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The Double Crossers
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (26th August 2024). |
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The Film
 When his father is murdered in an apparent robbery, Singaporean police officer Lung Jian-Min (To Kill with Intrigue's Shin Il-Ryong) discovers a cassette recording in which his father reveals he was a smuggler before leaving the business at the urging of his wife who subsequently died giving birth to him due to the stress of their operations. While one of his business partners Chang Yu-chi (Double Impact's Chan Sing) also washed his hands of the business and settled in Indonesia, their other partner Chen Wang (The One-Armed Swordsman's Chao Hsiung) became a gangland godfather in Hong Kong and Lung's father fingers him as responsible not only for his mother's death but for his own should Lung find the recording. After Chang appears and finishes off Lung's father's murderers himself, Lung decides to quit the force and go after Wang himself. Teaming up with former Wang gang member Pai (A Queen's Ransom's Chang Pei-Shan) - whose wife Nancy (A Moment of Romance's Shirley Wong) was stolen away by Wang – they rob an armored car carrying Wang's casino takings to bait him. Although Wang regards the money as a pittance, he knows he must make an example of the pair and sends his men – lead by Chao (Broken Oath's Michael Chan Wai-Man) – after them. Pai is captured when Nancy inadvertently leads Wang's men to them, but Lung is able to hop a boat to Bali where Chao and Wang surmises he will be going to meet Chang. Chao and his mean follow, but Lung has already met up with Chang who takes some of the money to put towards his revenge plan involving a lucrative oil well – knowing that Wang wants a foothold in the international fuel demand – and has teamed up with Chang's nephew Tommy and lovely hotel maid Renee (Tuty Kirana) to draw Wang himself to the island; however, Chou has also teamed up with local gangs to hunt Lung and Chang down. A vehicle for one of the many potential Bruce Lee replacements in Korean actor Shin, The Double Crossers is less of a martial arts film than a straight thriller with as much shooting and explosions as hand-to-hand (or knife) combat. Well-shot with high production values on location in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia by director Cheng Chang-Ho (Five Fingers of Death), the film moves at a nice clip – while simultaneously seeming "breezy" with its lush, sunny backdrops – and actually does keep the viewer in suspense about Chang's motives while also puzzling us about how Wang's men are going to put up with his own incompetence seemingly as a defect of the script rather than an element of suspense. The film has some light humor but is also quite brutal in its violence, particularly the climax. Shin has the look and the stoicism for a Bruce Lee clone, but the film itself is ultimately rather slight and just the sort of Hong Kong effort that could easily be a pleasant surprise for Hong Kong action and martial arts fans or just elicit a shrug. The funky scoring of Joseph Koo (A Better Tomorrow) is actually an original work rather than a mix of library and unauthorized tracks, but it feels like the latter due to the rather blunt transitions between tracks which may just as easily be indicative of some censor cuts or some last minute fine tuning in the editing. 
Video
Eureka's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray features 2K restorations of the Hong Kong version (99:36) and the shorter export version (97:44) which has brand new digitally-generated credits. A slick-looking film, the transfer sports overall crisp resolution and deep black shadows during the opening sequences and vibrant colors during the Hong Kong and Bali sequences, with only some natural light interiors looking noisier due to underexposure and a couple group compositions where the blocking is such that a character in the center of the frame is out of focus compared to the foreground characters flanking him. There is no trace of archival damage, and both versions are very satisfying views. 
Audio
Fans who like to compare audio tracks will be happy to know that the Hong Kong version includes both Mandarin and English LPCM 2.0 mono tracks while the export version only includes the English LPCM 2.0 mono track. The "classic" English is always a nice option, but some of the voice casting is quite poor, like the local Indonesian cop who has to deliver the final lines of dialogue summing up the film. Effects are canned and flat but music has a forceful presence while the dubs on both tracks are quite divorced from the ambiance as expected. The optional English subtitles do seem confusing as such, referring to Wang as Chen even though he is called Wang everywhere else on both the English and Mandarin tracks. 
Extras
Extras include the usual lineup of commentators. On the audio commentary by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival), Djeng notes the use of the older Golden Harvest logo and the use of Mandarin before the switch over to Cantonese in Hong Kong cinema. He also notes the wordplay of the title which translates roughly as "ghost play, double heroes", the career of Shin in Korea and Hong Kong, the film's fight sequences and Chan Sing's basher style of fighting, as well as Chang Pei-Shan's reputation as a prolific dubbing artist during the period where Hong Kong films were predominately in Mandarin. On the audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, they note how the opening sequence is tonally inconsistent with the rest of the film – as well as observing the odd touch of trying to make the murder look like a suicide – and describe Chan Sing as the "Chinese Charlie Bronson" with a discussion of his range of credits, as well as providing background on Kirana who has won multiple Indonesian industry awards as an actress and producer ad is still active today. They also discuss the film's co-production status, noting Golden Harvest's attempting to compete with Shaw Brothers who were also branching out internationally. The disc also includes the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (3:30). 
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork while the first pressing includes a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling and a collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver. 
Overall
The Double Crossers is just the sort of Hong Kong effort that could easily be a pleasant surprise for Hong Kong action and martial arts fans or just elicit a shrug
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