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From Beijing With Love
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (21st September 2023). |
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The Film
 When a massive dinosaur skull vanishes in transport, and every secret agent sent by the government in search of the national treasure has been murdered by a mysterious armored man carrying a golden gun, Commander Chan (Tiger Cage III's Wong Kam-Kong) decides to think outside the box and brings in Ling Ling Chat (Kung Fu Hustle's Stephen Chow), a pork butcher who did not qualify as an agent but was held in reserve for the last ten years since he is the descendant of a national hero. Chan informs him that the government suspects that the skull was stolen by smuggler Lai Yau Wai (The Boxer's Omen's Leung Hak-Shun) and sends him to Hong Kong armed with a series of bewildering high-tech "weapons" created by crackpot Da Vinci (Forbidden City Cop's Law Kar-Ying). While Ling Ling Chat does not question the assignment, the deputy commissioner (Yip Chun) expresses his distrust in Chan's decision and announces that he has put his own agents on the case just before he is murdered by Chan's assistant Lee Keung Kam (God of Gamblers 3's Anita Yuen) who he sends after Ling Ling Chat to murder him and set up Lai Yau Wai for the murder while Chan arranges for the sale of the skull to foreign interests. Ling Ling Chat arrives in Hong Kong and meets his supposed local contact in Lee Keung Kam whose every attempt to kill him goes haywire, often with injuries to her own person. While James Bond fan Ling Ling Chat tries to flirt with her and impress her with his "skills" eschewing her array of guns for his own personal chef's cleaver and flying daggers Lee Keung Kam focuses on the kill, pressured by Chan because of the debt she owes him as the daughter of a traitor and fed lies by him about Ling Ling Chat's supposed criminal background. After witnessing Ling Ling Chat in action against a group of violent jewel thieves who take him a child hostage after violent murdering the child's father, Lee Keung Kam starts to have doubts not only of her abilities against him but also about her own feelings for him. A slavish but modestly-scaled imitation of the Bond films that references the Moore series comedy with the slick up-to-date look of the Dalton films particularly The Spy Who Love Me with an appearance by a Jaws-like henchman (Young and Dangerous' Joe Cheng) in the former and the latter in The Living Daylights with a hilarious title sequence of a pair of spies fighting and dancing in silhouette From Beijing with Love is as scattershot in its political satire for the sake of a joke as any of the actual Bond films. Depicting the Chinese military and intelligence as corrupt, ruthless, and ultimately performative in its depiction of party loyalty, it makes sense that the hero is an outcast targeted as a patsy by his bosses and as a caricature by his friends and traitors and their children are seen as disposable assets. Director/star Chow derives much comedy by taking the antics around him seriously and letting his co-stars pull faces, but some truly over-the-top violence is jarring next to the implied but jaded approach of the Bond films. The action scenes are competently if not thrillingly-staged, but a moment in which Lee Keung Kam falters in her decision to kill Ling Ling Chat when he starts singing one of her mother's songs is a genuinely moving Bond series-worth moment in a film with a bazooka-armed firing squad and a henchwoman (Millennium Mambo's Pauline Chan) with a flamethrower brassiere. While the film did not inspire a franchise although we have no idea if there was any intervention from Danjaq From Beijing with Love did pave the way for more Stephen Chow comedy. 
Video
Despite the film's flashy violence and uproarious comedy, From Beijing with Love was largely unseen in Western territories outside of theaters in Chinese communities and mom-and-pop shop bootleg tapes (or the import of Mei Ah's laserdisc release which split the film into two separately-sold discs for the rental market). The film made its stateside debut as a bilingual Tai Seng laserdisc in the late nineties followed by a Hong Kong import from Universe Laser Co. with the usual 5.1 upmixes and Tai Seng's own direct port in 1999. Eureka's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from "a restoration of the original film elements" which may or may not be the same master as the 2015 Hong Kong edition from Vicol but very likely the same as the one used for the disc in the French Coffret Stephen Chow: From Beijing with Love & Flirting Scholar from last month which looks as slick as a Bond film from the eighties apart from a few shots filled with smoke and a couple rapid camera moves where sharp focus is not always a priority. An early card denoting the Shen Zhen setting of an early sequence may have been digitally recreated. 
Audio
Audio options include a Cantonese LPCM 2.0 mono track which features Mandarin dialogue as well and an English LPCM 2.0 mono track. Both are dubbed, although the Cantonese track includes most of the actors dubbing themselves, and the English dub is more distracting than usual in its voice acting choices, flat delivery, and lip-sync (which appears to be due to the original mix). Optional English subtitles are included and free of any obvious errors. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary by Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) in which he reveals that the film's Cantonese title translates as "China-Made James Bond" and that "Ling Ling Chat" is a pun on the pronunciation of "007." H also notes the film was a success in Hong Kong but did not have a theatrical release in Mainland China for obvious reasons (the film was shot entirely in Hong Kong, which explains the presence of British military vehicles on the PLA base). As with his other commentaries on Hong Kong films, Djeng helpfully points out the film's use of crude and racy Chinese wordplay to get past the censors particularly the exchanges in which Da Vinci insists that Ling Ling Chat address him by his full codename which means something else when he just refers to him as "Vinci" and the film's Bond references as well as overt ones to Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild (Yuen had previously appeared in a parody of the film called The Days of Being Dumb). He also discusses how the film has become part of the era's cultural zeitgeist with much of the film's dialogue frequently still quoted.  The disc also includes "Wong Kam Kong on From Beijing With Love" (21:57) in which the actor recalls Chow as being unpretentious and spontaneous, consulting other filmmakers like Ringo Lam (Full Contact) before working with him, and reveals that Chow was uninterested in politics and did no research, instead consulting him for input about how things were in Mainland China. In "Wong Kam Kong in Conversation" (54:05), the actor discusses his career, starting with his work as an artist and choreographer, and then working on the stage as an art director which lead to work at Shaw Brothers in that field and moving in front of the camera. He discusses how he moved freely in between acting and art direction, and how the Hong Kong film industry allowed for that, revealing that he served as art director on Yes, Madam! and helped Lam on Burning Paradise by getting friends in the Mainland China industry to help with design elements as well as offending some of them by doing some work himself with an artist friend when they could not make Lam's deadline how Lam incorporated calligraphy into his character after discovering that the actor did it in his free time rather than going out with the cast and crew. He also reveals that the original ending was directed by the action director due to scheduling and that Lam decided to reshoot it. The discussion is so focused on Burning Paradise that one wonders if the interview was not ready in time for Eureka's Blu-ray release of that film (which only includes a commentary by Djeng and an archival interview with filmmaker Tsui Hark). The disc also includes an archival interview with actor Lee Lik-chi (24:56, in Cantonese with English subtitles) who worked his way up to producer at ATV and TVB where he first collaborated with Chow on some telefeatures. He also discusses the mo lei tau style of humor that has come to be associated with Chow films while also noting that the actor himself emulated the likes of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin in his straight-faced performances as he discusses their collaborations including Flirting Scholar as well as replacing the original firing squad actor in From Beijing with Love.  The disc closes with the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (2:59).
Packaging
The first pressing of 2,000 copies comes with a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grιgory Sacrι (Gokaiju) and a fifteen-page collector's booklet featuring the essay "Spy Games: Hong Kong, Bond and the Comedy King - From Beijing with Love" by James Oliver in which he discusses Chow and the mo lei tau comedy style as well as placing the film in the context of other Hong Kong Bond-style comedies like the Aces Go Places series.
Overall
While From Beijing with Love did not inspire a franchise although we have no idea if there was any intervention from Danjaq it did pave the way for more Stephen Chow comedy.
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