| Movie
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Extras
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| Audio
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Video
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This is the IVL version. It’s only available in the box set with the first two movies. It also has a really nice photo book. There are a few vesion of these movies out there, but this is the best one, as it’s uncut and undubbed.
Movie
This movie was Michelle Yeoh’s triumphant return to movies. As
much as I want her to be happy, I can’t say I’m disappointed that her marriage
to D&P honcho Dickson Poon didn’t succeed. After a 5-year absence,
Mrs. Yeoh teamed up with action god Jackie Chan in the third installment
of the series. This time, Mr. Chan goes undercover to try to befriend
and ultimately stop a drug smuggler. As expected, he gets into all
kinds of situations that allow him to shoot, fight and jump.
The only real reason to watch the movie is the action. The drama is just about non-existent. By this time in Mr. Chan’s career, he was known as the loveable do-gooder, and this was a big fun movie so drama was forgotten and left in the second part. Consequently, the actors don’t really do much. Philip Chan (‘Hard Boiled’), Bill Tung (Jackie Chan’s boss in many movies), and Lo Lieh (‘Five Fingers of Death’) have small roles, but all they really do is talk and smile. Most of the dialogue is handled by the two stars as well as Yuen Wah (‘Eastern Condors’, ‘Mr. Vampire’, ‘Kung Fu Hustle’) and Ken Tsang (‘Royal Warriors’, ‘A Better Tomrorrow’, ‘The Blacksheep Affair’). Maggie Cheung (‘The Heroic Trio’, ‘In the Mood for Love’, ‘Green Snake’) also reprises her role as May, and it’s rather funny to see her here because she looks much older than in the first two parts. The comedy is well done, but doesn’t take a big a part as it does in some other Jackie Chan movies (like ‘Rumble in the Bronx’ or ‘Armour of God’). In fact, pretty much everything in this movie takes a back seat to the action.
The action is big. It’s actually really big. The problem is Mr. Chan doesn’t do as much hand-to-hand as he does in other movies. Anybody can run and jump and duck bullets; only Jackie Chan can do Jackie Chan things. He does get the chance to fight people, I’m not going to say otherwise. There are just rather more explosions and gunfire than in the first two ‘Police Story’ movies. What the other two movies don’t have, though, is Michelle Yeoh. She really shows her stuff and proves that punch for punch she’s just as good an action star as Jackie Chan. In fact, she has just as much fight time as Mr. Chan does, which doesn’t disappoint me at all.
The movie has some faults, but it’s very enjoyable. There’s a car chase in here that’s pretty intense, and the action scenes are well done. It’s just the plot is kind of slim and by now some of the comedy situations have been seen before. Thankfully, Mr. Tong knows where his bread is buttered and keeps the pace going. This is a wild ride and a very worthy entry to the series. Definitely fun to watch.
Special Features
No surprises here. You get the original trailer, the new trailer,
a photo gallery and a slide show (a minute or so) with the same pictures
as the gallery. The 3 ½-minute original trailer is better
than the 2-minute new trailer. Both have action, but the original
one has more of it. There’s plenty of action to go around in this
movie, so the trailer doesn’t give too much away. Actually, given
the movie, there’s not much to give away. The gallery/slideshow give
you great stills from the movie. Nice action shots and nice picture
of the actors.
Interview with director Stanley Tong
Mr. Tong is very nice and gives out some very nice information.
He talks about the stunts, working and Jackie Chan and working with Michelle
Yeoh. Mr. Tong talks about how they shot the scene where the helicopter
gets caught up on the train. Because of some miscalculations, the
rope ladder got caught on the helicopter skids and the helicopter really
did get caught on the train. Mr. Tong, the action choreographer and
the helicopter pilot almost lost their lives, but the pilot was very good,
so they got out of it (obviously). The anecdotes about Mr. Chan and
Mrs. Yeoh are no less dangerous and so are interesting to hear. About
17 minutes and 14 seconds, but could easily be longer.
Audio
Generally, the sound is okay. During the compound action sequence,
it’s really bad. The explosions on screen don’t match up to their
sound. The gun shots in that scene also seem badly mixed. I
don’t know why, but it happens. Other than that, the sound is very
good. The score uses all speakers. The subwoofer gets used
mostly for explosions and gunfire. The dialogue is clear and centered.
The front speakers get used a lot more and I find the action is more centered
than it should be. That’s not really something bad, though, considering
the original mix is in mono. Overall, it’s okay sound. (Last
note: I actually find this much better mixed volumewise than many other
DVDs. All the speakers are evenly loud. I find that, for example,
region 1 DVDs, feel the rear speakers aren’t important and so are usually
low. I pump up the rear speaker volume on my system, and watching
this movie, the volume ended up being a bit low on the centre speaker.
That’s a result of my system, but like I said, the volume on this set (and
IVL remasters in general) is very good.)
Video
2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. Okay, so the picture does have
some problems. It’s not perfect, but it’s still quite good (especially
when you compare it with the movie footage from the interview). The
bad things: the colour has been tampered with. That’s kind of obvious,
but what I mean is that sometimes, for example, green is almost flashy
and sometimes it’s earthier. The big compound raid made me notice
that. Also, the picture jumps once. Not a big jump, but I still
noticed it. Those are the bad things. The good things: well,
everything else. The colours are on the whole great. They’re
strong and bright, and their contrast is very good. The picture detail
is very nice. The grain is virtually gone, except for once dark miniature
scene. Gone are specks or scratches as well. The picture is
very clear and it’s very good.
2/2/2005