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The Project A Collection - Deluxe Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (15th October 2024). |
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The Film
 "Starring as a swashbuckling turn-of-the-century coastguard, hot on the trail of cut-throat pirates, smugglers and free-wheeling police officers, Jackie Chan treat his audience to a fun-filled, action-packed motion-picture, experience, which shows him at his most reckless and brilliant and has become a benchmark standard for other filmmakers to follow." Project A: In turn-of-the-century Hong Kong, the Coast Guard's efforts to suppress pirates who have been raiding ships going in and out of the harbor has been unsuccessful, and mainland police Captain Chik (Hard Boiled's Hoi-San Kwan) argues that the money and resources allocated to the Coast Guard would be better spent on the police force rather than the admiral's (Hark-Sun Lau) "Project A." The enmity between the two forces is felt down the chain when the Coast Guard and the police force get into a large brawl with Chik's arrogant nephew Captain Tzu (The Way of the Dragon's Biao Yuen) provoking Coast Guard Sergeant Dragon Ma (Rumble in the Bronx's Jackie Chan) before the fight is broken up, Ma reprimanded, and Tzu allowed to slip away. When two of the Coast Guard's ships are blown up, however, the Coast Guard is disbanded, and the sailors start training to be regular cops under the tough tutelage of Tzu. They find ways to resist and sometimes humiliate Tzu who nevertheless recruits Dragon and his buddies Jaws (The Legend of Drunken Master's Mars) and Tai (Heart of the Dragon's Tai-Bo) as Part of his special squad to arrest gangster Chiang (Supercop's Yi-Sheng Han) who they believe is hiding in the VIP club of Mr. Chou (Miracles' Hoi Sang Lee). After they force their way into the club without a warrant and a fight ensues, Tzu become disillusioned when Chi arrives and not only blames Dragon rather than himself but the way his uncle seems to kowtow to Chou. Disgusted with the corruption, Dragon announces that he is quitting the force before then apprehending Chiang and giving credit to Tzu. Leaving the club, Dragon runs into old acquaintance and thief Fei (The Victim's Sammo Kam-Bo Hung ) who reveals that Chou relayed intel to the pirates to blow up the Coast Guard ships before their mission and that the gangster is also arranging to trade a hundred police rifles to the pirates through blackmailing Chik. The pair foils the trade and make off with the weapons only for Dragon to discover Fei's attempts to go behind his back and sell the weapons. Soon the gangsters are after Fei and Dragon while Chi is trying to arrest Dragon for deserting the police force. When the Rear Admiral's ship is attacked by pirate Lo Sam Pao (The Seventh Curse's Dick Wei) and Dragon discovers that the government may resort to letting Chou arrange the ransom payment, he convinces them to reinstate the Coast Guard and let him lead Project A. Chan's fourth effort as a director, Project A was also his most ambitious film yet, taking full advantage of the resources of Raymond Chow's Golden Harvest Company with a period setting, hundreds of extras, and major action setpieces that took almost a year to film. It sets up certain plot devices that fans will see reworked in next hit Police Story and its sequel – which could be seen as the series transposed to the cop film genre – from the reuse (reincarnation) of buddies Mars and Tai-Bo, to his protagonist quitting the force in protest of police corruption and being drawn back by an innate sense of duty. The plotting is rather basic, with the only real diversion being Chan's respect for fellow Peking Opera student Yuen Bao to put them on equal footing as a fighter during the brawl scene in a manner he would usually afford to the final villain in order to draw out the fight sequence. Pirates are pirates, gangsters are gangsters, and the police are ultimately good if sometimes compromised, with only Hung's thief occupying a gray area. As usual, Chan's love interest, here Isabella Wong (The Young Vagabond) is incidental in the extreme; however, like poor Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love) in the Police Story films and Project A: Part II, he does get to throw her off a height to safety. The four action set-pieces are invigorating and well-staged with plenty of evidence of the physical contact – sadly the end credits of this early peak Chan effort consists of more action highlights from the film rather than outtakes as would become common starting with Police Story – but the climactic fight cannot help but pale next to the previous set-piece involving bicycles, handcuffs, the inner workings of a clock tower, and a death-defying homage to Harold Lloyd (the third take of which did culminate in a fall that shattered Chan's ribs). Although Police Story might have been a bigger hit and had wider international distribution, Chan would take on Project A: Part II.  