Shatranj-e-Baad aka Chess of the Wind [dir. Mohd Reza Aslani]

Normally we know Iranian cinema for its realistic human dramas with existential questions - the works of Abbas Kiarostami*, Asghar Farhadi, Jafar Panahi etc exemplify this aspect. Or there is Mohsin Makhmalbaf's poetic flights of fancy. But Mohammed Reza Aslani's 1976 film Chess of the Wind - which had been regarded long lost and was only recently rescued from destruction - is an altogether different beast. This is a stylized and provocative crime noir that harks back to the work of Alfred Hitchcock and Henri-Georges Clouzot. And equally interesting that the film is driven primarily by its women characters.

Going by its look and the feudal nature of relationships, I imagine Chess of the Wind is set somewhere in the early 20th century. It is a time of candlelight crystal chandeliers, enormous glass storage urns, powder-loading pistols and wooden wheelchairs. In a wealthy household, the matriarch has recently died. Her middle-aged spinster daughter Aghdas (Fakhri Khorvash) is handicapped and moves about in a wheel chair. Aghdas is yet to come out of mourning, when the stepfather begins a process of domination to control the family estates. There are other men in the house who sympathize with Aghdas, but for their own ends. Her only close companion seems to be the devoted maid and companion (Shohreh Aghdashloo). A plan is made to do away with the stepfather and it is carried out. But how long can the crime stay hidden?  Apart from the people that live in it, the house is a character in itself. Every claustrophobic corner seethes with whispered intrigue as Aghdas becomes increasingly unsure of who she can trust, including her own sanity.

Apart from an examination of this crime and its aftermath, the film is also an exploration of the decadence of the feudal system. Wealth only begets greed and sin. Banned almost immediately after release, for some surprisingly racy content, Aslani's film is also a sensory marvel. Khorvash and Aghdashloo burn up the screen with their multi-level chemistry. The baroque production design (art director Houri Etesan and costume designer Manouchehr Safarzadeh) is chockful of unique period objects, and the camera (Houshang Baharlou) lovingly lingers over the sight of stained glass windows, rich tapestries, chessboards, chandelier bulbs, ornate flails  - Echoes of the object fetishes seen in the films of Robert Bresson or Walerian Borowczyk. And the visuals are not just eye-candy, they define the mood of the film. Towards the end when the narrative reaches a hellish place, the viewer is carried into the lower depths of the house, the visuals draped in an orange-red tint of perdition. Also of note is the terrific avant-garde score (Sheyda Gharachedagi) that generates a sense of nerve-squeezing dread across several sequences.

From a purely narrative point of view, the climax is almost absurd, but like with Dario Argento's Suspiria, the mood generated by the visuals and sounds carries it through brilliantly, making for a memorable experience.

* This site has previously reviewed Kiarostami's films like The Taste of Cherry and Like Someone in Love (Click the titles to read those reviews).

Un-kvlt Year in Review 2022 (Movies) - The Runner-Ups and the Losers

After the previous 3 Un-kvlt installments where I talked about the movies that rocked my boat in 2022 - Ep 01, Ep 02 and Ep 03 - These are the ones that either didn't quite make the cut or disappointed me big time.

Movies that were decent (Cliched but solid, or ambitious but seriously flawed):

Candyman (English, Prime)

The presence of Jordan Peele in the creative team for the 2021 Candyman reboot was a major attraction, since his presence at least indicated that this would not be some thoughtless cash-in on a known IP. Candyman 2021 is not a traditional remake, but in fact a sequel that incorporates into its backstory the events of the 1992 movie and revisits the setting nearly 30 years later. For me the film works a lot better on paper than on the screen. One of its problems is trying to depict a wide-ranging take on race prejudice within its fantasy universe in a very limited time-frame. The film does get stronger in the climax, where it more fully realizes its horror potential. But even here, it does not reach the heights of the original, losing some of its majesty and mystique in favor of being a social justice cry. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

'83 (Hindi, Netflix/Hotstar)

The story of how the Indian cricket team under Kapil Dev's captaincy went from being complete underdogs to winning the World Cup in 1983 is an incredible and inspiring saga. Sadly director Kabir Khan and his team barely do it justice. The screenplay defines lack of focus, reducing what could have been a gripping tale of courage under fire to a collage of mostly forgettable moments and some puerile patriotic jingo. A small measure of cheer comes from Ranveer Singh's uncannily faithful portrayal of Kapil Dev, but if the aim had been to make an Indian equivalent to Chariots of Fire, then they certainly dropped the ball on this. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

Malayan Kunju (Malayalam, Prime)

