The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie Review

The view is spectacular. The film is a mess.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 29, 2013

Bollywood seems to have become the heir apparent to the ebullient atmosphere that used to regularly infuse American musicals from the 1930s through the late 1950s or perhaps even the early 1960s. Granted, Bollywood outings often make little sense, they’re just as often quite formulaic, and they are not exactly paradigms of well integrated songs— typically the big numbers simply spring out of nowhere, kind of like a highly choreographed Venus on the half shell. But there’s one thing that the typical Bollywood film is that most big budget Hollywood musicals rarely are these days—they’re fun. Jay Chou, the Taiwanese music sensation who has been branching out into films for the past several years and has become a prime example of what show business types like to call a “multi-hyphenate”, has obviously taken the spirit of Bollywood to heart with his effort The Rooftop, a patently goofy 2013 outing that features Chou not just as star, but also as director, writer and composer of the film’s song score. There’s a chaotic ambience to much of The Rooftop that is at least slightly reminiscent of the sometimes similarly formless world of Bollywood, but there’s also an undeniable energy and (especially) a provocative production design that tends to keep the eye entertained even if the mind tends to repeatedly wander. Chou may not be cut out to write more ostensibly “theatrical” musical numbers, but he contributes some generally amiable, if not overly memorable, tunes that frankly never really move anything along but which pass the time in a genial enough way. The film’s attempts to hint at class struggles and a Romeo and Juliet-esque love story never really take hold, in part because Chou doesn’t take time to really explore these ideas, deciding instead to hint at them with passing references in what is often a manic presentation full of quick cutting, whimsical wipes and other segues between scenes, as well as other “bells and whistles” perhaps meant to distract from a certain emptiness at the core of this story.

The film features bookending segments which don’t become entirely clear until the closing moments of the film, and so any initial consternation at what a middle aged woman is doing wandering through the minimalist halls of an ultra deluxe museum can be put by the wayside with the understanding that things will be made more or less comprehensible in the supposedly heart tugging denouement. The bulk of the film springs to life out of one of the photographs this woman is gazing at, and we’re immediately thrust into the wild and wooly adventures of Wax (Jay Chou) and his buddies, who are having fun at a bowling alley. The film quickly departs from these kids having fun to enter the weird world of Dr. Bo (Eric Tsang), who runs a combination hospital-performance venue (yes, you read that correctly). The latest show is about to begin, and The Rooftop's first production number involves a bunch of "patients" in wheelchairs with "nurses" attending to them, all highly choreographed in that inimitable Bollywood style. (Note: Different sources, including the press sheet accompanying this release as well as some online publications, give varying names for the characters, which I assume is due to the translation from Chinese to English. I will deal with the character names as they're detailed in the subtitles of the release.)

Wax hangs out with his buddies Tempura (Alan Ko), Egg (Devon Song) and A-Lang (A-Lang, and no, I don’t understand that, either), all of whom are residents of The Rooftop, a high rise free for all area for the downtrodden (the better off folk live down below in the tonier streets of Galilee City). Another big production number ensues at this location, after which Wax retires to his kind of decrepit bedroom, which includes a Brazil-esque pneumatic tube system that allows Wax to communicate with his friends in their abodes. The boys had been ogling a billboard of an attractive young woman named Starling (Li Xin’ai, also transliterated Hsin Ai Lee), and it’s obvious that Wax has a rather large crush on the girl.

It turns out that Starling is an up and coming film star, and when Wax mistakenly “saves” her from an attack which is in fact part of a film shoot, that sets up the romantic aspect of the film. Wax is soon part of the film crew, as a stunt double for the egotistic star William (Darren Chiu). Playing out simultaneously to this element is a gangster drama involving Galilee City’s housing authority leader, Rango (Wang Xueqi), who runs a racket collecting enforcement money (which he refers to as “rent”) from various locals. His chief henchman is Big Red (Huang Huai Chen), a punk who doesn’t much like the fact that Wax’s best friend Tempura has caught Rango’s eye.

It’s obvious that Chou has taken a page out of the Baz Luhrmann book of “glorious excess”, where throwing as much up on the screen as possible is considered an antidote for apathy. The problem with The Rooftop is that there is simply too much of a usually noisy thing. This is a film with attention deficit disorder, where nothing is knit together and instead everything simply lurches from production number to production number with little continuity or bridging matter. The Rooftop might have worked considerably better if it had simply chosen to focus on the Wax-Starling romance, rather than introducing everything from the gangster element to Dr. Bo’s performance venue (not to mention his stylish 1950s sedan) to A-lang’s sad past (and this is only a partial list). Chou is obviously an ambitious and prodigious talent, but he needs to learn a little bit about self-editing. Real emotion doesn't automatically spring from gorgeous sets and costumes, and The Rooftop, like its tenement dwelling denizens gazing down on a glamorous city, seems far removed from anything really heartfelt.

The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Rooftop is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This is an incredibly colorful film and its palette is probably the most distinctive feature of its high definition presentation. Deep lustrous reds, purples, greens, yellows and blues burst off the screen with amazing vividness and saturation. The film boasts a generally very crisp and well detailed image, especially in the out of doors sequences. But there are recurrent contrast problems which tend to deprive the image of fine detail with contrast pushed at times to the point where brighter colors bloom slightly. The final showdown between Big Red and Wax in a theater is bathed in red light and has some minor posterizing problems. A lot of the film has been done in front of green screens or with other CGI elements, all of which often have a soft, undefined look about them.

Note: I encountered a lot of difficulty getting The Rooftop to load on my PS3. I was actually sent more than one copy of this release and all of them had issues. One of them flat out refused to load, while the others ultimately did load, but then had an odd anomaly occur where the main menu loaded briefly, then froze, then reloaded in a slightly enlarged version, with the menu selections disabled. Within a second or two, the film then began playing automatically. None of the copies would even load on my PC Blu-ray drive. I have since received an email from a member who received an advance copy who experienced these same issues. It's my hunch, then, that there are either outright authoring issues at play here or at the very least a bad run of discs.

The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Rooftop's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track is a very lively affair, with good surround activity in the many musical elements, but also with regard to some of the busy cityscape sound effects. Dialogue is also very cleanly and clearly presented, though it should be noted that the film indulges in a fairly nonstop array of sounds—there's very little "down time" in this mix. Dynamic range is quite wide in both the musical and non-musical sequences.

The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:42)

The Rooftop Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's no denying that The Rooftop is a lot of fun from a purely visual perspective. The song score is not as good as it might have been (though Chou fans will probably differ with me on that one). The biggest issue here is the nonstop chaos on display—nothing makes much sense and the film seems to rely wholly upon its admittedly ingenious production design to generate most (if not all) of its interest. Chou fans may want to check this out in any case, though as mentioned above in the video section, there may be some issues with the actual disc production that will need to be ironed out.