The Surrounding Game

Apr 3, 2017

1h 37m

★ 7.5

Behind each move lies a world unknown

Overview

Born from the simplest rules, the ancient game of Go is the most complex and elegant game ever discovered. For thousands of years, masters and disciples have passed the game down as a window to the human mind. Now, for the first time, a group of Americans enter the ring, in search of a prodigy who will change the game forever.

Genres

Documentary

The Surrounding Game Trailers

Cast

Himself

Andy Liu

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Ben Lockhart

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Curtis Tang

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Michael Chen

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Gansheng Shi

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Zhao Xinghua

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Nam Chihyung

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Yin Mingming

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Nie Weiping

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Chang Hao

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Lee Se-dol

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Iyama Yuta

The ancient Chinese game of Go has long been considered a grand challenge for artificial intelligence. Yet in 2016, Google's DeepMind team announced that they would be taking on Lee Sedol, the world's most elite Go champion. AlphaGo chronicles the team as it prepares to test the limits of its rapidly-evolving AI technology. The film pits man against machine, and reveals as much about the workings of the human mind as it does the future of AI.

0.0

Go Through the Dark

Nov 12, 2021

Guanglin is a blind boy in China who displays great skill at the ancient board game called Go, in which two players place black and white pieces on a grid in an attempt to dominate their opponent. Raised by a single father with limited means, Guanglin faces deep societal prejudice against the blind. First-time filmmaker Yunhong Pu, supported by veteran producer Jean Tsien (76 Days), follows the father and son trying to make a better future for themselves.

6.2

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story

Oct 10, 2010

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story shows how the classic board game has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon and follows the colorful players who come together to compete for the coveted title of Monopoly World Champion.

4.6

Tokyo Newcomer

Mar 22, 2012

A young Chinese Go board game player arrives in Japan for training. He doesn't speak Japanese and becomes embarrassed living there. By dropping his Go stones, he happens to meet an old Japanese woman who sells vegetables on the street. They become familiar with each other. The young Chinese Go player, the old woman named Igarashi and her grandson Shoichi then live together.

6.0

The Stone

Jun 12, 2014

A gang boss Nam-hae meets a young Go player Min-su, who rekindles his interest in the game. Despite his outstanding talent, Min-su has been wasting his days as a gambler without pursuing a real career out of it. Nam-hae orders his second in command to persuade Min-su and Min-su becomes Nam-hae’s private Go tutor. In learning Go from Min-su, Nam-hae looks back on his own life. While Min-su discovers the coarse masculine underworld, the meaning of life and true victory through Nam-hae. However, when Nam-hae’s competition starts to expand their territory, Nam-hae is forced into a path to destruction.

6.2

The Go Masters

Apr 1, 1982

Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most talented player that the Japanese master has ever encountered, and he convinces the boy's father to let him bring the child back to Japan to train him as a professional Go player. Years pass, and as the young Chinese master grows to maturity in Japan, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to choose between his triumphant career and his loyalty to his native country. His decision is complicated by his marriage to the daughter of the Japanese master, with whom he has produced a child. His choice will profoundly alter the lives of two families. Their saga serves as a reflection of the tragic relations between their two great countries, and the possibility of reconciliation and healing.

6.7

The Divine Move

Jul 3, 2014

A professional GO player gathers a team to help him carry out his revenge against the man who killed his brother.

6.3

The Go Master

May 24, 2007

The life of Go master Wu Qingyuan from his meteoric rise as a child prodigy to fame and fortune as a revolutionary strategic thinker, as well as the tumultuous conflicts between his homeland of China and his adopted nation of Japan.

6.0

Affection

Nov 29, 2017

The story is told from the point of view of a high school girl called Jessie (Jessica Wong) whose talent for the Chinese board game Go has earned her the nickname ‘Queen Chess’. She balances her time between practising Go and hanging out with her boyfriend (Yau Hawk-sau Neo). The former seems to win for this studious girl, but it is clear she’s also seeking something to pull her out of this lonely life of late-night computer games.

7.5

Bushido

May 17, 2024

Kakunoshin Yanagida was a samurai, forced to leave the Han due to a false accusation. He then lived in poverty with his daughter Kinu.

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0.0

Weiqi Wonders: Conversations about the Game of Go in China

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Weiqi, often referred to as "Go" in English, is arguably the most important game in East Asia, with an estimated thirty million to fifty million players throughout the world. Weiqi is a board game but it is more. It is immersed in more vivid and often contradictory cultural metaphors than any other game in the world. As Chinese politics have changed over the last two millennia, so too has the imagery of the game—from a tool to seek religious enlightenment to military metaphors, one of the noble four arts, one of the condemned “four olds”, nationalism, transnationalism, historical elitism, and futuristic hyper rationality.

7.4

The Match

Mar 26, 2025

When a legendary Go master loses his title to a one-time friend and protégé, he sets out to reclaim it in a high-stakes battle of wits and skill.

0.0

The I-Go King and His Son

Jan 1, 2007

When LIU Yishou, nicknamed the "Go King" by his peers because of his skill in Weiqi (Go), finds himself without a job. And with no other skills to make a living, he then turns to teaching this strategic Chinese board game in a humble training school for children. Annoyed by her husband's passion for the game, LIU Yishou's wife leaves him, but their son, Xiao Chuan, wants to stay with his dad. Unexpectedly, LIU Yishou discovers that his son has a great talent for playing Weiqi and vows to support him in developing his gift for the game. A struggle then arises for the Go King to come up with the money to finance his son's studies of Weiqi.

7.0

The Divine Move 2: The Wrathful

Nov 7, 2019

In the 1990s, when Go gambling fever swept Korea, Gui-su loses everything because his father gambled obsessively until there was nothing left. Left all alone in the world, Gui-su meets a mentor and Go teacher, Il-do, and goes through vicious training to become the grandmaster of Go. He sets out for revenge on the world that destroyed his life, but soon finds himself chased by an unknown loner pursuing his own vendetta.

7.1

Nanook of the North

Jun 11, 1922

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

6.8

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Apr 21, 1938

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

6.7

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Jun 2, 1938

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

6.7

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Mar 22, 1895

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

0.0

Antônio Conselheiro: O Taumaturgo dos Sertões

Aug 12, 2012

No overview available.

6.2

Bronx Obama

Apr 29, 2014

Louis Ortiz, a down on his luck 40-something Puerto Rican resident of the Bronx, looks in the mirror one day and believes he’s found gold—he’s a dead ringer for Barack Obama. With visions of finally living the American Dream, the charismatic Ortiz launches a complete makeover. He dons Obama’s trademark suit, adopts his mannerisms, mimics his voice and steps out onto the street as a presidential impersonator. Taken on by a casting agent, Ortiz and a gang of other political impersonators, including a Bill Clinton and a Mitt Romney, hit the road during the run-up to the 2012 presidential election to perform satirical debates for mostly Republican conventions, throwing Ortiz into conflict with his personal political beliefs. As Ortiz struggles to make ends meet, the distance between the White House and the Bronx becomes increasingly acute. The life of a president isn’t always as easy as it looks.