This survival saga starring maverick actor Fahadh Faasil is a film of 2 uneven halves. The first is a dragged-out anemic prologue lacking sufficient richness in the narrative to justify the build-up. Thankfully though, this is followed by a superbly executed gripping and visceral second half, masterfully captured by the production crew and performed by Faasil with complete involvement. A shorter, tighter film with less backstory (and less of AR Rahman's spoon-feeding score) would have been a total winner. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

KGF-2 (Kannada, Prime)
The 4-year delayed follow-up to 2018's breakout success gangster drama continues the swagger, and even takes it a notch higher. This is a movie where our gangsta hero can among other things:

• Barge in unannounced into the Prime Minister's working chambers and swag at her, while she hisses ineffectively.
• Have a helicopter hovering above his lawn when his fiancee whines about the lack of breeze.
• Single-handedly assault a police station with a large caliber machine gun to recover a single gold biscuit.

The film's canvas feels genuinely big, and while the strokes are broad, they are also unabashedly virile, with some epic visual moments. What I would criticize is the deja vu occurring over the course of this two-part narrative. The danger of painting in broad strokes is always that there's not sufficient detailing for the characters. A lengthy symphony cannot be composed solely of overtures, and this is where KGF-2 flounders. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

Kaun Pravin Tambe? (Hindi, Hotstar)

Actor Shreyas Talpade, who debuted as a budding cricketer in Iqbal, returns as another underdog trying to make it in cricket. This is the true-life story of Pravin Tambe, a club cricketer who persevered with the game despite not being selected for any national tournament up to his 40's, which is when most sportspeople start to talk about retirement. KPT? has some nice Sai Paranjpe style touches in depicting the Tambe family's lower middle class life and Pravin's struggle to hold various jobs while continuing with cricket. The script is formulaic and most of the characters are etched in broad strokes. But if you like cricket in general, I thought this was better than those bigger-budget cricket movies. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

X (English, Prime)

In X, an amateur movie crew in 70's Texas go to shoot a porno movie on a remote farm owned by a strange and surly looking guy. This is like director Ti West's post Rob Zombie world take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is in some parts good fun, with some canny split-screen juxtaposition and some nice humor, in others it's uninspired or eye-rolling stupid. Since it's Ti West, you know there's going to be a lot of visual nods to the period. It's not a classic but it's not a bad choice for a popcorn movie night. Definitely more engaging than The Innkeepers.

Nna Thaan Case Kodu (Malayalam, Hotstar)

NTCK got a lot of hype, but I didn't find it engaging. This satire tries to take a leaf from Chaitanya Tamhane's Court in capturing the rhythms of a legal proceeding and infusing it with some legal-political farce elements. It is effective in parts. Kunchako Boban's lead is the best element, creating a credible character even when the goings-on around him aren't especially so. But the film meanders a good deal, and sometimes it feels that humorous elements have been forced in to maintain a certain tone. This could have been an entertaining farce at about 100min. At nearly an hour more, the appeal is significantly diminished.

Prey (English, Hotstar)
This new feature in the Predator franchise goes back in time to the 18th century, with a native American protagonist, played by an actual Native American Amber Midthunder. I think the best thing about Prey is that it doesn't spend too much time building the mythology or connecting to previous installments in the franchise. It's never particularly memorable, but it's breezy and has a fair amount of old-skool action. Overall, not a bad way of passing time. 

Movies that sucked / I didn't care for:

Bheeshma Parvam (Malayalam, Hotstar)

This Mammootty starrer directed by Amal Neerad is not as infuriatingly dumb as Mohanlal's film Lucifer, but there's a lot to be desired for in this umpteenth desi take on The Godfather series. BP is less a movie and more a collection of visual and narrative elements the maker fetishizes over. The camera zooms and pans over a medley of 1980's era-specific inanimate objects for no reason other than that Neerad wants to show you how much he was invested in the production design. Inversely the writing is devoid of detail and texture, and emotional moments are negated by a creative sensibility more concerned with the period paraphernalia than the characters. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

Kadaisi Vivasayi aka The Last Farmer (Tamil, SonyLiv)

My favorite Indian movie critic Baradwaj Rangan's enthusiastic review of The Last Farmer suggested an "organic" humanist narrative with an ecological bent. My viewing at the cinema however had me wincing at what I thought was a homily-dropping "arid" slog, hard to "plough" through, and with only few redeeming elements, like Vijay Sethupati's wandering hermit character. Only recommended if you really missed the farming tips from those agricultural programs on Indian National television in the 80's.

