The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2017

The Game Changer may not in fact ultimately live up to its title, but for good old fashioned silly action sequences, it at least lives up to a longstanding tradition in Hong Kong films to go for the gusto — repeatedly. This is a film where at least some knowledge of context will be helpful, since it more or less hurtles the viewer full throttle into a cascading series of set pieces in the opening half hour or so that are relentless and which are so high octane that any attempt at filling in little items like, you know, plot and character are left for calmer moments. The Game Changer is the latest iteration of a long running franchise of sorts that began with the 1980 series The Bund, a period gangster drama which helped to elevate one Chow Yun Fat to the ranks of stardom. While not exactly long lived (25 episodes or so), The Bund evidently had an outsized cultural impact and led almost immediately to follow ups creatively (?) named The Bund II and The Bund III. A little over a decade and a half later, a new television series called Once Upon a Time in Shanghai appeared, bearing an alternate name of New Bund, which perhaps more clearly articulated the fact that it was revisiting some of the same characters and story ideas as the original trilogy. At almost the exact same time a feature film entitled Shanghai Grand came out that covered much the same territory — again. The most salient antecedent to The Game Changer may actually be yet another television series, this one entitled Shanghai Bund, which came out circa 2007 and which once again reintroduced some of the same characters and storylines as the original television outing. All of these referents are probably more widely known in Hong Kong (and I assume the rest of China) than they are over here, and as a result at least the early going in The Game Changer can be a little treacherous, at least for those who want to understand what’s actually going on. While a bit of patience is ultimately repaid in terms of comprehending what really aren’t overly complex plot dynamics, the film itself never really amounts to much more than a series of hyperbolic action elements, which may be enough to satisfy adrenaline junkies while leaving those who crave a little bit of depth to their period gangster pieces wanting more.

There are a couple of passing references in the first few minutes of The Game Changer which might seem familiar in a way to American audiences, though probably not for the reasons intended. A student uprising leads to a number of deaths at the hands of the authorities, which may remind some on this side of the pond of the infamous Kent State killings in 1970. The actual incident is evidently what’s known as the “May Fourth Movement”, though the film doesn’t actually contextualize any of this, leaving it to the viewer to figure out what’s going on. The chaotic opening at least “introduces” the film’s hero, student activist Lin Zihao (Peter Ho), who is promptly jailed and tortured for his activism. The film ultimately returns to Zihao’s tale, but not before darting off on a couple of other tangents, including a brief scene which will be frighteningly “relevant” in a very sad way since it documents a villain with a machine gun in a highrise raining terror down upon innocent bystanders below.

One of those tangents introduces another focal character, Fang Jie (Huang Zitao), whose prison break early in the film ends up freeing Zihao as well. Also entering the fray is mob boss Mr. Tang (Wang Xueqi), who none too surprisingly turns out to have a connection to Jie and, ultimately, Zihao. Jie is revealed to be the (more or less) adopted son of Tang, and is betrothed to Tang’s gorgeous daughter Qianqian (Guli Nazha), though (again, none too surprisingly) once she and Zihao meet, romantic sparks are engendered. Making things even more internecine is another revelation detailing the fate of Zihao’s long ago lover, thought to have been killed in the student uprising (guess what? — she wasn’t).

All of the pieces of this particular puzzle do in fact fall into place, but in a resolutely predictable fashion. The film is patently unreal a lot of the time (something only increased by some flimsy looking CGI), with a cartoonish ambience that may appeal to some who love their popcorn fare without much underlying substance. There’s the star-crossed lovers angle, the warring crime families angle, and the brothers in arms angle here, all of which are doled out in an unsurprising way. The film does at least offer at least one semi-unexpected death, but it completely subverts any sense of reality by having one major character seemingly return from the dead, after having been more or less “executed” (none too successfully, it would seem) by what amounts to a firing squad.

The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Game Changer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This has the sleek and smooth appearance of digital capture, though I haven't been able to track down authoritative technical data on what cameras might have been used. While the palette pops quite winningly, and detail levels are uniformly high, even in some aggressively graded sequence, this transfer has a couple of anomalies, one of which is a little strange and a little hard to describe. The easier issue is banding, which for whatever reason tends to crop up on Well Go USA releases that I've reviewed, but which is here at least slightly more prevalent than usual (an especially bad example occurs right at the end of the film). But there's kind of an odd ghosting or stuttering issue that shows up in some VFX heavy sequences that I can't really account for. I'm wondering if the way the effects crew composited these sequences accounts for it, or if it's an encoding issue, and it's admittedly quite slight, but I noticed it especially when I was checking the resolution of the supplement on my PC and played a bit of the film there. The only other issue which is not really transfer related is some occasionally almost embarrassingly bad CGI (see screenshot 19).

The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are no similar problems with The Game Changer's enjoyable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in Mandarin. While it's obvious some (most?) of the actors have been post-looped, leading to lip movements that don't always match the sounds emanating from them, the track itself is quite energetic, with excellent LFE and immersion in the many set pieces (the first half hour or so of the film is basically just a series of action sequences). Because a lot of the film takes place at a nightclub (The Bund), there are some big band segments that sound bright and brassy. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly as well and is typically very well prioritized, though the film does tend to be on the noisy side quite a bit of the time.

The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 2:05)

As tends to be the case with most Well Go USA releases, this sole supplement has been authored so that the previews for other Well Go USA releases also includedo on the Blu-ray follow automatically after it has played.

The Game Changer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is those with a knowledge of and/or a history with the many previous iterations of this basic story are going to get a lot more out of The Game Changer than the "uninitiated". On a foundational level, The Game Changer belies its title to be a basically unambitious gangster saga with many of the clichés that genre has become infamous for. Video quality has occasional stumbles, but audio is excellent for those considering a purchase.