The Film:

In his black leather jacket and oozing plenty of charisma, Donnie Yens Inspector Ma Jun quite resembled his other character in SPL, which was also directed by Wilson Yip, because at one point Flash Point was supposed to be an SPL sequel. But in any case, the character is slightly tweaked. Early in the movie, Ma Jun tells it straight to the camera that as a cop, his job is to apprehend criminals, and its as simple as that. And the trailers would have you believe here's a man who's lightning quick with his punches, throws and kicks.

However, you've got to wait until the hour mark for all that. For action junkies, your patience is severely tested, but the wait is well worth every minute you're put on hold. Ive caught the trailer at this years Hong Kong Filmart, and it was one that had action and more action, with nary a line of dialogue. But in the movie, much time is devoted to attempts in building characterization, until the story realizes it better give what the audiences are here for, to see Donnie Yen kick ass.

Having teamed with Wilson Yip in earlier action productions like SPL and Dragon Tiger Gate, Donnie Yen returns as action choreographer for Flash Point, and the cast adopts the fighting style called MMA - Mixed Martial Arts, which is something of a blend of various martial arts techniques, that audiences probably haven't seen before stylistically in close combat scenes. Flash Point boasts some incredible action sequences with explosive hard hitting fight combinations, and the sole complaint I have is I cant get enough of it! What more, as learnt from SPL having real martial arts exponents like Sammo Hung and Wu Jing fighting opposite himself, it made the sequences look more authentic, and the pace at which they can go at each other much more frantic. Collin Chou (Seraph from the Matrix movies) stars as one of the chief baddies, and watching the two awesome gladiators duke it out is nothing short of edge of your seat material - you'll feel their pain!

Excerpt from Twitch located HERE

The Video:

NOTE: We have added a review of the superior SD edition located HERE
I wasn't expecting much from this release in terms of quality, but I wanted to check the latest Blu-Ray coming out of Hong Kong so I decided to go for it. The movie settings and cinematography kinda deviate your attention from the many flaws present in this transfer, but if you look - you will find.

 

 

To begin with if you want to know a thing or two about edge-enhancement halos, this is the right place to start. There are so many and in many different forms. The only explanation I can think of is the people responsible for the transfer finding the halos a "shining" effect as cool as Donnie Yen's moves. Because even a blind guy touching the screen with his bare hands would feel the over-enhanced manipulated edges.

Sometimes you can easily see thick black borders surrounding the actors, looking like, at least slightly, they were artificially inserted into the scene. The contrast doesn't help as well, it is uneven and you can note the nuances between the scenes. Some scenes are strongly contrasted, others are below average and colors a bit blurred, yet a few others are normal. Reddish shades are not rare, but average noise level is good, only more detectable against bright backgrounds when the camera moves.

These disturbances don't make this Blu-Ray un-watchable. I went through this movie twice and found the overall visuals grabbing and the detailing level adequate. But this single-layered Blu-Ray transfer is far from the quality a price tag of $37 should offer in my opinion.

Luiz R.