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13: Game Of Death (2008) DVD Review
13: Game Of Death (2008) DVD Credits:
13: Game Of Death (2008) Directed by:
Chukiat Sakveerakul
13: Game Of Death (2008) Written by:
Chukiat Sakveerakul
13: Game Of Death (2008) Cast:
Krissada Terrence, Achita Wuthinounsurasit, Sarunyu Wongkrachang, Nattapong Arunnate
13: Game Of Death (2008) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
13: Game Of Death (2008) DVD Release Date:
10th March 2008
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13: Game Of Death (2008) Synopsis:

A down-on-his-luck salesman has lost his job, his car and his girlfriend. When a mysterious cell phone caller offers him $100 million to play a "game show" featuring 13 secret challenges, he is in. The catch? The tests grow increasingly intense and morally questionable, but if he quits he loses everything.

13: Game Of Death (2008) DVD Review:

The Thai horror film, 13: Game of Death (or 13 Beloved as it’s known internationally—go figure) is an interesting entry in the horror genre in that the horror contained therein is all grounded in reality. There aren’t any chainsaw wielding masked murderers or brain-starved zombies, only a very average man who has been pushed to extremes. The concept of an all-knowing totalitarian game show may stretch the limits of believability, but the general concept is entirely within the realm of possibility. It asks the question that a lot of reality TV shows hinge on: how far would you go to win a lot of money?

13: Game of Death takes the “ladder-climbing” approach of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in which you win more money with each new round but lose it all if you fail at any challenge, and mixes that scenario with the setup of Fear Factor regarding the lengths someone would go to win that money. So what makes this film any different than your every day reality television show?

To start with, the main character, Pusit, is actually a sympathetic and realistic character, unlike the annoying and selfish individuals that populate most reality TV shows. Pusit works as a salesman for a musical instrument company, and his life has taken a turn for the worse as of late. His girlfriend has left him due to financial instability and his boss fires him at the start of the film due to his poor sales success rate. As if things weren’t bad enough, he has overdue bills and is severely in debt. Pusit is established as an everyday person just trying to get by in life. As such, when he receives an anonymous phone call offering him a lot of money to play on a game show, we can fully understand his motivations for complying.

The game show that Pusit agrees to play is more of an evolution of today’s reality TV shows than an exact representation. It’s a hypothetical setup that makes the viewer wonder how far reality entertainment might go one day. The first couple challenges that the protagonist must face are rather inane, and even quite funny in some situations. First Pusit has to kill a fly and eat it, which is a virtually identical challenge to the type that you might see on Fear Factor. In his second challenge he has to make three children at a playground cry. Again, this seems harmless enough, but already our moral compasses are beginning to falter. After all, we know that Pusit’s actions are wrong, yet somehow we understand his reason for committing them and don’t overtly judge him. Even once the challenges become unequivocally horrible (i.e. killing a dog with a samurai sword), we still justify Pusit’s actions as being the result of a point of no return rather than purely wrongdoings. It’s an amazing feat that the actor was able to craft a sympathetic character through to the end, but somehow he managed.

Unfortunately, although the premise of the game show is relatively easy to digest as a viewer, the power of the people in charge of the show is not. They have omnipotence worthy of Big Brother that simply isn’t believable, nor is it ever properly explained. In films such as David Fincher’s thriller The Game (to which this film could be compared), the power of the people pulling the strings stretches the bounds of realism, but at least their power is explained in the script. In 13: Game of Death we keep waiting for an explanation but we never really get one.

The end of the film is another problem point that doesn’t really help matters. It tries to bring together a number of disparate plot elements that have had very little development and all it leads to is massive confusion on the viewer’s part. It seems the filmmakers wanted a twist ending in their movie, so they decided to throw in TWO twists, neither of which had any grounding in the rest of the film prior to the end. I would have much rather seen the filmmakers wrap up all the loose ends rather than needlessly adding new ones.

The only extra on the DVD besides for the theatrical trailer and teaser is an 18 minute behind the scenes featurette. Unfortunately it’s not very substantive. The first half is pretty fluffy, as the cast and crew tell you the story of the film that you’ve already watched. Then the second half of the featurette consists of the director hanging out after the film’s initial screening and getting audience reactions. It may have been cute for a couple minutes but it wasn’t able to sustain my attention for 8 minutes.

13: Game of Death proves to be a relatively character-driven and thought provoking horror movie. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny and the ending is a letdown, but it’s an exciting experience up until then. Even if it tries to accomplish too much, it’s still well worth checking out for the realism of the central character and the eerie possibility of the premise.

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13: Game Of Death (2008) DVD review written by: Anthony Berk

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