Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 7, 2021

Xiao Wu (Philip Ng) is an undercover cop whose voiceover begins the film with Wu's three inviolable rules for undercover work, all of which it's almost immediately disclosed he's already broken (of course). That may be one reason Wu has found himself regaining consciousness in a wooden crate that seems to be on the verge of exploding, with a timer ticking down to the dreaded 0:00 reading. That turns out to be something of a misdirect, but the film quickly moves on to establish the fact that Wu has been working to infiltrate a ring of drug runners, where he's become the de facto heir apparent to big kahuna Brother Bao (Lam Suet), to the point that Bao considers Wu to be a pseudo son-in-law, since Wu has been dating Bao's daughter Dawnie (Aka Chio). Bao is certain there's some kind of "mole" activity going on in his gang, but because he seems to be stoned out of his mind most of the time, he hasn't quite figured out that the culprit is Wu. It's perhaps salient to note that Undercover Punch & Gun was evidently made at least a couple of years ago and was at one point called Undercover vs. Undercover, which may hint that there were either issues during production or some wise bean counter decided in post that the film needed some rejiggering. The result is a somewhat messy and chaotic feeling that probably provides enough action set pieces to satisfy adrenaline junkies, but which ultimately comes off as pretty standard, even somewhat retro, fare.

There's a kind of gonzo cartoonish element that is on display from the get go in Undercover Punch & Gun, and if the film had stuck to that kind of playful quality, it might have provided more consistent excitement. Instead, there is a veritable glut of sidebar material running through the purported plot, which is arguably ironic since the film seems barely stitched together at times, offering just enough narrative to get to the next big fight scene. There are competing gangs, police lurking in the background, and a whole separate set of kind of quasi black ops folks that are involved with their own undercover operative, with the effect being a general sense of slight confusion and darting to and fro for no discernable reason.

There's also almost a Breaking Bad element as well to the proceedings since one of the plot conceits is that there's a "new, improved" meth recipe that the chief bad guy, Ha (Andy On), wants to get his hands on, but the storyline also has a human trafficking detour, not to mention the preordained kidnapping of Dawnie, all of which ends up making the film come off like a veritable crazy quilt. Ng also handled the film's fight choreography, and there are a number of standout moments, including some cool work on a car and a fun climax set among shipping containers.

Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Undercover Punch & Gun is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.31:1. I haven't been able to find any authoritative technical data on the shoot, but am assuming a digital capture finished at 2K. There are some stylistic flourishes at play here which intentionally tweak detail levels and the general look of the palette, but on the whole this is a nicely sharp and well detailed looking presentation. Some of the bells and whistles, like brief black and white moments suddenly bursting into color, or other effects like step printing or slow motion, can lead to slightly hazy looking moments, and there are a number of interior scenes, many kind of hilariously featuring various characters gazing through their rifle scopes getting ready to take other characters out, where shadow detail can be on the murky side. Directors Koon-Nam Lui and Frankie Tam opt for some deliberately askew framings throughout the film, which offers a bit of visual variety. Fine detail levels are typically quite good despite some of these artifices. Some of the CGI is fairly soft looking.

Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Undercover Punch & Gun features a nicely boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Mandarin (with a smattering of English), with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix being offered as a putative bonus item. I spent most of my time with the Mandarin track, but toggled regularly, and didn't really hear any major differences between the two languages in terms of mix or amplitude. The film offers a glut of nicely immersive effects work in any number of big set pieces, including one that uses a kind of "sonic wave" in one of the showdowns. Fight scenes can feature some bone crunching moments along with bursts of gunfire. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailers

  International (HD; 1:28)

  
  

  US (HD; 1:33)

  The packaging also touts the English language version included on this disc as an ostensible bonus item.

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the supplements have been authored to follow one another automatically (so that clicking on the International Trailer is essentially a Play All button). After the US Trailer for this film plays, the disc has been authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Undercover Punch and Gun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While there's some definite star power on display here (Van Ness Wu is also featured in a prominent role in addition to Philip Ng and Andy On), this seems to be one of those projects where the creative staff didn't quite know how to marshal their forces, especially in terms of a whittled down, more clear, narrative. There's an "everything plus the kitchen sink" aspect to how much material is willfully stuffed into the purported plot, but the film's admittedly well done action elements just can't overcome the frayed, diffused quality of much of the story. The film almost starts off on a goofily cartoonish note, something it ends up forsaking, and it might have succeeded more as an outright comedy. In that regard, perhaps due to some British ancestry on my part, the arguably unfortunate title kind of comedically brought to mind another "franchise" of sorts, and I kind of jokingly half wanted this to be about Undercover Punch & Judy. Technical merits are generally solid for those considering a purchase.