Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie
For those who don’t know, Yu-Gi-Oh is the television series, complete with trading card game (called Duel Monsters in the television series), that has taken the under 17 world by storm.
Young Yugi is the Duel Monsters champion in a highly competitive Duel Monsters circle. In the card game, monsters (on the cards drawn) battle to death, the loss of all life points. Sound familiar? To those who have played this kind of card game, you’ll know what I mean. To everyone else, you may need a bit more of an explanation: it’s just a game on cards, cards drawn have a specific creature on them with life points, attacking abilities etc. There is an element of skill as the two card players have to decide how to use the cards they draw, and an element of chance, as the cards are drawn from a shuffled deck. Children across Australia are playing this game in school yards as you read this.
As the film opens we find that, unbeknownst to Yugi and the other duelists, Duel Monsters is an ancient game that holds the key to releasing the Egyptian god of death, Anubis. When some ancient artefacts and a set of unpredictable circumstances conspire to wake the embalmed Anubis, Yugi finds himself battling the spirit of Anubis in an increasingly real game of Duel Monsters, the outcome of which has the potential to destroy the entire world.
While the game itself is confusing to someone like me who has no idea about how the monsters interact and what the implication of a drawn card is before it is played, my 11 year old son thoroughly enjoyed this film. Towards the end, I even found myself drawn into the excitement of player skill and chance as the final battle between Yugi and the spirit of Anubis played itself out. If you’re into Yu-Gi-Oh!, the movie will not disappoint (despite a little cheating regarding rules of play, apparently). If you are a parent being conned into taking your Yu-Gi-Oh! fanatic child to this film, the excitement is infectious and so ultimately this is not as unsatisfying an experience as many of the other children’s films in this vein have been (should I mention Pokemon here?). Everyone else, this film may not be for you.
Esther Speight
