Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
High school student Shun Takahata is bored. Bored with the day-to-day monotony of school and life, he prays for change, for something exciting. Suddenly, he and his classmates are forced to play deadly children's games and facing terrifying creatures from a talking Daruma doll to a sharp-clawed lucky cat.
As the Gods Will is a wildly inventive death-game horror-comedy from Takashi Miike, adapting the manga with gleeful, surreal energy. Its Novelty is genuinely high — the juxtaposition of cute Japanese childhood iconography (Daruma dolls, Maneki-neko) with brutal mass death is singular and unmistakably Miike in execution. The cinematography is competent and occasionally striking but not exceptional. The plot is serviceable as a vehicle for escalating set-pieces rather than a carefully constructed narrative. Acting is functional — the young cast handles the tonal whiplash adequately without standout performances. The ending sets up continuation rather than providing full resolution, which feels slightly unsatisfying as a standalone conclusion.