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Police Story: Lockdown AKA Police Story 2013 AKA Jing cha gu shi 2013
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Rick Curzon (10th July 2016). |
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The Film
 ***This is an A/V and Extras review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Police captain Zhong Wen goes to meet his estranged daughter at a nightclub, owned by her boyfriend Wu Jiang. When Wu locks the doors to the club and takes everybody inside hostage, Zhong discovers that he, and the other hostages, have something in common that is driving Wu’s sinister plan. Outnumbered and outgunned, Zhong has some tricks up his sleeve to scupper Wu’s plans and make the nightclub owner and his gang of armed thugs rue the day they took the indestructible police captain hostage.
Video
Jackie Chan is easily one of the most recognised film stars in world cinema of the last fifty years; even my high school pupils know his work. He started out in the early '70s as an extra and stuntman in films like Enter the Dragon (1973) and by the late '70s was headlining his own action star vehicles. He appeared in his first US film in 1980 with The Cannonball Run (released in 1981) and had his first US-Hong Kong co-production with The Big Brawl (1980) directed by Robert Clouse of Enter the Dragon fame. After the low box office returns for the US-Hong Kong co-production The Protector (1985) he returned to making his films in his homeland. Police Story 2013 (aka Police Story: Lockdown the title on this BD) is the latest and sixth film in the Police Story franchise begun with Police Story (1985). It is the second film in succession to reboot the story and start afresh so if you haven't seen any of the prior entries you'll be fine (like myself). Not being well versed with Chan's Hong Kong films I expected a more light-hearted, humorous adventure than what we have here which is a riff on Die Hard (1988) in which detective Zhong Wen (Chan) deals with a hostage situation in the enormous Wu Bar nightclub. A serious action, cop, siege film and it even has time to analyse his dysfunctional relationship with his estranged daughter Miao Miao (Jing Tien). The transfer on Kaleidoscope Entertainment's new Blu-ray is superb; being a modern production. This has been afforded the luxury of a BD50 duel layered disc to ensure the bitrate is high and that the film with it's complex and brightly coloured visuals can breath (none of your crappy digital bleeding of colour here). Colours are vibrant and well saturated with perfectly set contrast creating a vibrant 1080/24p image. Black levels are also deep and rich with no crush and plenty of shadow detail. I could detect no DNR, edge enhancement aliasing, mosquito noise, posterization or any other form of digital artefacts to mar the experience. As this is a modern, digitally shot production it's no surprise to find that we have a very good BD transfer on our hands. The film seems inspired visually by modern noir the likes of Blade Runner (1982) or The Black Dahlia (2005) Detail in the image is excellent with plenty to be seen in the backgrounds in the meticulously crafted scope image; set mainly inside the Wu Bar there are plenty of opportunities for writer-director Ding Sheng and cinematographer Yu Ding to create a layered image with the detailed production design. Running time: 110'17 / 1080/24p / MPEG-4 AVC / 2.40:1
Audio
Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Mandarin LPCM 2.0 Stereo English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English LPCM 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: English Plenty of audio options with two flavours of English (dubbed surprisingly well) and the original Mandarin (the only way to view the film): DTS-HD Master Audio and LPCM Stereo. The stereo tracks were perfectly acceptable sounding robust and full, but they're no substitute for the thunderous, room shaking Master Audio tracks. Whilst viewing this it was a good job my wife wasn't in the house lest she complain about the racket! Very active surounds at all times with ambient noises filtering around the sound field to create a living, breathing soundscape. Dialogue remains clear and centred throughout. In short a great soundtrack that is demo level quality.
Extras
Extras: Startup Trailer: IP Man 3 (2015) - 2'03" Police Story 2013: Behind the Scenes - 5'26" Interviews: *Ding Sheng / Director - 4'29" *Liu Ye - 6'26" *Jing Tian - 6'29" *Jackie Chan - 3'58" Trailer - 1'37" Nothing special here with brief EPK style puff pieces; behind the scenes footage and interviews and a short trailer.
Overall
An entertaining if occasionally chaotic action extravaganza with good performances and production values. The action is thrilling and it all sounds and looks topnotch. If I had once complaint was that the score was too generic without any memorable themes. Police Story 2013 gets a very good BD from Kaleidoscope Entertainment in the UK.
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