6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
When a little girl is kidnapped by a trafficking ring, they soon find they messed with the wrong child. Her mother, a notorious former gang leader, is close on their trail and will go to any lengths to bring her child home.
Starring: Veronica Ngo, Kim Long Thach, Trang Le, Mai Cát ViForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 47% |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Vietnamese: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Vietnamese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Bryan Mills, the character essayed by Liam Neeson in the Taken 3-Movie Collection, famously had “a particular set of skills” that allowed him to maraud through a series of bad guys in order to rescue various folks, including family members, but one might reasonably argue that Mills’ “particular set of skills” didn’t really include meaningful family relationships. Think about it for a moment, especially with regard to the first film — there are a few introductory vignettes setting up the situation of Mills’ daughter being kidnapped, and then Mills’ understandably fraught reaction, but there is little to no actual on screen contextualizing of the father-daughter relationship, other than Mills wanting to rescue her. That “missing” aspect (no pun intended) is wisely ameliorated in the somewhat similar Furie, a film which posits a Vietnamese character named Hai Phuong (Veronica Ngo), who in fact also has “a particular set of skills” which come into play after her daughter Mai (Cát Vy) is, yes, kidnapped, for reasons which are probably considerably even more nefarious than those with regard to Mills’ daughter in Taken.
Furie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is another release without a ton of technical data easily findable online, though it does appear that cinematographer Morgan Schmidt utilized Arri Alexa cameras for the shoot. As usual, I'm assuming this was finished at a 2K DI. The results here are rather striking looking quite a bit of the time, especially considering how deeply graded toward purples, violets and blues a lot of the film is. Detail levels are quite impressive throughout the presentation, and some of the outdoor location footage offers pretty substantial depth of field. Patterns on costumes or even the look of some elements like hemp rope are typically very precise in appearance. There are some deficits in shadow detail, especially toward the final third or so of the film, much of which takes place in rather dimly lit environments.
Furie features a very expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1* track that offers consistent surround activity and some really well done effects,
as in some scenes where Hai takes off on a little scooter chasing after the bad guys, with resultant panning that nicely populates the surround
channels. The film has a glut of "crowd" scenes where background clatter spills into the side and rear channels quite effectively. Dialogue is presented
cleanly and clearly throughout. There is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offering an English dub, but I frankly couldn't stand some of the voice work,
so my personal advice is to stick with the original unless you simply can't stand reading subtitles.
*Audio specs are being updated as this review is being published, so the Vietnamese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 listing above will be corrected soon.
- Difficult Action Scenes (1080i; 3:16)
- French Action Team (1080i; 2:34)
- Mai Cat Vi (1080i; 3:38)
- Phan Thanh Nhien (1080i; 3:43)
Furie takes the basic premise of Taken and ups the ante pretty significantly by spending enough time developing the mother and daughter relationship early in the film so that audience actually cares what happens, rather than just responding to regular jolts of adrenaline (which this film supplies in massive quantities). The story is ultimately pretty predictable, which may be one liability in a film which otherwise hits the ground running (in more ways than one) and rarely lets up. Ngo is an absolute force of nature in this film, and it's great to see a female taking on some traditionally male action adventure territory here. The Vietnamese locations are also very interesting, and the film has a rather distinctive flavor due to its "ethnicity". Technical merits are strong, and Furie comes Recommended.
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