Project A: Part II: The survivors of Lo Sam Pao's band of pirates find their way to shore and make a blood pact of revenge against Dragon Ma (Chan) who has been transferred to the district of Sai Wan to undermine Superintendent Chun (Twin Dragons's David Lam) who has the prestige of overseeing three major districts but whose latest bad publicity in a news story in which he shot two jewelry store robbers has brought back rumors that he has been staging arrests; indeed, the audience discovers that Chun had arranged with gangster Tiger (Royal Warriors's Michael Wai-Man Chan) for the two men to rob the store in exchange for compensation to their families during their eighteen months sentences, only for Chun to kill the fleeing robbers before they could expose him after the shopkeeper's death changes the conviction to a likely death penalty. Dragon and his buddies – including Jaws (Mars) and Tai (Tai-Bo) and are mistaken for troublemakers by the police when they intercede on behalf of San-San (Days of Being Wild's Maggie Cheung) and her cousin Chau Ling (Infernal Affairs II's Carina Lau) who are fundraising for revolutionaries headed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. Although Chun steps aside for Dragon to take over, the Police Commissioner (First Strike's Bill Tung) warns him to expect trouble from the rogue officer. Dragon discovers how deep the corruption runs when he orders the men to clear all outstanding warrants, including the arrest of Tiger, and all the officers but idealistic Sergeant Ching (Fist of Legend's Sun Wong) either threaten to quit or make excuses why the cannot work on the night of the raid. Dragon cancels the raid so as not to tip off Tiger and then executes it with the help of Jaws, Tai-Bo, and Ching, embarrassing Chun with the arrest and throwing a kink into the district's network of criminal operations. Believing Dragon to be another corrupt cop, the revolutionaries' representative Mr. Man (Firestorm's Ray Lui) – with the help of the beguiling Miss Pak (Once Upon a Time in China's Rosamund Kwan) – sets Dragon up for the robbery of a necklace intended as a gift by the governor to his daughter Regina (A Better Tomorrow II's Regina Kent) at the ball given for her birthday. Dragon is arrested but allowed to go out with Tai-Bo as his police escort as he attempts to uncover who really took the necklace, but their investigation becomes intertwined with the disappearance of San-San's cousin who has been abducted by agents of the Empress Dowager, and Dragon faces danger not only from Chun but also the hatchet-wielding pirates who have tracked him down. Like Police Story 2 which came out the year after, Project A: Part II is more densely plotted than the first film; however, that does not necessarily make it more satisfying or fully coherent on the first view. With the pirates reduced to comic relief – for the characters within the film, that is, since the outtakes show that one of their hatches actually did strike the camera lens – the debonair Chun makes for a less interesting villain after Tiger is out of the picture, and the agents of the Empress Dowager do not get to show their training until the climax. While the second act set-piece of the first film was the highlight, here it is a protracted variation on the French farce (as critic Tony Rayns describes it in the disc's interview) with various parties sneaking around San-San's spaciously cramped apartment unaware of each other's presences. The revolutionary subplot takes up a fair amount of running time only to be tied in rather loosely to the main conflict, but it does allow for something of a dry run for the warehouse climax of Police Story 2 with both Cheung and Lau thrown to safety by Chan who makes a novel use of chili peppers in fighting his foes; indeed, like the aforementioned sequel Project A: Part II is not as satisfying as the original but still entertaining and sometimes thrilling. The end credits sequence features both outtakes and a picture-in-picture of Chan in the studio performing the theme song. 
Video
Project A went unreleased in the United States theatrically or on home video until 2000 when Dimension Films followed up New Line's exploitation of Jackie Chan titles with theatrical releases or recut, rescored versions of Supercop and Operation Condor with a handful of direct-to-video releases including a non-anamorphic letterboxed DVD of a version running seven minutes shorter and rescored but not redubbed. By this point, IVL had an English-subtitled region free NTSC DVD of Fortune Star's remaster, the master of which Hong Kong Legends in the U.K. used for their two-disc special edition which would prove the better option for U.S. fans with region free players. When Miramax licensed their Dimension titles to Echo Bridge for DVD and Blu-ray, the result was a confusing set of releases of different versions and different aspect ratios depending on the release. The anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer that appeared in the The Jackie Chan Collection: 8 Film Set turned out to be the full export version with the Dimension version's fullscreen video credits grafted on while the single-disc Blu-ray was the shorter Dimension version framed at 2.35:1 while the transfer in the The Jackie Chan Collection: 4 Film Set turned out to be the shorter version but cropped to 1.78:1. Project A: Part II was not picked up by Dimension originally and was accessible stateside as a Tai Seng import directly porting over the non-anamorphic Megastar Hong Kong DVD which included English subtitles, but more likel to be found on video store shelves was the Dimension DVD which was anamorphic 2.35:1 but trimmed by four minutes while still running two to three minutes longer than the export version, meaning the English track was grafted to the Hong Kong cut. The same master appeared on the aforementioned Echo Bridge eight-film set while the aforementioned four-film Blu-ray set had the full export version with only the credits replaced (but it was also cropped to 1.78:1). These transfers was also supplanted by an English-friendly IVL disc of the Fortune Star remaster that Hong Kong Legends used for their special collector's edition. Region A-locked viewers could import the Hong Kong Blu-rays with English subtitles but both were horrid upscales of the Fortune Star SD masters along with a number of Blu-ray releases of other titles in their catalogue– but Region B-locked viewers could avail themselves of the 2018 Eureka Blu-ray set which featured 2K restorations of both films and extras (a cheaper standard edition was released the following year). Six years later, Region A-locked fans now have 88 Film's U.S.