The Film (3/5)

A Game of Death was a title I hadn’t heard of but was highly interested because it was a remake of the excellent film, The Most Dangerous Game.

This 1945 remake also had a brilliant director, Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still). So why not give it a try? I wasn’t disappointed at all.  Dan Rainsford, played by John Loder (Now, Voyager)  is a shipwrecked victim who winds up on a Caribbean Island with a big-game hunter Erick Kreiger (Edgar Barrier, The Whip Hand). Kreiger discusses and brags about all the animals he killed on his hunting expeditions, which, of course this leads to him to his bragging of hunting human being as game. While waiting to be hunted by Kreiger, Rainsford has some female company, Ellen Trowbridge (Audrey Long, Born to Kill). Of course the climax has Rainsdorf and Kreiger facing off and only one will survive! 

A Game of Death is an entertaining little film. Clocking in at seventy-two minutes, the pace is pretty decent and Wise’s direction keeps everything moving along. The film has a really good supporting cast including Gene Roth(Attack of The Giant Leeches)as Pleshke, who works for Kreiger and Russell Wade (The Ghost Ship) as Robert Trowbridge is takes friendship to Rainsford. The acting is solid, with Barrier’s Kreiger playing the sinister villain to its fullest. In addition to A Game of Death and The Most Dangerous Game, there is another similar film, called Bloodlust which is also entertaining and has some gore to boot!

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

Kino Lorber has done a fine job with this release. A Game of Death is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:33:1, in 1080p with an MPEG-4 AVC encode and it looks really good overall. Excellent textures and details, good contrast and a good greyscale make give this a very smooth, polished released. As with many older movies, there are the usual speckles, some soft scenes and other issues, due to the films age, but nothing horrendous

For the film’s audio, Kino has gone with their usual English DTS- HD Master Audio 2.0, and everything sounds fine, be it the dialog, the music or the raging waters. No pops or drop-offs detected.

Extras (2/5)

There isn’t much to report for extras, but there is an Audio Commentary from film historian Richard Harland Smith. There are trailers for other Kino Lorber releases including The Quatermass Experiment, The Earth Dies Screaming, 99 River Street and No Highway in the Sky

Overall (3/5)

I really enjoyed this movie and its release. The audio and video quality made the viewing experience quite enjoyable. The lack of extras isn’t a big deal for me, and is understandable for minor films or films that are over fifty years old not to have many if at all. It’s just a treat to have some of these movies available on Blu-ray!