7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Ka-Kui, a Hong Kong police inspector, goes rogue to bring down a drug kingpin and protect the case's star witness from retribution.
Starring: Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Kwok-Hung Lam, Bill TungForeign | 100% |
Martial arts | 34% |
Crime | 20% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Cantonese: LPCM Mono
Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital Mono (192 kbps)
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Jackie Chan's "Police Story" (1985) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include original trailers for the film; vintage interview with Jackie Chan; new interview with filmmaker Edgar Wright; additional vintage interviews and archival footage; and more. In Cantonese or English, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Jackie Chan's Police Story arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the leaflet that is provided with this Blu-ray release:
"These 4K digital restorations (for Police Story and Police Story II) were undertaken by Fortune Star Media Limited at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy. New digital transfers were created from the 35mm original camera negatives on an ARRISCAN film scanner.
Police Story's monaural soundtrack was restored from the original soundtrack negative, and its mix was confirmed against an out-of-print DVD track provided by Irongod2112 and sourced from a Japanese laserdisc release. The alternate English-dubbed soundtrack for Police Story is a fan-preferred monaural dub featuring original voice performances from the 1980s and was also provided by Irongod2112 from a Dutch VHS. The 5.1 surround soundtracks for both films were provided by Fortune Star Media Limited."
As the technical credits that are quoted above confirm, this new release is sourced from the same 4K remaster that the folks at Eureka Entertainment worked with when they prepared this Region-B release of Police Story in the United Kingdom. There are no new adjustments on the remaster, so below I am reposting my initial comments on it from our review of the Region-B release.
The Good: The density levels of the new 4K remaster are outstanding. I think that this is very important to underscore because as bigger TVs and projectors become more affordable, more people will notice that density is a key quality. Fluidity is dramatically better as well, though any proper high-definition master would have excelled in this area. Image stability is fantastic, which means that all of the annoying flicker from old Hong Kong Blu-ray release of Police Story has been completely eliminated. There are no traces of compromising degraining corrections. Also, there are no traces of sharpening adjustments. So, the basic qualities of the new remaster are all very solid and as a result the old release is now irrelevant.
The Not So Good: I don't know where the film was graded -- update: I do now -- but some of the issues that I noticed while viewing it are of the kind that I have seen introduced by European labs. For example, virtually all skin tones have a stronger than usual darker brownish hue. Blacks appear slightly elevated and remain such throughout the entire film as well. As a result, quite often there is noticeable black crush, and even during daylight footage with plenty of natural light there are nuances that are clearly lost (see screencapture #6). Also, there are subtle but noticeable shifts in the film's dynamic range, which I am fairly certain were introduced during the grading process, and they produce light flatness that is not part of the original cinematography (see screencapture #19). So, I feel that the overall color balance is slightly warmer than it needs to be, and then the entire film looks marginally but noticeably darker than it should be.
To sum it all up, a more careful color grading would have produced quite a stunner as the basic qualities of the remaster are excellent. (I actually feel that for the most part the color temperature of the Japanese version that is included on the Region-B release is vastly superior, so using it as a blueprint would have gotten the job done). On the other hand, considering the alternative, it is very obvious that currently this is without a doubt the best overall presentation of the film on the marketplace. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There are three standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: Cantonese: LPCM 1.0, Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit), and English: Dolby Digital Mono (192kbps). Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.
The big and important news for fans of Police Story is the presence of the new Cantonese Mono track, which was sourced from the original soundtrack negative. So, kudos to Criterion for doing the extra work to deliver what fans have been asking for over the years. This being said, I am unsure if casual viewers will be able to hear a dramatic difference in quality if they compare it to the Mono track that is present on the Region-B release of Police Story. There are dynamic nuances and balance discrepancies that I think are very subtle, because I actually had pretty difficult time telling how the Mono track differs while viewing the film from start to finish. There are no transfer issues to report.
A couple of older classic Jackie Chan films have been remastered in 2K and released on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom, and while I don't know much about the people that did the work, there is no doubt in my mind that Fortune Star should have put them in charge with the remastering of the two Police Story films. (You can see what they did with City Hunter here). The Criterion crew would have done a superior job with these films as well, so they were another great option. The 4K remaster that L'Immagine Ritrovata produced for Police Story is yet another one in a long list of questionable 'restorations' that basically replaces the film's native identity with a digital one. Sadly, this is actually a very frustrating trend with a wide range of older color films that are being 'restored' at L'Immagine Ritrovata, so I don't quite understand why changes are not made to end it. Anyhow, considering the alternative, it is very obvious that currently this is without a doubt the best overall presentation of the film on the marketplace, but it is not what its fans deserved. RECOMMENDED.
(Still not reliable for this title)
Police Story II / Ging chaat goo si juk jaap
1988
Armour of God II: Operation Condor / Fei jing gai wak / Project Eagle
1991
The Armour of God / Lung hing foo dai
1986
Fai can che / Kuài cān chē / 快餐車
1984
Zui quan
1978
'A' gai wak
1983
The Big Boss | 唐山大兄 | Collector's Edition
1971
Sing si lip yan / Chéng shì liè rén / 城市獵人
1993
警察故事3超級警察 / Gíng chaat gu sih sāam: Chīu kāp gíng chaat | Standard Edition
1992
'A' gai wak juk jaap / 'A' ji hua xu ji / A計劃續集
1987
Se ying diu sau
1978
Banlieue 13
2004
Shuang long hui
1992
À bout portant
2010
Lik Wong
1991
Hai Phuong
2019
In the Line of Duty II | Huáng jiā shī jiě | Wong ka si jie | 皇家師姐 | 2K Remastered
1985
The Way of the Dragon | 猛龍過江 | Collector's Edition
1972
Sai hak chin / Xi hei qian / 洗黑錢
1990
Fuk sing go jiu / Fu xing gao zhao / 福星高照
1985