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In the Line of Duty 4
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (24th March 2023). |
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The Film
 In Seattle working with the local police on a drug sting, Hong Kong Serious Crimes Unit cop Madam Yeung (Madam City Hunter's Cynthia Khan) narrowly evades having her cover blown by landing in the arms of Chinese immigrant dock worker Luk Wan-Ting (Dreadnaught's Simon Yuen) who is trying to make an honest living in the states in spite of the propensity of his buddy Ming (Infernal Affairs II's Liu Kai-Chi) for getting into trouble with loan sharks. Unfortunately, Madam Yeung is recognized by the Hong Kong drug dealer (Iron Monkey's Sunny Yuen) who manages to get away. Meanwhile, her American partner spies on the drug deal in which the American gangster turns out to be a rogue CIA agent who guns down the Hong Kong dealers. Yeung's partner manages to get a photograph of the agent before he is shot, attempting to pass the negative to Luk before dying. American Captain Donnie Yen (Ip Man's Donnie Yen) is ready to throw the book at Luk since he cannot supply the negative in spite of Yeung attesting to his character; however, Luk is attacked by a corrupt cop (Operation Condor's Dan Mintz) trying to get the negative from him and he escapes. Ming attempts to help Luk escape back to Hong Kong but is killed by assassins pursuing him, and Luk only manages to escape being apprehended by Yen through the intervention of Yeung. Yen's superior takes him off the case and appoints Captain Michael Wong (City Hunter's Michael Wong) who, nevertheless, keeps Yen and Yeung on his team as they head to Hong Kong to apprehend Luk. In Hong Kong, however, Luk, Yeung, Yen, and Wong become entangled in a web of intrigue involving Hong Kong drug dealers, secret American paramilitary organizations, corrupt cops, and Luk's hapless mother (One-Armed Swordsman's Lisa Chiao Chiao). A big step up from the tonally-jarring and montonous In the Line of Duty III, In the Line of Duty IV – helmed by seasoned action choreographer/director Yuen Wo-Ping (Drunken Master) is narratively-incoherent but consistently thrilling with the string of action set-pieces making up for the lack of clarity in the plot mechanics. Characterization is so thin that one only really cares for Luk and his mother because they are the only truly innocent characters while Yeung is rather ineffectual in arguing her beliefs to American or Hong Kong colleagues, Yen the character so narrow-minded that fans of Yen the actor may be disappointed if expecting the film as a vehicle for him, and Wong in one of a string of smarmy characters who are either a villian or just a bureaucratic obstacle for the heroes. The martial arts action is divided between Khan, Yen, and Yuen – brother of director Wo-Ping and actor Sunny – and this leads to more dynamic staging than the drawn-out singular fight scenes in the previous film, with a climactic showdown in the American embassy in which camera and audience eyes dart back and forth between three different fights that usually intersect painfully. While the previous film was co-directed by cinematographer Arthur Wong (Armour of God), the photography here by Yuen regular Ma Koon-Wah (The Magnificent Butcher) and Au Gaam-Hung (Top Squad) is functional and director Yuen avoids the "heroic bloodshed" slow motion digressions of the previous film, coming across as "lean and mean" even though the film is ten minutes longer. Along with the Yes, Madam and Royal Warriors which retroactively became part of the "In the Line of Duty" series, the third and fourth film form part of a quartet, but five more films with Khan followed in the nineties with the banner; however, only three of them came from original producer D & B Films Co. Ltd. 
Video
Although an English export version was prepared, In the Line of Duty IV was released in teh U.K. on VHS in 1990 but went unreleased in the US and was only accessible in English-friendly NTSC form only as a cropped Hong Kong laserdisc with burnt-in English and Chinese subtitles. A Hong Kong DVD in 1998 sported a letterboxed transfer with optional English subtitles and was directly ported stateside by Tai Seng. An anamorphic upgrade of the Hong Kong version also turned up in the U.K. in 2001 as part of the Hong Kong Legends line while in 2003 Twentieth Century Fox's U.S DVD was derived from an early HD master the Hong Kong version from rights owner Fortune Star. Presumably the 2011 Hong Kong Blu-ray utilizes the Fortune Star HD master rather than being an upscale like some of the others, but Eureka's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray presents new 2K restorations of both the Hong Kong version (95:19) and the English export version (95:35) with the only difference consisting of a brief pre-credits sequence in which Yen's superior assigns Yeung as his partner. The film has a less-considered color scheme than the previous film, and it is hard to tell if the grading or just ugly environments are responsible for some dull-looking colors since blues and greens tend to be well-saturated and blacks are deep while skin tones are mostly pale but lean towards pink in some of the dark interiors. The grading of these newer Hong Kong remasters has always been a subject of debate, but it gets the job done for the casual viewer. 
