Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 24, 2018

Shhhhhhh. Hey, Great Britain — I don’t want to overly alarm you, but China may still be just a little ticked off about the whole Hong Kong thing. ‘K?

I begin this review of Chasing the Dragon with that hopefully obviously comic aside since while the film itself can kind of be seen as a more or less traditional Chinese gangster and cop opus, albeit filtered through a sixties’ sensibility that tended to remind me of American Hustle, despite the David Russell film being set a decade or so later, it has a rather potent subtext that makes it quite clear that some Chinese lay the blame for rampant criminality and corruption that were hallmarks of Hong Kong society for decades directly at the feet of the British. Chasing the Dragon pairs two of the biggest stars in Asian cinema, Donnie Yen and Andy Lau (whose credit states his is a “special appearance”), in a tale that is evidently based at least in part on real life, and which in fact has been filmed before as To Be Number One . Chasing the Dragon attempts to forge a kind of epic storytelling within what is in essence a kind of intimate story of an unlikely friendship between a drug dealer named Crippled Ho (Donnie Yen) and a police inspector named Lee Rock (Andy Lau). Lau fans may recall he played this same role in a “triad” (sorry) of other films, the incredibly innovatively named Lee Rock , Lee Rock II and Lee Rock III. It’s a really interesting gambit pairing a more or less real life character (Ho) with another character based on a real life figure who had been fictionalized in other films that deal with the same issues of Hong Kong corruption (Rock), but the almost palpable chemistry between Lau and Yen help Chasing the Dragon to overcome a couple of narrative hurdles along the way.

There’s an aspect to Chasing the Dragon which may remind some viewers of huge, decades spanning crime films like The Godfather Trilogy and Once Upon a Time in America, with the film documenting Ho from the time he arrives illegally in Hong Kong in the early sixties, to many years later, when his decades of illicit activity finally catch up to him, he’s imprisoned, and then, finally, let out when another kind of “sentence” is imposed by his health. It’s a huge, sprawling story that Chasing the Dragon attempts to tell, and at times it tends to meander a bit, without enough contextualization, at least perhaps for some Western viewers not up to speed on the “colonial” history of Hong Kong.

Ho begins the film as a kind of “undocumented alien”, hanging around a dilapidated boarding house with a bunch of other illegal interlopers, but already he’s starting to “branch out” into criminal activity since the pay scale is so much more impressive than what he can earn from good old fashioned working. Almost instantly, though, he gets swept up in a gang war that ultimately involves the martinet head of the British run riot police, Ernest Hunter (Bryan Larkin). Meanwhile, Lee Rock (Andy Lau) is an overtly ambitious cop who plans to marry well in order to advance his career, and who is certainly not above partaking in, and perhaps even managing, the rampant corruption involving the Hong Kong police force. A different kind of “marriage”, one of convenience, between Rock and Ho informs the main section of the film, but as is perhaps hinted by that “special appearance” credit for Lau, Chasing the Dragon is arguably much more Ho’s story than Rock’s, at least in terms of where most of the emotional import can be found.

As much as the story would seem to be Ho’s, however, there’s the lingering stench of British autocracy suffusing this film in a way that makes it clear there are some rather strong resentments still evident from England’s long “rule” of Hong Kong. It’s an ironic thesis, given the fact that Hong Kong police types were at least complicit in the rampant corruption, but it gives Chasing the Dragon a slightly screed like edge at times that may not sit all that easily with “rah rah” Western types. That said, the film builds to some undeniable emotion in its late going, as life choices come back to haunt both of the main characters. Lau and Yen both do excellent work here, segueing easily between the action elements and character beats.

Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chasing the Dragon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I was frankly kind of stunned to see the IMDb lists this as having been captured at a native 6K resolution (with a 2K DI) by Red cameras, since I found a lot of this presentation to be at least somewhat lacking in detail and saturation, though it's obvious that at least some of these deficits are intentional stylistic gambits, as evidenced by the sudden shift to a more sharply defined and vividly suffused coda section finding the two characters in their old age. The bulk of the film has a kind of peculiar green cast running through it, something that tends give both interior and exterior scenes a kind of odd look at times. The presentation has obviously been digitally tweaked to give it at least a passing resemblance to film, though I have to say for me personally the patent artificiality of this look tends to work against the gritty ambience it's evidently trying to establish. Contrast is also kind of anemic throughout much of the presentation, resulting in a lack of overly excellent delineation in blacks and shadow detail in a number of nighttime and/or otherwise darkened sequences. I'm kind of splitting the difference in a way with my score since I'm firmly convinced at least some these issues are intentional stylistic choices. To my eyes, this film "looks" like a 3.0 or 3.5, but it may well more or less perfectly represent its theatrical exhibition (which I never saw).

Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Chasing the Dragon features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks in both Cantonese and English, though no matter which language you choose, it's more than obvious that huge swaths of the film, and maybe the film in its entirety, was post-dubbed. Sync is more than merely loose at various times even on the Cantonese track, where lip movements for even the Chinese actors often seem to indicate they were perhaps speaking Mandarin (I am in no way an expert, I am simply reporting that lip movements tend not to match spoken sounds). Just for the record, some of the British people do speak English on the supposed Cantonese track. All of this said, this is an often boisterous mix that makes the most of a crowded and often cacophonous urban setting, as well as exploiting good ambient environmental sounds in more exotic jungle scenes, offering consistent surround activity above and beyond the expected action sequence overkill. Dialogue and effects are rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:44)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA releases, the disc has been authored so that trailers for other Well Go USA releases automatically follow the one for this particular film. Those other trailers also play automatically at disc boot up.

Chasing the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Chasing the Dragon should certainly appeal to fans of both Yen and Lau, and the film has a nice retro production design (even if some of the male wigs are a little questionable). The "evil British overlord" angle may be played up a bit too much, but the interplay between Ho and Rock is often electric, and Ho's story is ultimately rather moving. I'm frankly not quite sure what to make of the film's presentational style, which I personally found tended to take me out of the story rather than subliminally reinforcing it. Other than that, though, Chasing the Dragon comes Recommended.