Review: "Gamechangers: Dreams of BlizzCon"

Gamechangers firmly adheres to the cliches of the esports documentary, but its few inspired moments reveal that its heroes are more than your usual kids-with-a-dream.

by Nick "CosmicSpiral" Velazquez

Gamechangers: Dreams of BlizzCon faces an intractable problem from the first frame. The standard esports documentary has a certain hollowness that permeates its earnest approach to storytelling. Regardless of subject or situation, it faithfully adheres to a rigid set of tropes. The heroes are either underdogs who persevered through failure and doubt, or savants struggling to articulate the poetry of their craft. Scenes highlighting the less glamorous side of their profession are carefully deployed for maximum dramatic effect. Slow motion panoramic shots interspersed with intimate portraits of home life make up the majority of the film, all layered with introspective voiceover. Aspirations are shared, dreams are crushed. The camera hones in on devastating moments, transfixed on pain the like a sadistic Jonathan Demme. Pragmatic, supportive parents appear for a requisite cameo.

Long-time followers of esports—or any community outside the mainstream—will recognize this triteness right away. It’s self-conscious emulation of another genre’s locution and semiotics—in this case, esports' eponymous predecessor. Sports documentaries lean on the same cliches to convey solemn gravitas and universal themes, tools that invite similar complaints of blandness and bathos. Yet context is everything. Traditional sports combine hard-won respectability with sufficient cultural cache to turn their mechanics into secondhand knowledge. Even the most casual watcher knows a little about football, and rich histories demand curt shorthand for the sake of brevity. By contrast, esports still struggles to obtain what mainstream sports take for granted. Out of obligation to strangers and a desire for validation, narratives are beholden to a part Bildungsroman, part instruction manual, part human interest story template that plagues us to this day.


Gamechangers is partially successful thanks to the flexibility of its overarching conceit. Following the journeys of Jang “MC” Min Chul and Mun “MMA” Seong Won throughout the 2014 WCS Season, their intertwined stories allow for a more fluid format. The film smartly inverts the players’ blueprints, a simple move that eliminates potential clutter and lets each individual stand out. Swapping the sequence of professional and personal scenes especially bears great fruit in the lead-up to BlizzCon. MMA’s visit with his parents and his conflicting feelings towards them, alongside MC’s mixture of braggadocio and nerves that reach a crescendo at Anaheim, are rendered especially poignant when placed side by side.

The second major editing choice is compressing a full year’s worth of footage into 90 minutes. The decision leads to a hurried feel, something I still feel ambiguous about after much thought. The briskness proves delightful in some places and maddening in others. For longtime fans of StarCraft the tidbits sandwiched between LAN appearances are a highlight of the documentary. Small peeks into their mundane hobbies are fascinating if only due to their rarity. In particular the sight of MC crooning in a karaoke bar is bizarre and heartfelt, a peek into mundane hobbies we seldom ponder or imagine. However it’s clear that a much longer, more detailed film was scrapped for brevity. In particular the introduction feels rudely out of place. The inside look at CJ Entus and the testimony of a wizened PC bang owner promises an expansive, ambitious iteration of the esports profile. Yet they are shunted aside and forgotten after their initial appearances.


This reluctance to push past standard empathy beats is ultimately what locks the movie in a straitjacket. For a documentary that takes great pains to make esports palatable, new viewers may greet the end credits with a shrug. Gamechangers focuses on its subjects to a myopic degree. Never is it mentioned why MC and MMA love this game enough to jeopardize their futures, or what sparked the exodus from Korea in the first place. Appreciating the novelty of their circumstances require context the film doesn’t bother to flesh out. The early introductions to StarCraft history are so cursory as to be pointless while MC and MMA’s career beginnings are glossed over. Without mentioning MMA’s previous reputation as Boxer’s protege, MC’s forgettable Brood War career, or the appealing foreign opportunities that cleaved the Korean scene, the documentary lacks sufficient scope to place them within a tradition (or at least a trend). And for all the proclamations that esports has arrived there’s a palpable aversion towards showing actual StarCraft gameplay. From ostentatious zoom ins to rapid cuts evincing relentless momentum, Gamechangers pulls out all the stops in lieu of footage. One can’t help but feel that competition is getting short shrift over the allure of “esports”.


Despite its faults, Gamechangers works—sometimes by sheer fortune. The director smartly doesn’t skirt around the transitory nature of professional careers, and the best parts occur when MC and MMA confront the terminal end of their livelihoods. Like in most things, the Boss Toss confidently believes he knows what to do to parlay his success into entertainment ... until he visits Hong “YellOw” Jin Ho, the famous Brood War kong. His senior doesn’t necessary condone MC’s idea to parlay his success into an entertainment career. In fact he chides him for letting his focus drift as long as championships are still on the horizon. Is YellOw correct about maintaining one’s dedication to the present, or is his wisdom tainted by regret over his own failures? And what amount of winning could possibly repay a mother’s stalwart sacrifice? On the other end, MMA’s father nurtures parochial hope that his religion and pastorship can be the beginning of a legacy. The son awkwardly laughs it off, but the same miasma of remorse and obligation hangs over this relationship too. His late conversion to godly service stunted their bond and he yearns to connect, no matter how stoic he appears on the surface. It’s those moments, few and far between, that justify Gamechangers as more than a run of the mill clone.

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