TV game shows featuring members of the public are a rare breed in Japan, producers having long since decided that such activities are best left to minor celebrities. Yet in a curious coincidence, two of this month’s major movie releases both revolve around televised battles of wits between people whose only claim to fame is being brainy.
Kohei Yoshino’s “Your Own Quiz” has the stronger premise of the two, with its tale of a quiz-show finalist trying to figure out how his opponent answered a tie-breaker correctly without even hearing the question. However, the solution to that puzzle turns out to be a bit of a letdown — as does the film.
I had more fun with Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s “Mystery Arena,” a trashier and altogether spikier movie that entertains partly by virtue of its incongruous mix of elements. It’s set in a vaguely dystopian near-future, 10 years from now, where robots and virtual reality headsets have fully infiltrated the workplace, yet a cheesy game show can still command astronomical viewing figures.
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