Millionaire’s Chess Game Where Every Move Kills Someone

John Lee

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Transcript

00:00At a train station, a group of travelers is waiting for the storm to pass so they can finally go home.

00:05Since everyone is so bored, a mysterious man decides to tell them one of his many stories,

00:09getting inspired by a guy's checkboard t-shirt. During the special chess exhibition,

00:13world champion Akira is playing against an advanced computer known as Super Blue.

00:17Akira can calculate only three moves per second, while the computer can do over 200 million moves.

00:21The disadvantage is quite obvious, and with a big audience watching them, the pressure is

00:25overwhelming. After a long tortuous match, Akira decides to admit his defeat by dropping his king.

00:30The audience gasps in shock while the host explains that this is the first time in history that a human

00:35has lost to a computer. As reporters surround Akira to take the pictures, the host says that Akira's

00:39face looks Super Blue and everyone laughs. The humiliation causes Akira to hit the board with

00:44his king, breaking it in half. Three years later, Akira is sleeping on the street with other homeless

00:48people after spending another night drunk to cope with his depression. Suddenly a fancy car parks in

00:53front of him and two mysterious men in black suits come out. They grab Akira and drag him into the

00:57vehicle while ignoring his protests. Moments later they arrive at a mansion and Akira is left in a

01:01room with some very creepy statues surrounding a table. An old man with a cane appears and hopes that

01:06his men treated Akira well. He refuses to introduce himself and explains he's looking for the legendary

01:11chess world champion. Akira pretends he doesn't know what he is talking about, so the old man explains

01:15all the reasons why he thinks Akira is legendary. People used to believe that a Japanese person could

01:20never be a champion and Akira proved them wrong, he had lots of consecutive victories so he was

01:24named the strongest champion in history. He disgraced the game by losing to a computer,

01:27and just one loss was enough to drive him away from the game to the point as whereabouts are a

01:31mystery. The old man says he just wants to play against Akira as he picks up a handkerchief from

01:35the table to reveal a chess set. The sight is enough to make Akira sick, but he blames it on the hangover.

01:40The old man just keeps talking and shows off a binder with all the articles he collected about Akira.

01:45There are descriptions of how he fell into a deep depression and became homeless.

01:48Obviously there are pictures of him too, so the old man knows he got the right man.

01:52Then the old man explains that lots of people including himself lost money because they bet

01:56on Akira defeating the computer, so he wants compensation. Since Akira doesn't have money

02:00to pay, the old man wants him to play chess with him. Akira says he isn't a millionaire's plaything

02:05but the old man can tell he's scared of the board, so he grabs the white king and announces that

02:09Akira has already lost. Getting flashbacks of his last match, Akira finally snaps and makes the old man

02:14put the king back in place while mentioning what the right opening move is. The old man is

02:18incredibly pleased and moves his piece after moving Akira's. He tells him to sit with him,

02:22but Akira keeps pacing around the room because he thinks he doesn't need to sit to defeat a beginner.

02:26He just mentions his moves and the old man moves the pieces for him. While they play,

02:30the old man listens to an earpiece before making any move. He also mentions that chess is based on

02:34real battlefields, so the pieces represent soldiers being injured or killed. The old man thinks that

02:39chess is also a metaphor for life because people are doing their own form of chess with economic

02:43activity and love. While looking out the window, Akira is irritated by all the talking and yells

02:47at the old man to shut him up, but instead the guy starts asking how it felt to lose.

02:51He thinks Akira's heart still yearns for chess no matter how he tries to stay away from it.

02:55His words turn manipulative, playing with Akira's mind until he starts imagining that the people on

02:59the street are only wearing black and white suits, and they're standing on a giant chessboard.

03:03He compares their positions to those on the table and realizes that they match. When the old man makes his

03:08next move, he takes Akira's pawn. At the same time, a black suit proceeds to stab the white one.

03:13Akira turns around and sees blood on the white pawn while the old man says that pawns are just

03:17nameless soldiers that serve the king so they shouldn't matter. Akira is still freaking out so

03:21the old man tells him to go outside and check things himself. On the street, Akira is shocked

03:25to confirm that the people are real. He removes the knife from the fallen man, who smiles and asks him

03:30for the next move before dying. Suddenly the black and white suits walk away, leaving Akira alone

03:35with the body. A random woman screams when he sees him and Akira swears he isn't guilty as he drops

03:39the knife and runs away. Sometime later Akira is at a mental clinic to talk to Dr. Tomota,

03:44who has been his psychiatrist since the exhibition. Losing made Akira have nightmares about being

03:48crushed by giant chess pieces, which made him irritated during the day. His wife Kumi was always

03:53supportive of him, but he couldn't handle it and ran away anyway. Kumi tried to follow him, yet Akira

03:57insisted that a defeated king couldn't protect the queen. Akira tells Tomota what happened with the human

04:02chess, but Tomota thinks he hallucinated the whole thing because Akira is in a bad mental state and

04:06only knows how to look at life through chess metaphors. At that moment a fax arrives with

