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PTU: Special Collector's Edition
R1 - America - Genius Products Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (22nd March 2008). |
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The Film
 "PTU: Police Tactical Unit" had quite a bit to live up to for me. I know the Director’s (Johnnie To) work from the brilliant film "Election" (2005). Not to mention "PTU" is compared to "Reservoir Dogs" (1992) on the cover by a critic. That said, I was very excited going into this film. Unfortunately, it couldn’t live up to these expectations, and what I got was an incredibly average Hong Kong cop movie, of which are now becoming a dime a dozen. The story follows the intertwining lives of different police forces of Hong Kong during the course of one night. The focus of the story is Sergeant Lo Sa, or Fatty, (Suet Lam), who will be recognized by some as the Axe Gang general from "Kung Fu Hustle" (2004) who was killed off very early in the film. Sergeant Lo Sa gives pursuit to a group of thugs, slips on a banana peel, and loses his gun. The film revolves around his quest to find his gun, with the aid of Sergeant Mike Ho (Simon Yam), the leader of a PTU group. The two men have been given until morning to find the gun before it will be reported. The two cross paths with Inspector Leigh Cheng (Ruby Wong), the bad ass strait cop who doesn’t want any part of these shady shenanigans. All three cops get caught up with a gang war, and the three must play the gangster against each other to stay in the game. I’ll be honest; I was completely on board with this film for the first 40 minutes or so. I thought it was pretty interesting, and was setting up to what I thought would be another entertaining 40 minutes. However, somewhere in the middle, the story just becomes somewhat incoherent. I was losing track of what gangsters were and who was undercover, etc, etc. Maybe the story was just too complicated for me, and maybe that’s your thing, but I felt like many of the characters were acting arbitrarily and without proper set up as why they were doing what they were doing. The whole bad cop-movie vibe of the film is also not helped by the laughable movie score by Chung Chi Wing. Ever time you’ve ever seen a parody of a cop movie where they use ridiculously cheesy guitar riffs to accentuate how “heavy” the situation is, imagine that, only plastered on a real cop film. This sometimes made the film seem worse than I knew it was. When I first heard about Dragon Dynasty, the label that this film came out under, funded by the Weinstein Company, I was excited that maybe the US would finally get some legitimately good Hong Kong films. Over the years I’ve imported random movies, hoping they were good, only to get a crappy film nine times out of ten. I feel as though Dragon Dynasty has used the same method. They aren’t separating out the exceptional movies from Hong Kong, but seem to just import any average movie, dress it up to look cooler than it actually is, and hope that anyone will buy it. Maybe I’m just bitter as fan of Asian cinema, having to sift through mediocre films such as "PTU", when I know Hong Kong has much better films to offer.
Video
"PTU" is offered in it's original 2.35:1 widescreen transfer. The picture quality on this disc was lacking to say the least. Whenever colors were very bright or very dark, there were many instances of grain and noise in http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0803308/>the picture. The film spends a ton of time in the shadows on Hong Kong, so throughout most of the movie I found this to get a bit distracting. Also, the transfer doesn’t have a ton to work with in terms of the movie looking good. Nothing interesting is ever done with the feel or colors of the movie, and found it incredibly bland to look at.
Audio
"PTU" is offered in a Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as in English Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. While lacking in nearly every other technical regard, this DVD sports impressive sound. Not only did all of the film’s sound effects, cheesy music, and dialogue come out clear as crystal, but I was amazed at how well the background noises of Hong Kong’s nightlife moved around. I’m slightly befuddled as to why so much work went into the movie’s sound, and so little on its picture quality. Optional subtitles are included in English and Spanish.
Extras
Genius Products has released this film as a 'Special Collector's Edition' and included an audio commentary, three ,b>interviews, a couple of theatrical trailers as well as a series of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. The disc offers a feature-length audio commentary from Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan. This isn’t the first track from Logan that I have listened to, and he has a good record of making average Hong Kong films interesting to watch. Even though I was unimpressed with the film itself, Logan recounts interesting stories and facts concerning the film’s production. He also offers interesting interpretations of visual images used by the director. Overall, Logan’s commentary made me appreciate the movie a little more, and was to pretty interesting. There are 3 in-depth interviews featured on this disc, they include: - "On the Trail of the Smoking Gun: An Exclusive Interview with Leading Man Simon Yam", running at 21 minutes and 48 seconds. In this extensive interview, Yam explains his acting methods for "PTU", as well as the faith he put in the director that he was making a great film. I feel as though this feature spends too much time replaying moments from the film, making it way too long. I wish it had just been Yam talking constantly, instead of arbitrary breaks to rehash the film. - "Into the Perilous Night: An Exclusive Interview with Acclaimed Director Johnnie To", running at 13 minutes and 27 seconds, offers the film’s head offer his two cents. As a fan of the director before seeing "PTU", I found this interview to be a bit more interesting. I enjoyed hearing To explain why he made certain choices in the film, particularly why he cast certain female roles. As with the last interview, it is prolonged with unnecessary replays of the film, making it longer than it needs to be. - "Cool as a Kat: An Exclusive Interview with Leading Lady Maggie Siu", running at 12 minutes and 51 seconds, lets the woman playing Kat speak her mind on the film’s production. I thought it strange calling her a “leading lady” as her role was secondary to actress Ruby Wong’s portrayal of Inspector Cheng. Regardless, I found what Siu had to say interesting. I enjoyed hearing her stories of acting with Yam, and how much of a joker he was. Also, Siu expresses her honest belief that "PTU" is a great film, and I liked hearing her reasons why, even if I disagree with pretty much all of them (she called the soundtrack powerful!). The DVD also includes two version of the film's theatrical trailer, one being the original, running at 2 minutes and 7 seconds, as well as the US trailer, running at 2 minutes and 2 seconds. Rounding out the extras are bonus trailers for other films from Dragon Dynasty have also been included, and they are: - "Fatal Contact" running at 22 seconds. - "Dog Bite Dog" running at 1 minute and 57 seconds. - "Dragon Heat" running at 2 minutes and 1 second. - "City of Violence" running at 1 minute and 41 seconds.
Overall
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