7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
Policeman Don Lee often works with informants but numerous too-close calls and failed missions cause him to see the world as one betrayal after another - then he meets Guy, and is given a new chance to change his views.
Starring: Nick Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Lun-Mei Gwei, Yi Lu, Deep NgForeign | 100% |
Action | 23% |
Drama | 8% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Cantonese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Films about informants going back at least as far as Victor McLaglen’s Oscar winning turn as The Informer routinely exploit the psychology of their titular (or at least main) characters, emphasizing the desperate straits that, well, inform their decisions to snitch. The Stool Pigeon, a well received Hong Kong actioner from 2010, certainly doesn’t shirk from that tried and true focus, but the really interesting aspect to this film is its emphasis on the psychology of the guy hiring informants, in this case police inspector Don Lee (Nick Cheung). Lee has a long history of hiring informants to help him crack cases, but as The Stool Pigeon opens, we witness a putative sting gone bad, as a hopeful drug bust is blown wide open when a phone call reveals a spy in the dealers’ midst. Lee orders the police to launch their attack before all the evidence is destroyed, but that ends up outing Lee’s inside man, Jabber (Liu Kai-Chi). That leads to a disturbing sequence where Jabber is beaten and stabbed to within an inch of his life by a coterie of thugs who don’t especially appreciate having been spied on. Fast forward a year, and Inspector Lee is still smarting from a guilty conscience over what happened to Jabber. That of course doesn’t prevent him from continuing to want to utilize informants, despite the department’s perhaps humorous financial straits, straits which mean less bribe money for the stoolies and therefore less incentive for the stoolies to deliver the goods. But Lee thinks he has a prime candidate in Ghost (Nicholas Tse), a kid about to be paroled from prison whose sister has been forced into prostitution by some thugs to pay off a massive debt her (and Ghost’s) father incurred. Ghost obviously has motivation to help his sister, but perhaps more importantly, he has motivation to help bring down the syndicate which has forced his sister into such a degraded lifestyle. The Stool Pigeon therefore plays out as a sort of mirror image encompassing both Ghost’s and Lee’s interior monologues and shifting alliances, as they both try to wend their way through their elaborate psychologies. For an action picture, The Stool Pigeon is therefore surprisingly interior focused. That reaps certain benefits while also highlighting certain detriments.
The Stool Pigeon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is for the most part an impeccably sharp and well detailed looking high definition presentation. Lam intentionally skews his color palette toward the ice cold blue-grey a lot of the time, but that choice rarely sacrifices any fine detail. Lam also exploits the gritty glamour of Hong Kong, and the location footage looks spectacular. Close-ups reveal a wealth of fine detail (sometimes distressingly so after some people are roughed up) and colors pop beautifully throughout the film. There is some very minor (almost negligible) edge enhancement which crops up in a couple of scenes, but it's fleeting and shouldn't bother most. Otherwise, this is a fantastically solid looking outing, with gorgeous black levels, excellent contrast (which is intentionally pushed at times) and an overall razor sharp image.
Both the Cantonese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks offer brilliant lossless audio, with great surround activity, excellent fidelity, floorboard rattling LFE and rather unexpectedly wide dynamic range. As seems to be inexplicably the case so often with these Asian imports, the English dub is mixed ever so slightly higher, giving a little extra "oomph" to the low end. Otherwise, aside from the obvious difference in voice work, the two tracks are very similar. The English dub isn't bad by any means, and is in fact a good deal better than these sorts of things tend to be a lot of the time, but I still recommend sticking with the original language track. Dialogue is crisp and clear, well positioned and always well prioritized, even in otherwise sonically busy segments. The film has a very consistent use of surround activity, including in the crowded city scenes that take place in Hong Kong. But many of the action sequences, including the brutal smackdown that caps the film, are filled with great discrete channel utilization that really puts the listener squarely in the center of very involving audio action.
The Stool Pigeon may not in fact be completely successful, but it's largely successful, and that, coupled with great performances and a sure directorial hand by Lam, make this a really interesting "combo" approach that might not be to everyone's liking, but at least has the benefit of not being the same old, same old. Hong Kong has rarely been presented so viscerally, and the psychological elements of the film help give the more traditional action elements some nice depth. This Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic and it comes Recommended.
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