Chup: Revenge of the Artist (Hindi)

A mystery film where movie critics are being bumped off by a mysterious killer. Director R. Balki may be a deep lover of ‘cinema’, I don’t know. But in this thriller that's really more filler, what I see is the reduction of that love to some shallow 'reference' scenes that serve as rare quirky respite in a trainwreck narrative with wafer-thin characters and zero emotional engagement. About the only time I whole-heartedly cheered in this movie was when 90's Bollywood's angry hero Sunny Deol yelled out his favorite catchphrase, "Bastard!". Instead of 'Chup' they might as well have called it 'Dabba', which would have served as both reference to the celluloid cans we see in the film AND a pertinent self-critique of its hubris.

Vikram (Tamil, Hotstar)

Lokesh Kanagaraj's previous action drama Kaithi was entertaining masala that had an organic build-up and made you feel for the main characters, so even the exaggerations towards the end could be taken in stride. Vikram is the opposite, so labored and contrived it is sad to think it came from the same guy. The effortless flow and interlocking of scenes in Kaithi is replaced by a jerky unstable narrative that struggles to do justice to its star lineup. The action has the same jerky quality as the writing. If anything Vikram is proof that all this talk about Bollywood films failing  before South movies because people want better content is BS, because I can't imagine anyone that cheers for this bilge having particularly high standards in cinematic entertainment. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

I'm not primarily a series watcher (either on TV or Streaming), because I find it hard to give the time commitment, but I did happen to catch these and you may find them interesting.

TV Series / Mini-series:

The Devil's Hour (English, Prime)

This mini-series on Prime where a suspected serial killer is connected with a single mother and her emotionally-diverse child is a sort of Silence of the Lambs meets The Sixth Sense meets Groundhog Day. The characters have intense obsessive personalities and dark secrets, the crime scenes are gruesome and no one is allowed to feel happy for long. But at the same time it's not misanthropic and does have a sense of humor. On the whole, it is cliched and contrived, but still nicely polished and frequently effective. Fans of mystery/horror dramas can definitely give it a shot. (Reviewed on this site HERE)

As We See It (English, Prime)

The first 8-episode season of this series deals with the lives of 3 adults on the autistic spectrum in very different ways. The three share an apartment where they are guided towards becoming more independent by a behavioral therapist who is the other main character. Autism is a difficult topic as the central theme of a series. To keep things palatable to a general audience, the writing remains on the side of heart-warming when it showcases the troubles faced by the autistics, and the people around who are affected by their behavior. There is a certain amount of pat problem solving and "Love conquers all" element, but I suspect anything else would make it a downbeat niche kind of show. On the whole, quite watchable.

Phantom of the Monastery [dir. Fernando de Fuentes]

I love me a good old-fashioned haunted house mystery movie, and the most entertaining and re-watchable ones are not necessarily the most innovative or skillfully made. Sometimes a (ha!) creaky Old Dark House tale is just what is needed to scratch a certain itch.

Having previously seen some immensely well-crafted Mexican scare movies like The Black Pit of Dr. M and The Book of Stone (discussed HERE), I had high expectations from 1934's Phantom of the Monastery (PotM), which can be regarded as a precursor to those films. In the fairly simple storyline, a trio - consisting of a married couple and their best friend - gets lost while tramping around in the hills. They are directed by a mysterious native to a supposedly derelict monastery. To their surprise, when they near the place they find the lamps lit and are invited in by the monks in their hooded black robes.

It is revealed that the wife (Marta Roel) and best friend (Enrique Del Campo) are having an affair, the woman just about ready to call it quits with her husband (Carlos Villatoro). Over the frugal communal dinner at a long table, the head monk tells the story of one of their own members that was repenting for the sin of adultery. His sense of shame was so great that even after death, his body kept returning from the grave to continue his ritual of self-torment. Is it a true story or merely a cautionary tale told by the head monk to dissuade these newcomers from their own sin? In the course of the night, they will learn this and other things.

The Gothic element is strong for PotM with the setting and the narrative style. Large portions of the film are set inside the monastery (apparently an actual one, as per the video essay included on the blu-ray disc from Powerhouse/Indicator). This movie came out a couple of years after the first few of Universal's trademark  horror films made a splash across the world. One can certainly see the elements of inspiration from those classics, and it certainly some of the strengths and weaknesses of those films.

