Background
It must have seemed a natural move for
director Ringo Lam Ling-tung to go to Hollywood. After all, he had
built a solid career as an action director (notably City on Fire and
Full Contact) in Hong Kong, Jackie Chan and John Woo had
experienced their first successes, and the handover of Hong Kong to China
was imminent. The resultant film, Maximum Risk (starring
Jean-Claude Van Damme), however, was a disaster, and Lam could not have
been pleased when the studio recut the film. He returned to HK and
made this movie.
It was released theatrically in
Hong Kong in July 1997, right after the handover. Since then
Lam has directed The Suspect and Victim. Undaunted by
his past negative experience, he is currently completing Replicant (again
starring Van Damme).
Foreground
Former engineer Francis Ng confesses to
the murder of an architect. But police inspector Lau Ching Wan
suspects that the murder is only the tip of a criminal iceberg. He
is soon proved right, and becomes obsessed with the case.
This is not light entertainment. Director
Ringo Lam elicits excellent performances by Lau Ching-Wan and Francis
Ng. The two actors add dramatic weight to the proceedings. As
cat and mouse, though, they are not portrayed as loners - the police
inspector has a wife and young son, and the criminal has a devoted
girlfriend. This aspect, too, lends the action of the main
characters added poignancy, as do the fine supporting performances by
Monica Chan Faat Yung and Amanda Lee Wai Man as the wife and girlfriend,
respectively.
The action is gritty and tough, filmed
without an ounce of sensationalism. For example, an extended car
chase highlights the dangers involved and hurries along with a sense of
urgency and danger. No one with the thought of pursuing a glamorous
profession would become a policeman after seeing this movie. The
plot keeps racing forward and a rising level of tension is developed.
The film is rated Category IIB - some
explicit gunshot violence and one bloody "aftermath" scene.
DVD: look, sound, and features
The transfer quality is uneven. At
times it looks quite decent, with a sharp picture, deep blacks, and so
forth. In other places, it looks dull and washed out. To some
extent, however, this may be a reflection of the intentionally
quasi-documentary look of the film.
Cantonese and Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0
audio tracks are provided.
I listened to the Cantonese track and it sounded fine - the surrounds got
a decent workout. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Bahasa removable subtitles are provided in addition to English; the English titles
are large and white with no backing, which makes them difficult to read at
times.
Twenty chapters are provided on a simple
menu that just lists numbers, with no descriptions. No time coding
is available on the disk. No features are included.
Buy, rent, or pass?
Rent. Both absorbing and draining,
Full Alert effectively ruminates on the consequences of enforcing
the laws of the land, both on the criminals and the police. Highly
recommended.
(Reviewed 12/30/00)
