Blind War Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Blind War Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 10, 2024

Cult television trivia lovers if no one else may get it when I kinda sorta joke that Blind War is basically Taken, if the Liam Neeson character in that franchise had actually been playing Longstreet. For those who aren't cult television trivia lovers, Longstreet was a short lived enterprise that followed in the wake of Ironside , albeit much less successfully, by offering a "disabled" detective, in this case a blind man rather than a paraplegic. And that's really the sum total of what's going on here, in a lo-fi effort that does include some fun fight sequences which will probably be the biggest selling points to fans of Hi- Yah!, Well Go USA's streaming service, which was a production entity here.

The story starts out promisingly enough, with a visceral sequence beginning with a guy in a priest's outfit (one seriously doubts he's really a priest) smashing a cop's head against a toilet, and then proceeding to romance a scantily clad woman who is somehow in on the carnage. That turns out to be a red herring of sorts, setting up a courthouse seige where special forces captain Dong (Andy On) is blinded by a grenade flash and who then has to navigate a new world of being sightless. When his violin prodigy daughter is kidnapped for nefarious purposes (in a plot trope literally ripped from the Taken playbook and/or screenplay), guess who has to rescue her?

There are a number of sidebars here, including a quest for revenge by that aforementioned scantily clad woman as well as some kind of patently odd "comedy relief" courtesy of a buffoonish policeman, both of which may point out how curiously lacking in tonal consistency and narrative momentum this film can be. That lack of consistency extends to one of the central conceits of the film, namely that Dong's hearing is elevated due to the injury to his eyes, and for those who pay attention to a deficit of logic in setups like this, let's just say there may be some more unintentional "comedy relief" in the film as to when and where Dong's "superhuman" abilities work and when they don't.

Blind War Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blind War is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.65:1. There's no real technical information on this shoot that I could find online, probably unsurprisingly. There is some brief picture in picture making of footage as the final credits scroll, and that at least discloses some kind of digital camera, but that's about it. One way or the other this is an appealing looking presentation that boasts some excellent fine detail levels in the bulk of its brightly lit scenes, and which also offers a nicely suffused palette. There are a number of "stylistic" choices, including some grainy and/or distressed looking black and white footage, as well as almost sepia toned moments.

Blind War Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blind War features a nicely expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Mandarin (though there are smatterings of English). The emphasis on Dong's supposed (if comically intermittent) "superhuman hearing" offers some nice opportunities for sound effects throughout the film, often offered directionally to help establish spatial relationships. There's some rather wide dynamic range on tap as well, ranging from bombastic moments like the opening bloodbath and explosions, to quieter dialogue moments. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. While there are optional English and French subtitles, the English subtitles only translate the Mandarin, not the English snippets.

Blind War Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:59)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Blind War Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Longstreet actually got its start as a so-called Movie of the Week courtesy of a "back door pilot", and Blind War plays like the pilot for some new Hi-Yah! series featuring a blind detective (though he'll have to get out of stir first, which is pretty much a given courtesy of a closing vignette). The story here never really amounts to much, but there are some appealing fight scenes for adrenaline junkies. Technical merits are solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.