Like I suggested before, atmosphere rather than plot and characters, is what primarily drives the film. Within the confines of the monastery, director-editor Fernando de Fuentes attempts to create a tense, trapped air. The acting is on the theatrical side, like in Dracula, with exaggerated reaction close-ups. But unlike the mostly static presentation of Tod Browning's film, there are some cool tracking shots (DoP Ross Fisher), even if the camera jerks around a little. The rooms and corridors are a little too well-lit to generate the optimal night-time "lamps and torches" aura. This might have possibly been to ensure visibility under less than optimal theatrical screenings in Mexico (Josef Wirsching's lighting for the 1949 Indian classic ghost story Mahal has been rumored to have been compromised by similar considerations).

Of course, we also have to take into account PotM's age. It was a decade later that Val Lewton unleashed his RKO cycle of shadowy terror gems and nearly 25 years when master visualist Mario Bava demonstrated to the world the perfect tango of  light and shadow in his directorial debut The Mask of Satan. This is idle speculation, but I wonder how wonderful it would have been if Bava had been entrusted with a remake of this picture; I have no doubt the theme and setting would have greatly appealed to his sensibilities.

All things considered, PotM is not quite amazing (it's certainly no Vampyr), but still a wholly serviceable and reasonably atmospheric gothic mystery that should appeal to vintage horror fans. I hope that other Mexican horror masterpieces, including those made by Carlos Taboada and Fernando Mendez, become more widely available.

A few words on the blu-ray release from Powerhouse/Indicator:

The transfer is sourced from a recent 4K restoration involving the UCLA Film Archive and the World Cinema Project. It possibly looks the best it has since the original release. That said, keep your expectations tempered for a nearly 90 year old film that was probably not stored in optimal conditions. During the opening credits, the cast is shown in moving montages which look pretty shoddy. Once the actual film starts, things perk up noticeably, and the image is generally quite good. But there are still several instances of density fluctuations, damage marks and hazy areas on the screen. The mono audio is thin and flat, and the score, while not distorted, lacks full body.

On-disc extras include a feature commentary from the ubiquitous Kim Newman joined by his good friend Stephen Jones, and a video essay (~18min) from Mexican film expert Abraham  Castillo Flores. Both traverse fairly similar territories, talking about the training of Spanish movie talent in Hollywood studios in the silent and early sound era, and how it birthed the Mexican film industry. They  discuss the specific qualities of the film, especially its cinematography. Flores discusses the director's other films including his political dramas. The Newman-Jones commentary is of course a more relaxed and wisecracking affair. Apart from drawing allusions to ghost stories in literary fiction, they compare the film with La Lorona (also released by Powerhouse) and how Phantom... is a more dedicated horror film. If there's one thing I missed in these extras, its an involved discussion of how these 30's horror films influenced the Mexican eerie film movement that gave us Taboada, and much later, a Guillermo Del Toro. Heck, in the golden days of DVD, I suspect Del Toro could have been commissioned to give a commentary for either of these films and would have probably done a more insightful job than Newman-Jones (no offence to them).

The booklet included in the Limited Edition has a short essay on the film and an archival reminiscence by script co-writer Juan Bustillo Oro, along with production and marketing reports and notes on the restoration. It's nice but not a great loss if you go for the standard edition.

Gamak Ghar aka Village Home [dir. Achal Mishra]

Although scripted and acted, Achal Mishra's directorial debut Gamak Ghar (GG) aka Village Home is closer to an anthropological documentary than a fiction feature. The titular house located in rural Bihar is home to a large extended family we first meet in the year 1998. In this segment, presented in a 4:3 frame, we see the joint family getting together for a festive occasion in the summer (a baby's naming ceremony). The children revel in their outdoorsy games, men sit at cards or run errands, while the ladies share in the domestic activities. In their casual conversations (in the Maithili tongue) and interactions, we sense an ease that comes with familiarity and affection.

Cut to around a decade later (2010), the screen space expands to 16:9. It is autumn and the house is a little emptier now. The family patriarch is long gone, and several of the second generation, both in this house and from around the neighborhood, are settled in other places. Even the mother is convinced to shuttle between her children's families than manage the village home by herself. The grandkids are glued to their electronic gadgets, and prefer Maggi to the more rustic snacks. Conversations are less given to humor or frivolity, and small disputes arise. But there is still an attachment, at least with the adults, to their original home. They look with fondness (and some regret) at photographic or written records and reminiscence about the past.

Skip approximately another decade to 2019 with an even wider frame of 2.35:1. In a wintry haze, the house lies decrepit and forgotten, save for a wizened caretaker. It appears that the family no longer convenes here. Like some aged relative abandoned in a pilgrimage location or a once loved dog left behind while shifting, it waits forlorn for signs of its family's return. There is a moment of redemption towards the end when we see it undergoing renovation with the purpose of returning it to its former glories. But who knows what it will all come to?