-only four-disc 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray and two-disc Blu-ray sets (Region B-locked viewers with a 4K player can access the film and commentaries but the bulk of the video extras are on the Region A-locked Blu-rays in both packages).  The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray disc of Project A features new 4K restorations of both the Hong Kong cut (105:48) and the extended Taiwanese cut (115:24) for which negative material existed unlike some other Taiwanese versions that only survive as tape masters (although the ten minutes of additional scenes have usually been included on earlier special editions as a lesser-quality video extra). Gone are the yellow/orange casts in studio interiors and slight greenish blue tinge during the backlot exteriors in the shadows and overcast skies giving characters healthier and more variegated pallors. Detail is also crisper with better rendition of patterns in the costumes and décor. Diffusing smoke is evident in some of the brighter interiors but the increased resolution also reveals the limitations of some of the anamorphic lenses with even some wide angle setups falling off in sharpness at the center background of the image rather than along the sides (this is particularly egregious during the opening meeting between the land and water police). Dolby Vision on the 4K disc gives the more saturated colors a bit of pop, and the first film does have some nice use of primaries in the costumes and set design but the Blu-ray is more than sufficient an upgrade over the Eureka and Dimension HD masters. Grain coarsens considerably in a few opticals. The Blu-ray disc of Project A: Part II feature 4K restorations of the Hong Kong cut (106:36) and the export cut (98:09) - note that the export cut on the Eureka edition was an upscale of an older Digital Betacam master while 88 Films reconstructs the export cut from the 4K scan of the Hong Kong version – and the leap in visual style and technical standards is evident in the 2160p24 HEVC 2.35:1 widescreen Dolby Vision 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray discs. Whites and blacks are truer without the daytime bluish casts in the shadows that also dilute some of the primaries like the greens of the land police uniforms that looked bluish on the earlier Eureka master. Detail is good to great where it is unimpeded, however there are still some wide angle shots where the anamorphic lens is either distorted or the depth of field is insufficient and there are some sequences that make use of heavy diffusion like the big hotel scene where some of the high angle shots depicting the scope of action would be more striking if they were clearer. Some of the darker scenes including the opening pirate's cove sequence are grainier than the rest of the film but this is presumably the shooting rather than any composite work of sources. 
Audio
Eureka's Blu-ray of the first film included both the "classic" Cantonese and English dubs in LPCM 1.0 mono – the latter in which Chan and Biao were dubbed with regular voices while almost everyone else was dubbed as "oriental" caricatures (Djeng notes that on the Cantonese track the western actors spoke Cantonese with an accent, a practice that was dropped in later Chan films) – as well as the Fortune Star surround remixes in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 with the new English dubbing being particularly bland. 88 Films' Blu-ray disc features Cantonese and Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks on both cuts as well as new Dolby Atmos remixes in both languages. The surround tracks are largely faithful to the mono mixes which are of course front-oriented but the music gets some nice spread (if not particularly dynamic separation), and the mono effects stems have been creatively employed during the action scenes to provide a bit more directonality (we only sampled parts of the film on an Atmos setup and there is little in terms of overhead activity which presumably would have required added effects or steering the existing ones beyond their limits). The classic English mono dub is also included in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 on both cuts (the English and Cantonese tracks reverting to Mandarin for the extended scenes on the Taiwanese cut).  Eureka's Blu-ray of the second film featured Cantonese LPCM 1.0 mono audio as well as the Fortune Star surround Cantonese and English redubs on the Hong Kong cut while the export cut featured the "classic" dub in Dolby Digital 1.0; however, it turns out that the Cantonese mix on the disc was actually created for the Japanese release with some differences in dialogue and music cues. 88 Films' Hong Kong cut includes the original Cantonese mono track as well as "remixed" Cantonese or Mandarin dubs with remixed music in DTS-HD Master Audio as well as the aforementioned Cantonese mix for the Japanese release, and a newly-created Dolby Atmos mix (comments on the Atmos mixes for the Cantonese one here but the stereo music sources do make the mix sound a bit fuller here than just merely cleaner as they did on the remixed mono tracks). The remixed mono tracks and the Atmos version make use of mono dialogue and effects and stereo music tracks from the film's soundtrack releases in Japan where it was most popular (and where apparently Chan soundtracks were in relative abundance compared to other territories). The export cut includes the classic English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono. 
