7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
An armored truck is secretly transporting $100 million for a U.S. bank when it is hijacked by a band of robbers calling themselves the 'Ronin Gang'. The gang blows up the truck and makes off with all the cash. Three young detectives, led by Chan Chun, are soon assigned to thwart another massive bank robbery organized by the Ronin Gang.
Starring: Nicholas Tse, Jaycee Cho-Ming Chan, Shawn Yue, Jing Wu, Andy OnForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 59% |
Action | 58% |
Crime | 28% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Cantonese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Cantonese: DTS 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
It’s a good thing that director Benny Chan and his co-scenarists Rams Ling and Melody Lui decided not to call their film Inaudible Target, or they may have been liable for false advertising. This loud, bombastic and literally explosive film starts out with a hyperbolic bang and rarely lets up for the next two or so hours, providing one conflagration after another, detonations which punctuate an otherwise fairly trite and true (pun intended) storyline. When a group of thugs engineers the heist of a fortune from an armored car, killing several innocent bystanders (as well as almost all of the responding policemen) in the process, they set a revenge scenario in motion by dint of the fact that one those killed was the fiancée of a police officer named Chan Chun (Nicholas Tse). When the same gang shows up a few months later and manages to kill yet more people, this time yet another group of policemen led by Carson Fong Yik-wei (Shawn Yue). The third leg of what becomes the figurative stool upon which the vengeance setup is built is a rookie cop named Wai King-ho (Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie), who, while a true blue straight arrow sort, has been suspended from duty due to his brother cop’s disappearance, which the higher-ups in the police force believe is due to the brother having joined the criminal gang. When Chan and Carson question Wai about the fate of his brother, an unlikely alliance is forged as the three, all seeking answers and for wont of a better word “closure” to their various emotional wounds, set out to bring the gang to justice.
Ka-BOOM!
How is it we could put a man on the moon and yet so many high-def releases are plagued by what seems like should be are easily solvable problems like aliasing, moire patterns and shimmer? I am happy to report that Invisible Target's really sharp looking AVC encoded 1080p image (in 2.35:1) may not exactly be "one small step for man, one giant leap for (Blu-ray watching) Mankind," but it manages to resolve some typically thorny issues like close-knit herringbone patterns on menswear with pristine clarity. Overall the film dabbles in tints of green and blue, with a sort of fluorescent cast to a lot of the proceedings, all of which is presented here with accuracy and abundant detail. It's my hunch that the film's occasional blown out contrast is by design, and so I won't mark the film's image quality down for that stylistic choice, though some videophiles may indeed be bothered by its resultant lack of fine detail. Otherwise this is a really sharp looking transfer, one of the best from the Dragon Dynasty imprint's pretty spotty track record.
While there are no lossless audio options on Invisible Target, only the most persnickety audiophiles are going to have much to complain about, especially in the superior standard Cantonese DTS 5.1 mix, which is stupendously robust, delivering a literally earth shaking amount of LFE throughout the film's many explosions and battles. This is a sonic onslaught which may not have a lot of subtlety to recommend itself, but which bristles and thumps and swoops around the listener with such alarming force that it can be breathtaking at times. Also on tap are a standard Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, which is noticeably less robust especially on the low end of the spectrum, as well as an English dub delivered in Dolby Digital 5.1. After toggling through all three, it was an easy choice to settle on the DTS mix, which manages to eke out a fair amount of immersion in the fight sequences, while delivering a solid, if unspectacular, center-heavy mix in the dialogue sequences. Yes, lossless audio would have upped the ante that much more, but the DTS 5.1 mix provided here is enjoyable and extremely forceful in the action sequences.
One of the strongest arrays of supplements on any Dragon Dynasty release thus far help to give the fan a lot of background information on this film. The extras (all in SD) include:
There's nothing particularly new or innovative in Invisible Target (in fact, quite the opposite), but director Chan stages everything with considerable panache, helping to make this film enjoyable despite its trite elements. This Blu-ray looks and sounds spectacular (despite no lossless audio), and fans of this genre will find a lot to like in Invisible Target. Recommended.
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