Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Stool Pigeon Blu-ray Movie Review

So much guilt, so little time.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 25, 2011

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.

Fans of typical action fare from Hong Kong might initially be put off by The Stool Pigeon’s more ruminative approach. However, those who notice that the film is directed by Dante Lam and stars Nicholas Tse, Nick Cheung and Liu Kai-Chi will immediately think of the quartet’s previous collaboration, Beast Stalker and may therefore have a figurative leg up on what to expect. Like Beast Stalker, The Stool Pigeon is awash in the ramifications of bad decisions and the resultant guilt. Unfortunately, The Stool Pigeon lacks Beast Stalker’s immediacy and in fact seems to slather on the emotional turmoil a bit too much for its own good, especially with regard to at least a couple of subplots that don’t link directly to the conflict between Inspector Lee and Ghost and which may therefore seem a bit gratuitous.

One of the problems with The Stool Pigeon is that it seeks to be an introspective character study within the confines of a more traditional action picture, and yet it’s the action elements, at least with regard to one or two set pieces, that make the most visceral impact. Ghost likes to race cars, and that presents the opportunity for a couple of knockout sequences, including a wonderfully staged bout that plays to the anachronistic strains of “White Christmas.” It’s in moments like these that Lam seems to find his directorial mo-jo, something that the more dramatic elements of the film, elements which the film itself seems to want to really focus on, can never quite match for interest or audience reaction. The melodramatic subplot involving Inspector Lee and his amnesiac wife also seems to slather on the "guilt trip" (Lee feels responsible for her condition, probably rightly so) to a degree that the film feels labored to be able to breathe underneath it all.

If The Stool Pigeon doesn’t compare incredibly well to Beast Stalker, on its own terms it manages to artfully blend elements of character drama and traditional action fare. Lam attempts a rather daring balancing act in this film, and if he’s not totally successful, he still deserves kudos for trying something a bit different. The Stool Pigeon is a film that frankly may disappoint those who want their action flicks straight up with no chaser (no pun intended), or similarly those who want their character dramas with no extraneous frills. For those who don’t mind “a little this-a and a little that-a,” The Stool Pigeon has enough of both of these elements to engage its audience and at times at least to do a good deal more than that.

All of this said, taken as the somewhat peculiar hybrid it is, The Stool Pigeon is often incredibly effective. Cheung and Tse have obvious chemistry together, and they are each able to peek into the nooks and crannies of their characters’ interior worlds, helping to inform both the dramatic and the action elements with a surprising amount of nuance. Kai-Chi also makes for hearbreaking victim as Jabber, one whose sad mental and physical decline helps to make Inspector Lee’s guilt more tangible and real feeling. Lu Yi is also very good, if quite nasty, as the main villain of the piece, and his henchmen also descend into some somewhat troubling viciousness and violence several times through the film which some viewers may find troubling.

Lam continues to prove himself a very capable director with a fine eye, especially with regard to some of the action set pieces. The prologue, where Jabber is desperately trying to get away from his attackers, is extremely well staged, with a number of crane and overhead shots that may induce vertigo in some viewers, but which aptly depicts the character’s terror in being surrounded by vicious thugs. The “White Christmas” car chase (which is brief but which is followed by a great foot chase) is also impeccably well handled, with excellent coverage and really superb editing helping to make it one of the film’s true standout sequences.

The Stool Pigeon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

The Stool Pigeon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (SD; 46:38) is the usual assortment of scenes being shot interspersed with setups and other preparations. Strangely, some of the footage is without sound and some of the footage with sound has no subtitles.
• Deleted Scenes (SD; 11:10) has a few interesting moments and shows more of Lam's facility with cranes and overhead shots.
• Making Of (SD; 15:13) is another usual assortment, this time of interviews with cast and crew interspersed with scenes being shot and brief clips from the final film.
• International Trailer A (HD; 1:12)
• International Trailer B (HD; 1:47)

The Stool Pigeon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.