Audio
The Hong Kong version is viewable with either Cantonese or English LPCM 2.0 mono tracks and optional English subtitles – an optional English subtitle track is enabled with the English track for onscreen Chinese text – while the export version only includes the English LPCM 2.0 track and no subtitles. Both tracks are dubbed, but the Cantonese track is preferable if only because the performances sound more impassioned. Apart from the more emotive moments, the line readings are a bit stilted on the English dub.
Extras
The Hong Kong cut is accompanied by three(!) audio commentary tracks. The first is an audio commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng, NY Asian Film Festival who discusses D&B's attempts to jazz up the series with foreign locations – mixing Seattle and Vancouver locations and some anonymous Hong Kong streets for the first act – bringing in Yen from Wo-Ping Yuen's earlier Tiger Cage and Wong as a different Michael Wong from the character who died in Royal Warriors, the attempt to make Simon Yuen into a leading man (this would be his last onscreen role), the themes of immigration and emigration that cropped up in Hong Kong cinema nearing the 1997 handover, and the film's balance of tone compared to the previous film. The second track is an audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema in which they ponder whether the film exists in the same universe as Wo-Ping Yuen's next film Tiger Cage II with Yen, discuss the supporting players including the Western actors/performers – Stephen Berwick and Michael Woods both trained with Donnie Yen's mother, a karate grandmaster – and revealing that Cho Wing (Dragons Forever) not only played two roles in the film but also doubled for both Yen and Khan (once you know that, you cannot un-see it in those fighting shots in which the character's face is averted), including shots in his climactic fight scene with both of them. Ported from the U.K. DVD is the 2001 audio commentary by Hong Kong expert Stefan Hammond and lead actor Michael Wong in which the actor recalls coming to Hong Kong via Cinema City but being signed with D&B for Royal Warriors, not speaking Cantonese at the time, training with Mintz and Woods, not looking forward to his fight scene with Yen, and the various periods of his acting career in which he was typecast as good guys, villains, and then good guys again.  Ported from the Hong Kong DVD is an archival interview with actor Donnie Yen (19:40) in which he opines that Hong Kong action cinema is more dangerous than Hollywood action because they are always trying to top themselves, discusses the progression of action genres in Hong Kong from martial arts to action comedy to heroic bloodshed, Yuen Wo-Ping working in Hong Kong and Hollywood, and developing his own fighting style to compete with the more elaborate competition from Sammo Hung's productions of the period. "Donnie Yen: Style of Action" (15:02) is another archival piece in which he discusses the differences between Hong Kong and Hollywood action choreography, favoring the greater flexibility of the Hong Kong choreography and camera blocking over the over-edited Hollywood style. The disc also includes the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:25), a U.K. Video Trailer (1:53), and a "Line of Duty 'Franchise'" Trailer (4:48).
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover while the first pressing includes a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling and a 23-page collector's booklet featuring the essay "Beating the Odds: Picking Sides with In the Line of Duty IV" by James Oliver in which he notes that Yuen Wo-Ping as a director of traditional martial arts films was behind the times and that Tiger Cage had been his first attempt at more contemporary genre fare and opines that Khan here is more the "notional lead" while Yen gets the best fights and a character arc as a sort, unwinding from his "by-the-book rigidity into someone more cautious—more generous—as his preconceptions, and his loyalties, are challenged."
Overall
A big step up from the tonally-jarring and montonous In the Line of Duty III, In the Line of Duty IV is narratively-incoherent but consistently thrilling,
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