The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 17, 2024

88 Films is completing its releases of a series of films probably relatively few on this side of the pond were even aware existed, with both this film and The Inspector Wears Skirts 4 joining the previously released The Inspector Wears Skirts and The Inspector Wears Skirts 2.

As Frank Djeng addresses in yet another of his almost patented mile a minute commentary tracks, this third effort in the series is something of an outlier, at least insofar as some of its production masthead elements, and perhaps also in terms of its casting and emphasis, but the concentration on comedy that started to really take over in the second film is even more apparent here. The story posits Inspector Kan (Stanley Fung) and Madame Wu (Sibelle Hu) as having recently gotten married, deriving comedy from this new if not exactly improved relationship. While it takes a while to get there, the Banshee Squad is ultimately assigned to go undercover on a cruising casino ship to bring some bad guys to justice. The action elements here tend to be consigned to the last act, unless you consider training montages to be "action elements".

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Inspector wears Skirts 3 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 88 Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The back cover of this release offers "2K remaster from the original negatives" as its sole technical data point. The palette is one of the strong points here, with clearly defined primaries and some commendable vibrancy in the outdoor scenes in particular, though there are definitely color temperature variances along with slight ebbs and flows of suffusion that can be spotted throughout the presentation. The grain field is rather heavy a lot of the time, though has no major resolution issues. Age related wear and tear is minor and negligible.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in Cantonese. This has the same somewhat boxy sound that seems to attend a lot of Asian productions in particular, though that said, the midrange and low end are both considerably more fulsome than on some of the "lesser" Asian material I've reviewed lately, including a bunch of stuff in The Game of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 from Severin, a humongous release which among other offerings presents commentator Frank Djeng's Enter the Clones of Bruce documentary. As Djeng's commentary mentions, some of the actors here are dubbed and so sync can be loose, as they say. Effects like gunfire reverberate with decent if not overwhelming force. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scene (HD; 1;55)


• Hong Kong Trailer (HD; 4:08)


• Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng is accessible under the Setup Menu.

The keepcase encloses a folded double sided poster and packaging features a slipcover.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 3 - Raid on Royal Casino Marine Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You can pretty much tell by this third installment that the series had become a big screen equivalent to a situation comedy. The humor here is often very broad, to the point of almost being slapstick (slapshtick?), and the action is largely consigned to the last half hour or so. Technical merits are generally solid if somewhat variable, and the Djeng commentary is another whirlwind of information, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.