SYNOPSIS:
Ah
Long Pte Ltd is a light-hearted black comedy about a young lady,
Wang Li hua (Fann wong) tries to restructure her money-lending
triad into a professional and 'loving' triad that stands against
the use of violence after she takes over from her triad leader,
Chen Jun ( Richard Low ) who has retired. Her various restructuring
plans bring about hilarious results.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Just after submitting the review for Ah Long Pte
Ltd Dvd, it was pretty surprising that the webmaster handed
a copy of the director’s cut of Ah Long Pte Ltd.
A
stunt that the American distributors had pulled for quite
a long time and in a surprising fashion, Singapore distributors
are following suit. Not exactly a popular decision among the
consumers as it seems that the only objective of such stunt
is double dipping, hopping that the fans would fork out their
hard earn money to buy another copy of the movie with the
extra features, which would in turn help rake in more profit.
Let’s
see if the additional changes made in this Director’s
Cut were good enough reason to double dip.
The first thing that stood out in this new packaging of Ah
Long Pte Ltd Director’s Cut DVD (beside the bigger digipack
housing) was the new censorship rating. The previous DVD was
slapped with a PG rating and this Director’s Cut was
awarded with a NC-16 rating (meaning it’s not intended
for viewers under the age of 16).
It
definitely spurs one interest to view this Director’s
cut of Ah Long Pte Ltd. Could it be that the joke about how
the gangster that are supplying cheaper illegal cigarettes
are like angels to smokers in Singapore had been inserted
into the movie? Or has this movie become more violent and
bloodier?
Surprisingly,
a check on both versions revealed very little differences
in the runtime that makes one wonder, how much changes can
you make with such little differences in runtime (unless you
remove certain scenes totally and include new ones)
To find out what the difference, I finally got to do what
some reviewers in the states had done before and that playing
both Director Cut and the PG Cut side by side. In total, there
were 8 additional scenes that stood out (there might be more
but that's all I caught).
1)
Approximately at the 28.30 mins mark – extra fight scenes
involving Fann Wong before Mark Lee finally come to her rescue.
2) Approximately at the 38.30 mins mark – extra dialogue
scene involving Mark Lee rejecting the gangster’s marriage
proposal.
3) Approximately at the 41 mins mark – extra dialogue
scene involving Richard Low at the wedding pool side.
4) Approximately at the 50 mins mark – extra scenes
with more dialogue from Mark Lee and a rather funny rubber
band torture scene.
5) Approximately at the 63 mins mark – extra scenes
with Fann Wong showing some 'skin' (and we are not talking
about those that she usually expose)
6) Approximately at the 70 mins mark – extra dialect
dialogue by Richard Low.
7) Approximately at the 89.30 mins mark – extra torture
dished out by Richard Low.
8) Approximately at the 96 mins mark – extra torture
scene
These
additional scenes are rather short and don’t really
make much impact or changes to the story. A few scenes out
of these extra moments stood out to justify the increase in
censorship rating but otherwise, it’s a blink and you
will miss moments (unless you are a big fan of this movie
or as crazy as this reviewer who did a side by side comparison).
Interestingly, the other thing that stood out for this Director’s
Cut was the inclusion of Scopio East logo that appears sporadically
during this movie. The previous DVD release of this movie
was without such feature and was definitely less irritating
than this new release.
On
the positive side, this DVD comes with a 5.1 sound and viewers
with a 5.1 setup will find that certain scenes had gotten
a more robust touch up. Such as the first encounter between
the sassy female triad boss and the effeminate dancing teacher,
where Mark Lee’s character drove pass an extortion scene.
The engine heard with the surround sound was livelier, giving
the car scene that extra oomph.
Is it worth dipping a second time with this? The only obvious
perks that this Director’s cut offered were a couple
more minutes of additional scenes and the new sound set up.
Unless you are a true fan of this movie, it doesn’t
really make much difference.
To
read more about the review for the movie and Dvd extra, please
refer to the previous DVD
Review and Movie
Review.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Richard Lim Jr
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