6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Hong Kong police negotiator Lee Chung-Chi has learned that his 16 year old daughter Wing-Chi has disappeared while in Thailand. He travels to Thailand and teams up with Chinese officer Tsui Kit and his partner, Tak, as they face off against American gangster Sacha, who is operating a black market organ smuggling ring. A series of clues lead Chung-Chi to not only learn the fate of his daughter, but overcome the odds to stop the ring once and for all.
Starring: Louis Koo, Yue Wu (I), Ka-Tung Lam, Chris Collins (LV), Tony JaaForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 50% |
Action | 32% |
Crime | 6% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Cantonese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English, Mandarin (Simplified)
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Are there any fathers whose children have been kidnapped who don’t have a “particular set of skills”, as Liam Neeson’s character so memorably phrased it in the first Taken? Of course, there no doubt are, but screenwriters and action thriller directors don’t seem to be aware of them, at least as evidenced by films like Paradox, which takes the basic premise of Taken and ups the ante a bit by including a somewhat over convoluted set of subplots that involve not just kidnapping, but teenage pregnancy, older age pregnancy, politicians with heart problems and (just for good measure) loads of police corruption. The opening few minutes of Paradox quickly elide a lifetime of memories involving Lee Chung-chi (Louis Koo) and his daughter Lee Wing-chi (played by Hanna Chan as a teenager). The father and daughter are seen frolicking during wake up time, out in a park and similar childlike pursuits, until things become somewhat more dramatic in an awkward restaurant scene where Chung-chi attempts to give Wing-chi a birthday present, only to have her introduce her Dad to her boyfriend, who not so coincidentally wants to be her husband since she’s evidently pregnant and wants to keep the baby. All of this information download is handled rather artfully, in just a few lines of dialogue, but it’s evident that Chung-chi is not overly thrilled at the prospects of being a grandfather. The film then segues to Thailand, where Wing-chi is seen walking on a beach until she’s abducted by a (mostly) unseen assailant. It takes Chung-chi a few days to get a panicked call from the woman supposedly looking after Wing-chi, but the rest of the film documents Chung-chi’s travels to Thailand to try to find his missing daughter, finding instead a rat’s nest of competing interests and subterfuges that keep him off kilter much of the time while also providing regular opportunities for Sammo Hung’s over the top fight choregraphy.
Paradox is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Aside from what is by now the expected issues with banding that seem to afflict quite a few Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, this is a nicely sharp and well detailed looking transfer (the IMDb lists a shoot with a variety of Arri products, finished at a 2K DI). The scenic, if sometimes grittily urban, Thailand environments provide a lot of opportunity for sunlit drenched outdoor scenes where things like the aquamarine hues of water really resonate beautifully. While some scenes look just slightly graded toward blue or purple, on the whole the palette looks fresh and natural most of the time. Yip employs a lot of close ups, and fine detail pops very well in those moments. Banding here is perhaps even more prevalent than on some other recent Well Go USA releases; it's especially noticeable in some fades (both in and out), but it can show up at other times as well when there are sudden changes in light intensity.
Paradox features Cantonese and English tracks in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. I toggled back and forth for a while and really didn't notice any appreciable difference in overall amplitude and mix between the two tracks, but (as I typically do) I found the English dub to be less enjoyable from a pure voice acting standpoint. The Cantonese track does have a bit of loose sync in dialogue at times (I suspect not everyone was speaking the same language during the shoot), but otherwise fidelity is spot on and surround activity quite impressive in the set pieces. The bustling urban environment of the film provides a lot of opportunity for well placed traffic and/or crowd sounds, and dialogue is similarly well rendered throughout the presentation.
- The Story (1080i; 2:13)
- The Characters (1080i; 2:25)
- Action Scenes (1080i; 2:21)
- The Director and Action Director (1080i; 2:10)
None of the Kill Zone films (thus far, anyway) have much of a connection to each other, other than some shared performers and certain plot elements like morally ambiguous characters and (in the case of two of the films) pregnancies and organ harvesting. It's probably best to just come to this outing without expecting it to be connected to its two putative predecessors. There's arguably too much plot stuffed into this film, not all of which is that artfully developed, but as usual Sammo Hung has provided some knockout (literally, in terms of what happens to some of the characters) action elements. Recommended.
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