Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Paradox Blu-ray Movie Review

Taken: Thailand.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 7, 2018

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.

Though it may not be immediately apparent since this film’s title breaks from “tradition”, but this is supposedly the latest entry in the SPL and/or Kill Zone franchise, following Kill Zone and Kill Zone 2. Paradox actually has different things in common with both films, not simply relegated to issues like the same cast members and such. Without getting too much into spoiler territory, Paradox lifts the “shades of gray” aspects of the first film, a story where even the good guys weren’t all that good, and both the pregnancy angle and organ harvesting aspects of the second film, in a story that (much like both of the preceding efforts) probably relies on coincidence and serendipity a bit too much, at least for those who want a little believability informing their relentless fight scenes. One thing that Paradox does manage to do, though, is make the sheer “coincidence” of Wing-chi’s disappearance almost a “philosophical” conundrum, though it takes a while for the film to get there. Again, without spoiling anything outright, in a showdown late in the film where Chung-chi has cornered one of the main villains, the bad guy simply informs Chung-chi that Wing-chi was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and trying to lay responsibility on that vagary of fate is like trying to figure out why some people are killed in natural disasters.

That said, Paradox arguably tries to combine too many elements, several of which need overly convenient connections to make them work. While there’s the main thrust of Chung-chi desperately searching for his daughter gives the film an undeniably visceral focus, the sidebars to the main story are an at times baffling array of different subject matters. There’s a whole melodramatic aspect featuring local cop Chui Kit (Wu Yue), whose wife is experiencing a troubled pregnancy, and whose father-in-law is a possibly duplicitous high ranking police officer. (To cite just one example of how kind of bizarrely tangential certain plot elements are, there’s a whole, weird thing involving a supposedly “special song” that the wife sings for her father that comes off as really odd, including the fact that the restaurant the trio frequents seems to have an in house band just sitting around waiting for the wife to get up there and belt out her Dad’s favorite tune. The pregnancy aspect at least dovetails somewhat into Chung-chi’s reaction to his own daughter’s pregnancy, but there are other elements, like a local Thai cop named Tak (Tony Jaa) who seems to have wandered in from the old American thriller about a supposedly psychic investigator, Man on a Swing. And we haven’t even gotten to the political aspect, which turns into an organ harvesting scheme that is at least a little reminiscent of Coma, albeit more “individually” and arguably less “clinically” than depicted in that Michael Crichton thriller.

Despite this overabundance of plot mechanics, Paradox remains pretty relentlessly exciting since director Wilson Yip and fight choreographer Sammo Hung aren’t so wedded to the narrative that they forget to include several outstanding set pieces featuring a glut of hand to hand combat styles, often with sometimes outrageous props or settings. While the fighting gives the film undeniable energy, it actually tends to sap some of the emotional carnage that’s supposedly on display. This is probably nowhere more evident than in what in most films would be the “final showdown”, with Chung-chi coming to a devastating realization after both getting his butt kicked viciously and kicking other butts just as viciously himself. The fact that Paradox moves on from this “big finale” to a somewhat more subdued, if no less intense, coda of sorts seems to indicate that the filmmakers were aiming for something more than just another action adventure thriller. I’m not sure they completely succeeded in that effort, but Paradox at least does succeed in providing some adrenaline pumping action sequences.

Paradox Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Paradox Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of offer a few basically interchangeable featurettes that do have some fun behind the scenes footage:

  The Story (1080i; 2:13)

  
  

  The Characters (1080i; 2:25)

  
  

  Action Scenes (1080i; 2:21)

  
  

  The Director and Action Director (1080i; 2:10)

• Teaser Trailer (1080p; 1:58)


• Main Trailer (1080p; 1:37)

(This is the second Well Go USA release I've reviewed recently where the supposed "Teaser" is somewhat humorously longer than the actual Main Trailer.)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, this disc has been authored so that all of the above supplements follow each other automatically. After the Main Trailer for this film plays, the disc then moves on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those other trailers also play automatically at disc boot up.

Paradox Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.