SYNOPSIS:
Jackie Chan stars in his grittiest role ever as a
police detective on the edge, who races against time to solve
a deadly kidnapping case. Based on the shocking true story
of a billionaire abducted in a bold ambush, Crime Story pulses
with tension and raw action. Director Kirk Wong deftly combines
acrobatic fight choreography with edge-of-your-seat suspense
to reveal an impressive new side to one of the world's greatest
martial arts icons.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Two milestones comes with the release of “Crime Story”,
one being the man himself, Jackie Chan who nabbed his second
Golden Horse award for best actor in a row. Two, our local
television actress Pan Ling Ling was cast as the female lead.
Look at it right now, it didn’t seem such a big deal
but hey that was the early 90’s so there was a huge
hoo-ha about it in the media.
Loosely
based upon a true story about a rich but measly businessman
(played by opera singer turned actor, Law Kar Ying) who was
kidnapped back in the 80’s in HK, ”Crime Story”
departs from the usual slapstick-action comedies, which Chan
is famous for. Taking on the role of Eddie Chan, a cop which
is perturbed by the fact that he fired and shot dead three
robbers on a busy street. This segment is shown in flashback
when Eddie being close to breakdown is sent to visit a psychiatrist
played by Pan. The tone is serious, dark and Eddie is rarely
seen with a smile. You know this is not Police Story 3.
The
involvement of director/actor Kirk Wong played a major part
in the success of “Crime Story”. The plot is captivating,
shadowy and contains “adults” elements (which
normally you won’t associate with a Chan’s flick).
Instead of having Chan solely pursuing and fending off the
baddies, we have a corrupt cop (Kent Cheng) infiltrating the
operation as well. Playing against the evil Cheng, Jackie
has the chance to stretch his acting skills, no more funny
faces and awkward body languages. One scene to note is their
exchanges on the plane, which has a sinister foreboding feel
to it. You just can’t wait to see what Cheng is going
to do to Eddie once they get off the plane.
Without
resorting to overly cheesy and exaggerating (see “New
Police Story”), Jackie’s performance is indeed
commendable during the dramatic highlights of the movie.
Another
contributing factor to the success of “Crime Story”
is Kirk left the action sequences to Jackie and his team while
Jackie left the story development to Kirk. The action is swift
and hard-hitting which sets it apart from the usual typical
clowning around acrobatic-style choreography. There’s
a scene of a big chase on the busy streets of HK which was
accomplished without the involvement of the authorities to
assist in the shooting, adding a sense of realism without
adding on to the budget. A typical amazing example of how
the HK film industry does their job.
“Crime
Story” successfully marks Jackie’s departure from
his self-directorial projects and his willingness to collaborate
with other directors significantly among them, the notorious
Wong Jing during the 90’s. I highly recommend this title
if you are looking beyond the usual slate of JC’s flicks.
SPECIAL
FEATURES:
Feature Commentary With Director Kirk Wong And Hong
Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan – These 2 guys
obviously had a good time and enjoyed the company of each
other. They talked and reminisced about the movie, pity Jackie
is too busy to be around.
Our
local starlet, Pan Ling Ling’s scenes are all here in
Deleted Scenes. As intended by Kirk Wong,
her character acts as the love interest and to show the softer
side of Eddie. Ironically, it was intact in the Singapore’s
theatrical reel but it was trimmed for pacing in the international
version.
It
was rumored that Kirk Wong had a disagreement with Jackie
over the cut of “Crime Story” but it was refuted
by Kirk himself in A Journey To The Underworld: An
Exclusive Interview with Director Kirk Wong. The
actual story goes like this, additional scenes were added
and certain scenes were deleted in the final cut of the movie
(presumably by Jackie). Kirk only knows about this when he
watched it in the cinema. But thing is Kirk never had the
chance to talk to Jackie subsequently and so forth. Which
scenes were added? Which scenes were deleted? We never knew
and this interview makes the whole issue even more ambiguous.
From
The Page To The Silver Screen: An Interview With Writer Teddy
Chen – Teddy Chen was among the many writers
engaged by Golden Harvest to scribe the project and he talks
how the script evolves and such. On a side note, Chen was
also responsible for Jackie Chan’s “Accidental
Spy” in 2001.
A
Trailer Gallery featuring the original theatrical
trailer and a new trailer of the movie rounds up this DVD.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Kudos
to Dragon Dynasty for giving “Crime Story” a good
scrub. It’s visually less distracting and colours look
more refined though there are still traces of artifacts. Nevertheless,
a stark improvement over the original print.
Available
in both Cantonese and Spanish tracks and comes with Dolby
Digital 5.1. Dialogue is clear and surround works few and
far as large portion of the movie don’t really calls
for it.
MOVIE
RATING:
DVD
RATING:
Review
by Linus Tee
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