets to Geneva, he breaks into the Kaleidoscope card factory, which was the factory that made all of the playing cards for the casinos in Europe.
His reason for breaking in was to etch secret marks on the printing plates so that he could make money at the casinos using these cards.
He then goes to Monte Carlo, where he is reunited with Angel, and makes a fortune gambling using the marks on the cards. He also went to other European casinos and continued to win more money until he returns to London with Angel.
The Ending
He soon finds out that whilst he was in Monte Carlo with Angel, she became suspicious of his winnings and tells her Father Manny, a Scotland Yard Detective.
Manny then tells Barney that if he doesn’t want to be arrested, he must help him capture Harry Dominion, a drug smuggler who liked playing poker.
Accompanied by Angel, Barney sits in on a game with Dominion and wins every single hand. He even one a hand played with an unmarked deck. Dominion was not happy about losing, so he uses Angel as bait to lure Barney to his country estate where he beats him up and takes back his money.
Barney and Angel try to escape but are chased by Dominion’s henchmen. The movie ends when Manny and his detectives from Scotland Yard arrive to rescue Barney and Angel.
The movie “21” is a 2008 factual story about six M.I.T. students who got together and trained as a team to become card-counting experts. They subsequently won millions at various casinos in Las Vegas.
The film was directed by Robert Luketic and starred Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, Laurence Fishburne, Liza Lapira, Kieu Chinh, Kate Bosworth, Jacob Pitts and Aaron Yoo.
The Main Story
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a young, intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston. He wanted to be a doctor but could not afford the $300,000 he needed for his tuition.
One evening his Maths Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) introduced him to a team of 5 students trained by Micky Rosa in card counting.
As Ben Campbell desperately needed to make money, he joined the team, learnt the ropes and soon joined them on weekend trips to Vegas. The team used hand signals, code talk and other techniques to give them an edge over the house.
Before long, they were starting to make thousands of Dollars from the Vegas Casinos. Ben initially only wanted to gamble long enough to make his tuition money, but soon he became greedy and started enjoying the High Roller life too much.
The Ending
Ben gets so engrossed in playing Blackjack that he neglects his tuition and doesn’t do his fair share in an Engineering competition resulting in estrangement from his friends. During his next trip to Vegas, he gets distracted and doesn’t see his signal to walk away from the table. This resulted in him losing his $200 000 earnings and Mickey being so cross that he quits the team.
Ben and 3 of the team continue to play Blackjack, which angers Mickey, so he tips off the Casino Security Boss resulting in Ben getting beaten up and warned not to return.