Extras
The extras for both films are a combination of brand new commentaries and interviews along with interviews dating back to the 2001 Hong Kong Legends editions. Project A's extras start with an audio commentary by film historians Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto who describe the film as a homage to Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and as an evolution in the wake of his frustrations over Dragon Lord which lost the number one box office spot to Aces Go Places (while also noting that Project A despite its popularity lost to both Aces Go Places 2 and Winners and Sinners which featured guest appearances by Chan and Biao). Djeng points out the various film and TVB network actors in small roles while DeSanto observes that the film is deceptively an ensemble piece which has the effect of holding back demonstrations of Chan's and Biao's fighting prowess to later standout sequences. In addition to noting the use of more modern fighting styles, Djeng also observes the great attention to historical detail and the novel setting of colonial Hong Kong rather than the earlier settings of Chan's and other martial arts films, as well as the conflicts between the Hong Kong water police who are dressed like British soldiers and the land police who are dressed in clothes that evoke more traditional Chinese styles. Djeng also reveals that Sammo Hung later took credit for directing much of the film and pushing Chan to do the film's most dangerous stunt, and DeSanto does not that the film is more reflective of Hung than Chan who would find surer footing in the follow-up Police Story. The Hong Kong cut also includes an audio commentary by film historian Frank Djeng intended as a supplement to the first track. The first track was overflowing with observation from both, with Djeng trying to interject information at appropriate points. Here, Djeng covers some of the same information but in more concentrated form, revealing that Chan changed the title from "Pirate Patrol" early on to prevent rip-offs which soon followed bigger films, pop culture anachronisms peppering the dialogue throughout the film despite the attention to period detail otherwise – as well as more specific indicators in the art direction of the period – the presence of Indians in the Hong Kong police force from the British army, real life historical figures, Cantonese word play, as well as perhaps reasons that some of the scenes in the Taiwanese version were cut before the Hong Kong release like the brothel scene (noting the obsessive nature of some of Chan's female fans even when it came to more chaste scenes with love interests in other films). The disc also includes a new interview with Jackie Chan's stunt double Mars Cheung (14:35) who recalls skipping school until his mother found him a sifu, studying Peking Opera and first being asked to do stunt doubling by a classmate when he was fifteen. He recalls becoming part of Chan's team, doing one version of the clock tower fall, remembering that the tourist sail boat they used for the pirate scene sunk in a typhoon the day after, finding the location for the bicycle chase and coming up and staging and shooting shots one at a time with no pre-planning. He also recalls that the reason the sequel was made was because the Emperor of Japan liked the first film. "Dancing with Danger" (15:26) is an earlier interview with Mars from 2001 covering much of the same information. "Master Killer" (22:03) is a 2001 interview with grandmaster Lee Hoi-san (Last Hurrah for Chivalry) who passed away this past September. He discusses his training, his typecasting as villains, and Chan's perfectionist attitude in Project A towards the action scenes. "The Elusive Dragon" (18:07) is a 2001 interview with Yuen Biao discusses his Peking Opera training under master Yu Jim who gave named all of his students "Yuen…" – not to be confused with the actual Yuen clan whose Yuen Woo-Ping directed Chan in his breakout films Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master – with Chan and Hung dropping those names professionally. He largely glosses over Project A and Chan in favor of discussing his work with Bruce Lee (and it is possible this interview from the Hong Kong Legends release might not have been specifically commissioned for the film). "The Pirates Den" (13:57) is a 2001 interview with Dick Wei who recalls being discovered by director Chang Cheh (The One-Armed Swordsman) at Shaw Brothers, his early career, and contrasts the filming coverage and stunt choreography of Chan to that of Sammo Hung, as well as his preference for hand-to-hand fighting over weapons. "Can't Stop the Music" (17:27) is a 2001 interview with composer Michael Lai (Armour of God) who studied music to form a band but would become music director for a television network before moving on to scoring through producing Chan's albums. In "Project Collector" (16:17) Paul Dre travels to the outskirts of London to meet Matt Routledge and look at the largest collection of Jackie Chan memorabilia with everything from international posters and Japanese programs – noting the popularity of Chan in Japan – as well as T-shirts, VHS and laserdisc releases along with even rare VHD editions. "Plan B — Writer Edward Tang on Project A" (15:11) is a new interview in which Tang (Wheels on Meals) recalls that he