Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie Review

Chow Yun-Fat Takes on Hollywood in 1080p

Reviewed by Brandon A. DuHamel September 18, 2007

The Replacement Killers marked two debuts. It was the first feature film helmed by director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) who came from the world of television advertising, and it also marked the Hollywood debut of actor Chow Yun-Fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), who had previously made his name internationally as a star of Hong Kong action films. To many film buffs, and to a lot of those “in the know”, he was already well known, but to the average U.S. audience, he was an unknown entity.

In this film, Chow Yun-Fat plays John Lee, an assassin sent by his patron, Mr. Wei, to kill a 7-year- old boy as retribution for the killing of Wei’s own son. John Lee’s conscience will not allow him to kill the boy when he sees the boy at play with his father, the police officer that killed Wei’s son, so instead John leaves and eventually makes his way to the office of Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) seeking forged documents to flee the country and get back to China in order to save the lives of his family from Mr. Wei. It is here where the action finally picks up as John Lee and Meg Coburn are set upon by Wei’s men out to kill John, and after the fray, John kidnaps Meg as he still needs her assistance to flee.

Meg Coburn and John Lee outside a photo booth before Mr. Wei's men attack.

Chow’s acting throughout is quite good. Not your typical overacting action hero, he maintains a quiet, stoic, and charismatic presence when delivering his lines. For some reason, even though you know he’s an assassin, you tend to like the guy, which makes it believable that he would choose to not kill a child. Mira Sorvino more than holds her own, which is to be expected from an Academy Award® winner. Her character helps to counteract the cold masculinity of Chow’s John Lee, which sets up a rather tender moment where John must choose between saving his own family and letting a child die, or saving the child.

Antoine Fuqua’s directional style shows his roots, which is a good thing in this case. The highly stylized lighting and camera effects add to the tension and drama, and highlight the action sequences wonderfully. He pays homage to Chow Yun-Fat’s Hong Kong cinema background while adding a bit of MTV flare. One such scene that highlights this is the scene in a movie theatre where Mr. Wei’s “replacement killers” go after the young boy, and silhouettes are set against the backdrop of a movie screen playing cartoons.

The Replacement Killers is not without its faults. The dialogue between the characters can tend to fall into some painfully overused clichés, and sometimes you get the feeling there is dialogue lacking where there should be some. I also sensed that they were working too hard to make John Lee a likeable character and give him a past, but in the end his back-story was only given in passing. Still, it was an action-packed movie that was an easy watch, what more can one ask for?

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, The Replacement Killers (Extended Cut) is not the absolute best looking high definition transfer I have ever seen, but it is still quite good. The AVC MPEG4 encoding faithfully captures the film grain, of which there is a lot present in this film.

For the most part, this is a very darkly lit film, and this is where the grain is most apparent, but shadow detail is maintained throughout and black crush is never an issue. There are some dark scenes where blacks appear to be slightly washed out, and more grayish than absolutely black. Not having access to the original masters, it is hard to pin down what this might be, but it could be due to overexposure during filming that should have been darkened, but this is a small matter.

There is no visible edge enhancement, or compression artifacts of any kind and flesh tones are natural, even, and not over saturated.

There were two scenes that particularly stood out to me that showcased the brilliance of this transfer. The first being a very short scene near the beginning of the film, at around the 16 min. 32 sec. mark where there was a woman and a young boy outdoors near a pool. The perfect balance of light and dark, sunlight and blacks, was absolutely stunning.

The second was the scene near the end in the alleyway that leads to the film's ultimate climax, where John Lee and Meg Coburn are heading to confront Mr. Wei. The black levels and shadow details, the play of reds against the sparks of gunfire and the neon lights and the night sky is simply brilliant; quite awesome to behold, really. Here, director Antoine Fuqua's roots in the world of television advertising really come into play, and it works wonderfully. The sharp camera angles, quick edits, and flashy special effects all add up to something extraordinary.

Overall, this is another stellar AVC encoding on Blu-ray from Sony.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Once again, Sony provides a wonderful uncompressed PCM soundtrack on this Blu-ray disc. I listened to the English 5.1 uncompressed PCM 48/16 soundtrack on this disc and it was impressive. Dialogue was always clear, natural, and intelligible, only getting slightly lost during the loudest, most aggressive special effects laden passages, which I suppose is to be expected.

Dynamics were wide, and the LFE channel was put to somewhat good use, though not overly thunderous. Both rear channels were used aggressively, with everything from crowd noises, to airplanes, to fireworks, to bullets whizzing by placed in the rears. The sounds and special effects mostly sounded realistic and the soundstage was totally encompassing – you were inside the action while it was occurring.

One of the best-mixed scenes was again the scene in the alleyway with John and Meg going after Mr. Wei – it makes you want to duck lest you get hit by one of the myriad bullets flying by.

My one minor complaint would be that sometimes I thought the gunshots might have sounded a bit too sharp and cutting, and somewhat artificial. Perhaps this is where a little more use of the LFE channel might have helped out? Other than that, this was a nearly perfect soundtrack.

It is worth noting, that Sony have utilized the superior capacity and bandwidth present on Blu- ray to also include an Italian language uncompressed PCM 5.1 48/16 soundtrack, in addition to English, French, Italian, and Hungarian 640Kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks.

Once again, Sony has outdone themselves in the audio department for this Blu-ray disc release.

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Subtitles
The chances are, if you can read, there is a subtitle track on here for you: English, English SDH, Arabic, French, Korean, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian, Icelandic, Bulgarian, Slovene, Croatian, Romanian, Thai, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese.

Extras
The extras included on this disc are few, and barely worthy of mention. There is a 20-minute featurette entitled "Chow Yun-Fat Goes Hollywood" (standard definition, 4:3) which is supposed to be about Chow's transition from international film star to Hollywood star, but is really 20 minutes of people lavishing praise on Chow Yun-Fat. Then there is The Making of The Replacement Killers "Where the Action Is" (standard definition, 4:3), in which they actually use some of the same footage from the "Chow Yun-Fat Goes Hollywood" featurette.

The making of is the typical fare where they speak to the director and some of the actors, and you get a behind the scenes look at some things, but ultimately learn nothing enlightening about what really went into making the film; in other words, it's a typical DVD extra fluff piece. Watch once. Forget.

Trailers
Finally, there are trailers included as well, all in High Definition:
There's the usual "Coming to Blu-ray" and
Hostel
Paprika
Vacancy

The Replacement Killers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It may not be the greatest action movie ever made, but The Replacement Killers (Extended Cut) offers enough high energy action to keep you on the edge of your seat and get the adrenalin pumping for a couple of hours. Its stylized look and solid acting from Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino alone are enough to at least make it worthy of a purchase, but the excellent AVC encoding and uncompressed PCM soundtracks from Sony put it over the top.