Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

God of War Blu-ray Movie Review

No, not that one.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 16, 2017

God of War has a lot of battles chaotically if intermittently filling the frame, as its very title may imply, and that may be enough to distract some adrenaline junkies from narrative hurdles that accrue at least in part from the fact that while elements of this story may be familiar to a fair number of Chinese, my hunch is a lot of Westerners, myself included, will be pausing and rewinding at various intervals to figure out who’s whom and what exactly is going on. The film begins with one of those “establishing texts” which seeks to provide context, but which is probably too brief and basic to offer much more than the fact that the film takes place in the mid sixteenth century and involves Japanese pirates who have taken control of certain areas of the Chinese coastland. One of the odd issues that is (again, briefly) alluded to in this opening mini-barrage of information is the fact that some of the “Japanese” pirates were in fact Chinese themselves, something that seems to be more of a major part of the actual historical record than some aspects of God of War might indicate. The biggest issue with God of War, though, may well not be any cultural disconnect between the story and its (Western) audience, but the fact that those action elements, while fairly numerous (especially in a front loaded series of sequences), are repeatedly interrupted by long stretches of “talky bits”, where everything more or less stops as various strategies are discussed — endlessly. The film has an opulent production design that brings this historical epoch winningly to life, and it certainly features a top flight cast, including Sammo Hung, but the film never trades on its star power and in fact doesn’t seem to want to delve beneath the surface of any of its supposedly iconic characters. That said, this is a Blu-ray release whose excellent technical merits may sway consumers who might otherwise be cool to this historical epic.

Kind of weirdly, Hung, who would appear to be one of the marquee stars of God of War, is shunted off to the side at regular intervals and in fact his character of General Yu Dayou is shown to be something of a dunderhead when it comes to strategy, having more or less made “appointments” to try to attack a pirate outpost at the same time every single day. The fact that the pirates have the advantage of a kind of pass where they’ve set up their fort and which is more or less impenetrable except from head on, which is of course strongly fortified, makes Yu’s idiocy all the more surprising.

When Yu’s latest “arranged attack” ends up failing as spectacularly as all of his others, a replacement of sorts named General Qi Jiguang (Vincent Zhao) is brought in to finish the job, and he wisely plans a series of surprises for the intransigent pirates. However, the pirates have a few surprises of their own after an initial success by the Chinese forces, as a fairly relentless series of action set pieces sets this film out on a high energy course that it unfortunately can’t contain. Instead, there’s quite a bit of time given over not just toward strategic planning (Yu rather commendably simply agrees that Qi did a better job, and works with him), but more importantly starts to offer some supposedly more emotionally resonant character beats, especially with regard to the seemingly naive young samurai Yamagawa (Keisuke Koide), who is holed up with the pirates and doesn’t agree with their (literal) raping and pillaging ways.

It seems evident that director Gordon Chan (Fist of Legend , The Four) is attempting to aim at Red Cliff levels of historical opulence and epic storytelling, and to a certain degree, you’d be hard pressed to say that he hasn’t achieved that goal. The film is incredibly sumptuous from a production design standpoint, even with the understanding that some of the pirates are the haggard, scraggly haired types. But costumes and sets and often stunningly gorgeous, and the physical locations employed are often incredibly evocative. There’s even a good sense of time and place running through this arguably overlong film, two aspects supported admirably by that aforementioned production design excellence. But the film is incredibly stodgy, slogging through a lot of expository material at times instead of focusing on what it starts out doing rather well — providing nonstop action.

God of War Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

God of War is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is one of the more consistently pleasing transfers of an Asian film Well Go USA has provided recently, and while I can't find any authoritative data online to support this thesis, I'm wondering if a 4K master might have been used. Levels of fine detail on the often unbelievably gorgeously textured costumes is really amazing to behold at times (just take a look at several of the screenshots accompanying this review), and detail levels across the board are routinely excellent. The palette is rich and natural looking (the film is commendably free of long graded sequences), and several of the almost dance like battle scenes feature some wide vistas that have superb depth of field. There are no persistent issues with banding as has been seen on some other Well Go USA releases, and this is certainly a fine looking presentation whatever the dramatic deficiencies of the film.

God of War Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

God of War has a really engaging sounding DTS:X track. The film's penchant toward nonstop action in its opening few minutes at least provides lots of great opportunities for midair effects, including gunshots, explosions and (most impressively) the whiz of scores of arrows flying through the air. A lot of the film takes place outside, which offers similarly great opportunities for well placed ambient environmental effects. A perhaps rote but still grand sounding score by Shigeru Umebayashi also offers a bed of surround activity at regular intervals. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track which boasts flawless fidelity and extremely wide dynamic range.

God of War Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080i; 1:33) is more like an alternate trailer, though it offers some behind the scenes footage.


• Trailer (1080p; 1:45)

God of War Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Every film tends to have peaks and valleys of energy, but what I found a little odd about God of War is that it starts out with guns literally blazing and everything firing on all pistons, only to then pretty much stop for the next good while to talk about it. There's some interesting material here, and I for one didn't even know Japanese pirates were an "issue" in China in the sixteenth century, but the film could have used a bit of judicious pruning in the talky bits to get back to the action sooner. Performances are excellent, and the production design really quite beautiful to behold. With the technical merits of this release so excellent, some sitting on the fence may well want to consider checking this out even if they end up not loving the film itself.