Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Police Story: Lockdown Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 11, 2015

The Police Story franchise has been good to Jackie Chan, to put it mildly. If the first two outings, Police Story and Police Story 2, appeared domestically on Blu-ray in versions that were less than spectacular looking, they at least perhaps helped to reacquaint audiences with one of Chan’s earlier success stories, one which placed the venerable action hero in a series of escapades that provided both jolts of adrenaline and a fair supply of giggles along the way as well. Through the years several other Police Story films followed, with Supercop and New Police Story having been released domestically on Blu- ray. In what some curmudgeons may feel is one reboot too many, Police Story 2013 came along in its titular year providing little other than that very title to link it to the previous Police Story outings. Decidedly less whimsical and ostensibly at least grittier than earlier entries in the franchise, this film, which received a slight title revision to Police Story: Lockdown for its American theatrical exhibition, still offers Chan as a workaday cop, but this time the action is contained to what is almost a one set enterprise, with a hostage drama of sorts playing out as a clock both literally and figuratively ticks down.

Police Story: Lockdown begins with a quasi-montage of sorts which includes a rather shocking image which seems to suggest that Chan will not be revisiting this franchise in any form, unless that is it’s made into something more like a live action version of Yu Yu Hakusho: Anime Classics Season 1. That apparent oddness aside, Chan here portrays hardscrabble cop Zhong Wen, a workaday type who has, for reasons which are not initially made clear, become estranged from his daughter Miao (Jing Tian). Zhong may have an alcohol problem, at least as evidenced by an early interchange with his taxi cab driver, though he is simultanously unaware of where exactly the Wu Bar, a happening club where Miao wants to meet him, is located.

Zhong meets the club’s owner Wu Jiang (Liu Ye), a seemingly welcoming type who bears signs of some long ago injury. Soon enough Zhong is somewhat shocked to find out that the reason that Miao had summoned him for an uncustomary meeting is that Miao and Wu are now an “item.” Though it’s at least hinted that there may be some criminal activities occurring at Wu Bar, Zhong actually seems to be more concerned with the age discrepancy between Wu and Miao, but the upshot is the same: the estranged father and daughter are only more estranged.

Two kind of strange interstitials interrupt the narrative flow before the actual main plot mechanics kick into gear. The first of these is a quick flashback to Zhong attempting to prevent a suicide, something he does in fact achieve, though not without some attendant injuries. The second is a somewhat more bizarre brouhaha which suddenly breaks out in Wu Bar, but which is quickly quelled by Wu himself, in a scene that begins to reveal that the bar owner is not exactly merely a meek and mild business entrepreneur.

While already somewhat haphazard and chaotic feeling, Police Story: Lockdown finally settles down into a somewhat more traditional narrative flow after Zhong is unexpectedly smacked down in the club, waking up to find himself tethered to a chair in a fortress like room. He seems to know Wu is behind it all, and that indeed turns out to be the case. Like many a villain before him, Wu is nursing a long festering grudge, and Zhou and Miao have become pawns in a game of hostages where Wu is insisting that a long ago nemesis named Wei Xiaofu (Zhou Xiaoou) is brought to him, ostensibly to right the distant wrong upon which Wu’s motives hinge.

It’s obvious that Chan has decided to forego traditional “chop socky” nonstop action fare at this point in his career (the actor was pushing 60 when the film was made). That decision makes sense from one perspective, but tends to enervate this Police Story, with only a relatively few (and rather contrived) fight sequences breaking up what is in essence a cat and mouse (and/or mice) game between Wu and Zhong. Perhaps in an attempt to inject excitement into a somewhat static feeling plot, writer-director Ding Shen invests the film with a lot of handheld jiggly cam and whip pans, along with various other bells and whistles, something that at least provides a bit of visual momentum even when the actual plot seems stuck in first gear.

Police Story: Lockdown Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Police Story: Lockdown is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa, Police Story: Lockdown has a typically sharp and well defined image, but the palette never really pops in any meaningful way, save for a few passing moments. A lot of the film takes place within the subdued confines of the Wu Bar, and the film exploits a lot of tones in the slate gray to cool blue arena. Several other sequences are bathed in yellow hues, offering a kind of syrupy, fetid appearance. Close-ups offer abundant fine detail, including elements like Chan's increasingly cut up face. Within the context of some of the lighting and grading choices, the palette looks reasonably accurate and is always vividly saturated. A couple of quick interstitial elements have been tweaked fairly aggressively, with brief flashbacks to the suicide sequence looking almost like old distressed 16mm for a brief second or two.

Police Story: Lockdown Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Police Story: Lockdown features both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 options for both the original Mandarin soundtrack and an okay but skippable English dub (unless you're absolutely opposed to reading subtitles, of course). Both of the 5.1 mixes offer seemingly identical mixes save for the language, with good placement of effects in the fight sequences (which are frankly not that numerous), while also nicely detailing both the cavernous and claustrophobic ambiences the various hostages find themselves in. Dialogue is well rendered and prioritized. There's very wide dynamic range at play here, albeit in brief spurts of sonic activity.

Police Story: Lockdown Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews:

  Director Ding Sheng (480i; 4:20)

  Jackie Chan, Zhong Wen (480i; 3:51)

  Liu Ye, Wu Jiang (480i; 6:11)

  Jing Tian, Miao Miao (480i; 6:14)

• Behind the Scenes (480i; 5:15)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:41)

Note: As tends to be the case on most Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the supplements have been authored to follow one another automatically. Individual interviews are accessible separately, but the supplements will continue to play forward from that point on. This also includes the trailers for other Well Go USA releases, which follow the theatrical trailer.

Police Story: Lockdown Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Those wanting the goofy "old" (meaning younger) Chan in the first Police Story films will probably find this a somewhat more elegiac, restrained film, one that has to be accepted on its own merits to be fully appreciated. The film has a tough time working up much traditional "action film" adrenaline pumping due to its somewhat talkier and meditative ambience, but Chan is quite good in a role that doesn't require him to be charmingly eccentric and/or kicking serious butt, depending on the circumstances. The overall plot is more than a bit hackneyed, and ultimately more than a little preposterous, but the film is well paced and delivers on its smaller scale ambitions reasonably well enough. Technical merits are generally strong and Police Story: Lockdown comes Recommended.