13: Game of Death (2006)
Review by Jude Felton
How far would you go for money? That is the main question asked in 13: Game of Death, a taut and nasty little movie from Thailand. It is a question that has been asked in other movies before, possibly most famously in the horrific Indecent Proposal. The less said about the movie the better though. Here though the subject matter behind the question is considerably darker, although not quite as dark as I would have liked, which probably says more about me than the movie as there are parts of this movie that are bloody grim.
The protagonist in 13: Game of Death is Chit, a salesman who isn’t doing a lot of selling, he’s having a bad time with his job, his car is repossessed and his girlfriend has dumped him. All in all he’s not having the best of times. Things seem to perk up though when he receives a strange phone call asking him if he would like to win 100 million Baht. At first he thinks this is a joke, but when the mysterious voice asks him to kill a fly that is bothering him for 10,000 Baht he realizes it is not a joke after seeing the money go into his bank account on his cell phone.
The caller, who claims to be from a game show, explains that there are 13 challenges on his way to the 100 million, with each one getting progressively more challenging. He is also explained the rules, which basically mount up to the fact that if he can’t complete a challenge, tells anyone about the game or asks any more questions regarding the origin of the game then he will fail, resulting in him forfeiting all his winnings.
Now, before I go any further I will just say that 100 million Baht roughly translates to just under 3 million dollars, so although it is still a fairly decent prize you would have to pay me slightly more in order to go through with some of the challenges that await Chit. Granted, he doesn’t know what the challenges are to be, so I guess when times are desperate you would do anything.
As you would imagine the challenges in the movie do get a lot tougher than just killing a fly, there was one that had me turning away from the screen, however there didn’t seem to be a consistency in their difficulty. For example challenge 4 was flat out nasty whereas some of the later ones didn’t seem to bad.
I did have to question how the caller/game show knew how to contact Chit and how they knew of his exact whereabouts. It does become apparent that he is being filmed, although it did seem very convenient in places as some of the challenges left a lot of scope for multiple locations. There are other holes in the plot, that whilst mildly irritating didn’t really detract too much from my enjoyment of the film. The main strength of 13: Game of Death being the central performance of Chit, who is played by Krissada Terrence. Initially he comes across as a little whiny but as the film moves along his character fleshes out more and he ends up giving a really solid performance, as does the rest of the cast.
There are plenty of similarities, or influences if you will, from other movies such as 13 Tzameti, Red Room and even the videogame Manhunt, yet this movie still has enough of its own ideas to keep its own identity intact.
It is a thoroughly well made movie, possibly in part due to the fact it was produced by Prachya Pinlaew (Ong-Bak), who seems to produce everything that comes out of Thailand. It is well filmed, and the special effects are quite decent too, even the CGI shots appear better than in many movies; in particular one scene with a man’s brain exposed is nicely done. Well, that is if you can call a scene with a man’s brain hanging out nice!
13: Game of Death is a well crafted, and quite evil, movie that I would definitely recommend you check out. It is also another example of some of the good things that seem to be coming out of Thailand right now, where horror really does seem to be on the increase in terms of its output.
One other thing, don’t be misled by the shocking inappropriate quote on the rear of the DVD case, 13: Game of Death is not a supernatural thriller, there is nothing supernatural about the story whatsoever and I have to question whether that individual actually watched the movie.
Overall, this isn’t as depraved as Red Room, it is far more entertaining though. You may need a strong stomach in places but it is well worth it in the end.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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