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The Blue Jean Monster
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (10th December 2023). |
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The Film
 Hong Kong cop Joe (Prison on Fire's Shing Fui-On) and his wife Chu (Haunted Jail House's Pauline Wong) are expecting a child when Joe puts his life in danger by going after a gang of violent robbers. He gets the drop on the men, but their leader (Audition's Jun Kunimura) drops a load of metal construction debris on him and they get away. Trapped in his dying body, Joe prays that he will live long enough to see his child born and to capture his killers; whereupon a black cat jumps onto his body which is then galvanized by a bolt of lightning. Joe breaks free of his death trap just in time to kill one of the robbers who is chasing Gucci (The Story of Ricky's Gloria Yip) who was taken hostage by the robbers and made off with the loot after they crashed their getaway car. Returning home, Joe has no memory of what he has done but he has fatal wounds for which he feels no pain. He attempts to hide them from his wife and his superior Lao (Fight Back to School's Peter Lai) who fortuitously tasks him with catching the robbers, hoping to pin the failure on him as they have no leads. Joe attempts to seek medical help when he feels his strength slipping away and collapses in a hospital waiting room. The doctors pronounce him dead just as he wakes up on the operating table, having been "recharged" by the defibrillator. Realizing that he needs periodic jolts of electricity to keep going, Joe attempts to conceal his deteriorating body from his wife who comically misconstrues his apparent lack of sexual interest in her and his closeness to adopted former juvenile delinquent "Power Steering" (A Moment of Romance's Tse Wai-Kit). When Joe discovers that Power Steering's girlfriend Gucci has the loot, he must come up with a way to bring the criminals to him as each jolt of electricity rapidly depletes his life force and speeds up his decay. Seemingly as much inspired by Dead Heat as it anticipates the Jason Statham Crank films, The Blue Jean Monster is a Category III Hong Kong exploitation film that features little gore and no nudity – despite a special appearance by Amy Yip (Sex and Zen) – managing a series of icks rather than full-on gross out by way of a few sight gags involving open wounds patched up by make-up and viscous food stuffs and a lot of crude dialogue about erectile dysfunction and sex during pregnancy. The comedy is as uneven as the action sequences – only the climax is a real standout – but it manages some poignancy thanks to a rare lead performance by usually typecast villain Fui-On while Wong, Gloria Yip, and Wai-Kit manage to give some nuance to their broadly-drawn characters while Kunimura relishes his ruthless bad guy role, picking off a dealer who has just sold him a powerful rifle at long range and brutalizing the female characters in order to earn his explosive comeuppance. Director Ivan Lai, who made his name in Category III films like Erotic Ghost Story III and Daughter of Darkness before the genre fell out of fashion, wisely realizes the film's dramatic limitations and ends right after the final action scene rather than giving the characters and the viewers too long to mourn the fallen hero. 
Video
Not dubbed or widely exported, The Blue Jean Monster was mainly accessible as as Hong Kong laserdisc and VHS with burnt-in dual-language subtitles before Joy Sales' Fortune Star PAL-converted remaster. 88 Films' dual-territory 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a 2K scan of the original negatives appears to be the film's worldwide debut on the format. We have not seen any earlier incarnations but the presentation seems relatively faithful to the look of other Hong Kong films of this budget. Primaries pop in well-lit interiors, night exteriors are grainier as are optical effects, and the resolution does favors for some cheap but "textured" make-up effects. 
Audio
The sole audio option is a Cantonese LPCM 2.0 mono track. All of the dialogue is post-dubbed and sounds fine, as do the not-particularly-dynamic or active sound effects and scoring. Optional English subtitles are provided, but we are not sure if the dialogue was always this juvenile or if the translator took additional liberties. 
Extras
Extras include "Man Made Monster" (20:27) in which assistant director Sam Leong who studied film in Japan before coming back to Hong Kong where he got involved with Golden Harvest deputy director Chua Lam (Armour of God) who manages some of the smaller Golden Harvest companies and saw Category III films as a breakthrough field for lower budget productions competing with the company's bigger projects. He recalls watching American genre films with Lam on VHS and that the film was indeed inspired by Dead Heat, and that the unusual lead casting of Fui-On had more to do with second-time director Lai being comfortable working with familiar collaborators from his days as an assistant director.  The disc also includes the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (2:57) and a stills gallery (4:25).
Packaging
Comes with a double-sided O-ring slipcover and a reversible sleeve with newly commissioned artwork by James Neal and Original HK poster (neither of which was provided for review).
Overall
Seemingly inspired by Dead Heat and anticipating Crank, The Blue Jean Monster is as cheap and crude Category III exploitation as one could ask.
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