was a staff writer at Golden Harvest often being assigned different genres. Of his work with Chan, he discusses his themes as well as his working methods in which Chan told him what he wanted to do action-wise and Tang came up with a story to justify the scenes. Outtakes (24:03) include more training of the sailors by Tzu as well as another fight between Dragon and Tzu (one wonders the cutting of these scenes might have also contributed to the fall out between Chan and Yuen) as well as some more comic relief from Mars. The Japanese version ending (2:24) features some different shots during the end credits montage and runs slightly longer at the final freeze frame while "The Making of Project A" (11:45) is a montage of behind the scenes footage with no dialogue and only music. The disc also includes the Lunar New Year Introduction (3:32) by Chan that accompanied the release in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:00), the English export trailer (2:22) and a stills gallery.  Project A: Part II's extras start with an audio commentary film historians Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto in which Djeng reveals that the sequel was once again number three at the box office while the number one spot was Armour of God which had been shot the previous year but was delayed by Chan's injury on that film as well as holding it back for the Lunar New Year release. They note the lack of scenes featuring Hung or Biao in the recap footage from the first film, as Chan realized he was the centerpiece and exercised more control after the first film on which Hung had more influence on Police Story over which Chan had more control (DeSanto even observes that the sequel plays like a "Police Story" film set in the colonial era). They both note the stylistic advance in the intervening four years, as well as the overall bigger budget with sets built specifically for the film in the studio as well as on the Golden Harvest backlot rather than recycling sets as in the earlier film; indeed, Djeng notes that a building erected specifically for this film would be reused in the opening sequence of The Inspector Wears Skirts. DeSanto observes that Chan replaced Hung and Biao with name actresses cast in stronger female roles than the usual damsels while Djeng notes that the regular dubbing actors for Hung and Biao can be heard voice other roles. Djeng also notes that while the earlier film had western actors dubbed in Cantonese with accents, from this point on they would be dubbed without). Djeng also notes that this is one of the first films in which Chan voiced his pro-China sentiments; however, here, it is organic to the plot given the identities of two of the female characters (note that pro-China here means pro-People's Republic of China not the Xing Dynasty which was still in place during the period in which the film is set). Also new to the disc is an interview with grandmaster Anthony Carpio (25:25) who joined Chan's stunt team in 1985 and discusses staging and rehearsing stunts as well as his injuries. He also notes how big of a production the sequel was, shooting on sets built for the film and going back and forth between two of Golden Harvest's three large sound stages as sets were put up and struck down from scene to scene. He also recalls the hotel scene being his favorite sequence in the film and how large an undertaking it was compared to other action scenes in the film. "The Big Boss" (19:40) is a 2001 interview with actor Chan Wai-Man (Broken Oath) who had studied martial arts and become a cop before pursuing a movie career before discussing some of his earlier films in the context of Chan's staging, filming, and editing of fight scenes in Project A: Part II. "Someone Will Know Me" (13:12) is a 1988 documentary focusing on Chan's stunt coordinators Mars, Rocky Lai – who plays pirates in both films – and Chris Lee (Eastern Condors). This is more of a puff piece with cutaways from English-overdubbed casual talking head interviews with the three to comments from three fawning female fans at a screening. The disc also includes the Japanese ending (3:59) which has some different shots during the end credits montage and Chan singing onscreen, as well as the full-screen Jackie Chan recording session (2:33) which features footage of Chan in the studio recording a song. The Hong Kong theatrical trailer (3:09), the English export trailer (2:14), the Tai Seng video trailer (1:41), and a stills gallery close out the disc. 
Packaging
The Blu-ray discs are housed in a hard slipcase in separate keep cases featuring new art by "Kung Fu" Bob O'Brien, six double-sided collectible art cards, double-sided foldout posters for both films, double-sided artwork for both sleeves featuring new art by "Kung Fu" Bob O'Brien & original Hong Kong posters, and a 100-page illustrated collectors' book featuring "Labor of Love: Jackie’s PLAN A Worked Out" by Thorsten Boose, "Project A, No Plan B: A Look into how Project A I & II defined the Jackie Chan 1980s style" by Paul Bramhall, as well as "Someone Will Know Me" an interview with assistant director Roberta Chow.
Overall
88 Films' have given us the definitive audio and video experience of the Project A films in all their big budget splendor and their Hong Kong industry technical rough edges.
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