Now available on DVD
Cast:
Krissada Terrence as Puchit
Achita Wuthinounsurasit as Tawng
Sarynyu Wongkrachang as Surachai
Nattapong Arunnate as Mik
Directed by: Chukiat Sakveerakul
Review:
As importers of Asian fare go, the Weinsteins’ Dimension Films dept. doesn’t typically get a lot of love. The studio has long been burdened with a bad rep for its handling of foreign acquisitions, from poor dubbing and inexplicable edits to the hostage-like treatment of some films’ distribution rights. And let’s just not talk about the remakes.
But while it won’t placate all foreign genre film purists, Dimension may have found its lucky number in Thailand’s 13. The film rolls stateside on Dimension’s Extreme DVD label, fully intact (as far as this reviewer knows) and a prime example of off-shore innovation and style given well-deserved domestic exposure.
Sans the “Beloved” from its original title and now sporting the somewhat delusory subhead Game of Death, this comic book adaptation thrusts a hard-luck everyman into an arcane online game show that tests his physical and ethical limits. In doing so, director Chukiat Sakveerakul also challenges our definitions of greed, honor, and integrity, and forces us to re-evaluate our relationship with what we watch.
Mild-mannered Puchit (Krissada Terrence) has seen better days; broke, beleaguered, and recently dumped by both his girlfriend and his employer, he’s one bad phone call away from a breakdown. When an anonymous caller invites him to participate in a special game show, promising him financial rewards if he follows some simple instructions, âChit thinks he’s being conned — until it actually works. Just swatting a fly puts some much-needed bucks for his bank account, and the prize money grows with each trial he completes. But there’s something playfully sadistic about the omnipotent voice on Chit’s phone, and the dares he’s forced to accept — though relatively harmless to anyone but himself — continue to push him into increasingly questionable actions. He can quit any time, of course, game over — but he sure could use the money…
Despite the film’s gritty promotional artwork, suggesting a i>Saw/Hostel vibe, 13: Game of Death is more of a thriller than a horror film — at times quite graphic and perverse, but decidedly less visceral than typical torture flicks. It has the feel of a fable, its themes and connotations being of greater importance than its admittedly reaching narrative. What horror we do experience results from the moral implications of Chit’s quest for fortune; his alarming willingness to perform deeds that range from regrettable to deplorable. Sakveerakul and co-writer Eakasit Thairatana (author of the comic source material) wisely offset the more outrageous deeds with less sensational ones, manipulating our rationale and values just as the operators of the game beguile Chit. His descent is wholly believable and all the more affecting and frightening because we can relate.
Krissada Terrence imbues the character with painfully honest humility, making the scenes in which Chit wimpishly caves to the will of others, be they his rivals at work or the mother who keeps prodding him for more cash, the most difficult in the film to watch. There’s poignancy to Terrenceâs performance, especially evident as the challenges he faces increasingly echo distressing incidents from Chit’s childhood. With Achita Wuthinounsurasit’s stiff turn as Chit’s friend Tawng the film’s only other lead (Nattapong Arunnate appears in several sequences as a police officer on Chit’s trail, but his is barely even a speaking role), Terrence must carry the film himself, which he manages well regardless of some misguided choices on director Sakveerakuâs part.
Though technically competent and tightly edited throughout, with Sakveeraku’s clean composition at the film’s outset giving way to hand-held immediacy as the action intensifies, the film is slighted by his broad aims. Some of the humor Sakveeraku slips in is used effectively, but all too often the material is impaired by a play for laughs. Even the film’s most harrowing scene, as clever a nod to Ringu‘s lingering influence as we’re going to get so many years after the fact, is derailed by an almost sitcom-esque turn. Sakveeraku also overloads 13 with too many attempts at profundity. Sakveeraku can’t resist soap-boxing about our collective inclination toward violent or controversial entertainment. These judgmental digressions cloud an otherwise keen (though just as cynical) critique of humankind’s insatiable greed, particularly in a sermonic scene at the close of the film that nearly ruins its punch-to-the-teeth climax. So much emphasis is placed on this belabored point that some compelling questions raised earlier in the film are all but ignored; early in the game, Chit complies with the order to kill a fly just as unquestioningly as any of us likely would, under the circumstances. But what’s the difference, morally, between killing a fly and, say, killing a farmer’s calf? Or your best friend’s dog?
Maybe it’s okay that we, like Chit, are left without some answers, as it gives 13: Game of Death longevity that more straightforward shock flicks sometimes lack. The film is still a sharp psychological experience that’s every bit as relevant to American viewers as those in its native land, if not more so. Kudos to Dimension for issuing the challenge.
