The Enforcer
Jet Li takes on the Hong Kong mob
Tags: Dragon Dynasty Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Feb 12th, 2009
The Enforcer was made at the height of the second renaissance of Hong Kong action filmmaking, which lasted about 20 years from the late 80s to a few years ago. Starring Jet Li, the film is a balance between crime/character drama and straight up action film. For this reason it isn’t for most fans of the genre simply looking for an adrenaline fix. It is also for this same reason that The Enforcer stands out because it does give its characters more depth and the plot more intricacy.
Jet Li is an undercover policeman in Beijing attempting to maintain his cover even to his family. After a bit of establishment to his character and home life, he is assigned to infiltrate a gang that has ties to Hong Kong. Blackie Ko may not be a familiar name but his face is, and portrays the thug that Jet Li latches onto and uses to gain entrance into the criminal organization. Yu Rong Guang is the main heavy in the film, looking as if he is attempting to audition for a spot in the band Madness, complete with trenchcoat.
Also in Hong Kong Anita Mui is there portraying a police investigator looking into the activities that the criminal organization, and by extension Jet Li’s character. In a prominent role we also have Miu Tse as Jet Li’s son. Everybody does a great job, though Yu Rong Guang does a bit of scene chewing and is a little bit too over the top. Still it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the film.
There are a few stretches in logic, but nothing that breaks the logic of the story. For what the filmmakers are trying to convey, some of the various conventions have to be given leeway, and it is admirable actually that much of the film actually places quite a bit of emphasis on the characters and plot rather than simply trying to pack in as much action as possible.
While there aren’t a lot of pure action sequences, there are a few that are quite choice. One particularly stands out with Miu Tse and Anita Mui about halfway through the film. Most of the martial arts is fairly grounded in reality which is a nice touch and the action sequences aren’t ridiculously over the top. This is attributable to director Cory Yuen, himself a legend in the genre.
Being a Dragon Dynasty release, there are a number of special features. Starting off with the audio commentary by Dragon Dynasty “go to” guy Bey Logan. Again it is informative as with virtually every other commentary the man delivers for the label. It gets a bit more self congratulatory and he name drops a bit more this time around but it is still worth checking out. Three interviews are also worth watching, but none with Jet Li.
There are some problems with this release, however, and it shows (as with Supercop) that Dragon Dynasty may be getting a bit too full of itself. The first is that this is the “international” cut of the film, so we don’t have the full film as it was originally released in Hong Kong. We should have been given both versions. Secondly, several times deleted scenes were mentioned in the audio commentary but they are nowhere to be found. Also, we are forced to listen to the English language dub, where the original language audio and music tracks are missing. It’s a good thing this is not baseball because that’s three strikes.
Here’s what Dragon Dynasty has to say about the lack of original language on the DVD:
“Dragon Dynasty strives to provide fans with only the highest quality DVD releases, including restored video and audio and extensive never-before-seen bonus features created exclusively for the label.DVD in the U.S.”
Though no usable version of the original Cantonese-language track was available in time for this release, every effort was made to bring together the best elements in the world in creating the greatest version of The Enforcer ever experienced on
Boooo!!
Still, The Enforcer is a good film. It may not be the best the genre has to offer, and this DVD release isn’t helping matters any, but fans will enjoy at least renting this one.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Good police/family drama + Some of the action sequences are realy worth watching |
5.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Only the "international" cut of the film - Where are the deleted scenes? - What happened to the original language track? - not as much action as one might expect |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| The worst Dragon Dynasty release, purely on a technical level. The Enforcer is a decent film, but this DVD release is far from being what the fans deserve. | |
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Tags: Dragon Dynasty
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Feb 12th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
