Posted in: TV Review

Battle Royal meets The Prisoner

My wife and I were in the mood for an action film and we were surfing around Netflix to se what was available. We had just finished several days of holiday films and we wanted to cleanse the movie palate. Netflix has it’s usual assortment of “watch these shows” that they try to push (most I end up having zero interest in) and a trailer for the Alice in Borderland series came up. It’s a dubbed film with Japanese actors which didn’t immediately turn us off. We had seen other dubbed films before and sometimes you can get an extra level of entertainment by turning on the closed captions. The dubbed actors deliver the lines from an anglicized script, but the captions will contain items from the original script. It can be interesting to hear the English speaking actress say “I took care of you.” and the captions say “I let you f**k me.”

The trailer talked about how three twenty-something guys in Tokyo running from the police suddenly find themselves in a building where they can’t get out due to lasers and the only way to leave is by going through a deadly maze. It tripped the “could be interesting” switch so I started the series. And I immediately regretted it. I know there has to be some build up to a ten-episode series, but it started with a bunch of angst pouting from the main character. Within minutes, I had turned off the episode. Since we were still in the mood for an action flick, I started streaming Raiders of the Lost Ark. That hit the spot.

After Netflix had finished showing us Raiders, it went into the ‘watch next’ mode and wanted to know if I wanted to finish Alice in Borderland. Since the action itch had been scratched, I figured “why not” and let it continue. As it turned out, the angsty beginning had only a few more minutes of the three characters pouting and then trying to cheer themselves up. Then we finally got into the real appetizer of the show. Running from the police our three heroes hid in a bathroom stall and the lights go out. Phones stopped working and they couldn’t hear anything from the once busy subway station. We are treated to the usual “where did everyone in the city go?” and “we can do anything we want” scenes which were well done. Eventually the three characters are drawn to a building that has power and signs advertising that the game was about to begin. Finally the meat and potatoes that was advertised in the trailer. Inside the building they are joined by two females, one who appears to have been in the abandoned city longer than the three guys. She explains that once you enter a game arena, you are trapped by these lasers that shoot from the sky (it reminded me of Number Six being trapped by Rovers in The Prisoner) and that the only way out was by completing the game. If the game wasn’t completed by a certain time, the results were usually something bad (like the building blowing up or something). I won’t give away how they got through the maze, but it felt very much like players in a role-playing game trying to work through the traps that the game master had set for them. When they completed the game, they received a standard playing card from a poker deck. The value of the card represented how hard the game was.

The next episode the cast meets more players in another game. We get an explanation of what the different suits mean (games with the heart suit are particularly nasty) and with the cutthroat tactics needed to survive, players were forced to kill. This is where the series turned from a feel of The Prisoner to Battle Royale. While the Battle Royale theme continued into the next several episodes, clues are revealed about a mysterious place called ‘The Beach’. More cards are gathered and there were several “oh really?” moments.

Eventually our hero finds The Beach and suddenly the series shifts back into The Prisoner mode as the story moves from bloody to psychological again. Outside of the hero, there is a flow of characters that come and go. Some are interesting and we find out their stories through flashbacks. Some were just dull, but that didn’t distract from the series too much.

The final episodes easily switches back and forth between Prisoner and Royale modes while keeping the action going. Outside of the first ten minutes of the first episode, I didn’t feel like I wasn’t being entertained. However I could tell by the progression of the story that it wasn’t going to be wrapped up by the last episode. It left itself wide open for a season two with our survivors trying to find out how to get back to the real world.

Had we not stopped to watch Raiders, we could have streamed all of the episodes in one sitting (we ended up watching the last two episodes the next day). Most episodes are in the 45-50 minute range with full titles and end credits. I wouldn’t recommend watching while there are any younger audience members as there is a ton of violence, tense situations and some sexual moments (no nudity actually).

After finishing the series, I did a google search and discovered that a second season was announced. I will watch the second season. But I have no plans to purchased this series on DVD. I might re-watch the first season to prep myself for the second season. But I don’t know if there is a lot of re-watchability after that.

I really should come up with a rating system for my reviews beyond “would I buy it on dvd.”

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