04:10the question what's the next move repeated over and over on the page. While Akira yells his next move,

04:14Tomota blames the message on a prank or a wrong number. However when he opens his book, all the

04:19pages have become a chessboard. Soon another fax arrives showing that the old man's queen has taken

04:23Akira's knight. Suddenly Tomota starts puking blood before he drops dead. His coffee cup says queen and a

04:28picture on the wall shows him riding a horse, which means he died because he was a knight. Akira then

04:33notices someone at the door and when it opens, he's shocked to see the black queen from the human

04:37game. She asks for his next move, so a terrified Akira runs away while the fax machine prints a

04:41chessboard. In the corridor, Akira finds a kid holding a drawing of the queen's move. The boy asks for the

04:47next move and Akira tries to choose his king, but the child explains that it would cause him to lose while

04:51revealing a drawing of the king dying. Then Akira starts running away while his mind fills with disturbing

04:55mental images of the pawn's death, the old man's manipulation, and bleeding chess pieces. In the

05:00parking lot, Akira gets in a car and doesn't notice that the keychain is a chess piece. When he starts

05:05the vehicle it only moves diagonally, making him realize that this is the bishop. Akira immediately

05:09gets out of the car and is horrified to see that the parking lot has become a chess game too. He runs

05:14to get into another car with a rook keychain, but the vehicle won't start because it isn't his turn.

05:18At that moment a black car moves and crashes right into his white rook. Thankfully the airbag

05:22saves Akira from getting hurt. When he looks up, he sees the other driver running from the black car.

05:27Afterward Akira goes to his old home and discovers it's up for sale. Since the rook is also known as

05:31the castle, taking Akira's rook meant taking his house. He thinks about the match and realizes the

05:36queen is next, meaning Kumi is in danger. Akira rushes back to the old man's place and announces he

05:41quits the match. He also wants to know where Kumi is. The old man says that if he wants to quit,

05:45he can remove his king from the board. The bad memories of his defeat immediately overwhelm him and

05:50Akira refuses to let that happen again, so he sits down to finish the game. Both men spend several

05:54hours without paying attention to anything except the chessboard between them, thinking carefully

05:58about all their moves before making them. Eventually Akira announces checkmate in two moves,

06:03so he advises his opponent to give up. However the old man has already noticed this and wonders if

06:07Akira is ready to make another sacrifice. Then the old guy's guards drag a blindfold at Akira to a

06:12stadium with a huge chessboard in the middle and the position of the pieces matches their game.

06:16There are hundreds of seats but no audience, yet the old man calls it the perfect venue for the finale.

06:20He also tells the story of an Arabian king who played chess using prisoners to make it a real

06:24battle. When Akira takes off the blindfold, he realizes that the pieces are human again.

06:29The old man points out that chess will always be cruel because no matter if the other pieces are

06:33protected, a king always has to die at the end. Akira can easily win the game by moving his knight,

06:37however this will leave his queen exposed. The guards remove the mask from the queen and Akira is

06:42horrified to discover it's Kumi. The black rook has a knife and can kill Kumi. Akira tries to run

06:47toward her, but a sniper shoots at the board to stop him. The old guy explains that the penalty

06:51for moving on his own is death. Now Akira has to make a choice, win the game and lose his wife,

06:55or lose the game to save her. Kumi shakes her head but can't tell him anything because she's been gagged.

07:00After thinking about it for several minutes, Akira reminds himself that the king must protect the queen.

07:05He then decides to move his king piece, who happens to be himself. The opponent rook

07:09immediately advances and stabs Akira, causing him to collapse and lose the game. Suddenly the old

07:14guy and all the pieces start clapping. Even Kumi is clapping and smiling. All the human pieces from

07:18the street board and Dr. Tomota enter the stadium as they clap too. Akira blinks and realizes he isn't

07:23actually hurt, so the black rook reveals he was using a fake knife. Tomota explains to Akira that they've

07:28tricked him in this crazy game as part of his treatment. They've put him through shock therapy so he

07:32could rediscover his love for chess and convince him to enter competitions again. The old guy is a big fan of

07:37Akira, so he agreed to pay for everything. He reveals he doesn't have much time left so he

07:41wanted to contribute something to humanity before death. It was his money that developed Super Blue,

07:46but he hated seeing a computer beat a human being and wanted a rematch. It turns out Super Blue has

07:50been telling the old guy what pieces to move through the earpiece, so Akira has been actually playing

07:54against it all along. Akira gets sad for a second because it means he lost against the computer again.

07:59However he doesn't regret it because he finally understands that Kumi is more important,

08:03so he asks her for a second chance. Tomota and the old man then reveal that Akira didn't lose.

08:08The computer can't understand the concept of self-sacrifice so Akira's move was incomprehensible

08:12and made the system overload. When Akira turns around, he sees smoke coming out of Super Blue

08:16and realizes he did win. The old man concludes that machines can't calculate for love, so Akira made his

08:22best move. Kumi congratulates him and calls him champion before they reconcile with a hug.

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