On paper, GG sounds like a dry preachy exercise about the gradual erosion of family values in the modern age. But the very understated manner in which Mishra (as writer, editor, producer and director) has executed his script, it comes across as very real. The conversations are natural conversations, not purposeful dialog - on several occasions the maker chooses not to display subtitles because what is actually said is not important. While always perfectly framed, the camera sits non-ostentatiously, like an eavesdropper. You could be fooled into thinking this was a documentary put together from actual footage capturing the interactions of a real family.

Featuring several long takes with a stationary camera, GG is not the most kinetic of films. But once you align with its rhythms, it is a wonderful time capsule and a warm study of a universal social structure defined within a specific cultural milieu. I was wholly engrossed.

Chak De! India [dir. Shimit Amin]

You'll have to excuse my being some 15 years late to this game. For the longest time I had been dithering about watching Chak De! India (CKI). Mainly it was on account of catching the clip where Shah Rukh Khan's hockey coach character throws out a bunch of players introducing themselves till one of them steps up and says "India". It struck me as an intensely annoying bit of poseur patriotism, and I was not eager for a film packed with that kind of sentiment. But over the weekend I had been wondering what to put on for Movie with Mum night, and, especially since I had tested her the last time with the supremely amoral Mukundan Unni Associates, just decided to go with this as a rah-rah crowd-pleaser.

Of course, CKI has to be given a lot of leeway because it was one of the early Bollywood sports movies, and possibly the first which featured the lead guy as a coach rather than as a player. Our coach is a former player named Kabir Khan who some years ago became (in)famous for having lost a World Cup match with Pakistan (horrors!) and was promptly disgraced as a traitor. We have no clue of what he has been doing in the interim, but he promptly turns up before a panel of sneering selectors (led by the king of sneer Anjan Srivastava) to apply as coach for the Indian Women's Hockey team. He is selected because apparently no one else wants the job. I find this a little hard to believe, because any job with a salary attached has takers in this country, and especially if it were a job that carried no expectations of performance, a lot of people would want to take it up purely as a cushy position.

Anyhoo, Coach Kabir is given a bunch of recruits to put through the drill. To establish his hardass credentials, he throws out players for joining late or daring to mention their domicile state. With a mixture of sermons and sadism he starts to shape up the team. There is no romantic interest for our coach (kudos for avoiding that cliche, though one wonders if we might have had a more rounded portrayal with the coach as a married man), so a fair amount of the running time can be spared to focus on the gallery of women that make up the team. This is a good thing since we get to see some interesting new actors, including Shilpa Shukla (BA Pass, which I should probably see now) as a super-bitch former captain who constantly rebels against the new coach. There's also one Sagarika Ghatge, shown to be engaged to a cricketer beau that sneers at her "gulli danda" game (apparently the actress later got married to an actual cricketer, oh the irony). The beau is such a one-note boor you wonder why she puts up with him even if she were a municipal office clerk instead of a national level hockey player. If you love your career, you can't let someone, especially a spouse, put you down in that fashion. Even in a populist film, they should have tried for a more layered portrayal.

If you've seen any sports movies before, you know exactly how CKI goes. Initially the team is a total mess with the players up in arms against each other and their coach. They learn little by little to tolerate and then stand together as a team. There are no surprises here. SRK's Kabir is in a little bubble of his own - he seems to have no personal life. We only see the mother (Jayashree Arora)  when he exits the family home in shame and re-enters after redemption. Where is she when he's at the training camp, in cryo-storage? Each time Kabir opens his mouth, it is to eject a homily. Even the scene where he talks about his period of disgrace carries little empathy because it's so rote. The pre-match pep talk he gives is utterly pointless, especially since his own character almost immediately disregards his words. Dangal's protagonist was also cliched like that, but the grounding of that narrative in a family setup (and the actual quality of writing) made it more acceptable.

On the other hand, CKI at least moves at a brisk clip, and is relatively easy to endure even in its nearly 150 min running time. It was nice, if also funny, to see a movie from "Indian means Punjabi and Punjabi means Indian" YRF in which characters from South and North East regions of India are given a chance to thumb a nose at the Hindi-Punjabi belt.While his character could have been written a lot better and less idealistic, SRK is more restrained than in other YRF movies. Mum was pleased and I didn't have too many regrets about seeing this.

Police Story III - Supercop [dir. Stanley Tong]

In which I discuss Police Story III: supercop and its UK blu-ray release from Eureka Entertainment (for those that prefer to read, see the transcript below the video):

In their feature commentary on Eureka Video's blu-ray of Police Story 3: Supercop, Hong Kong movie experts Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto talk about the expansion of the scope of the films and the changes in Jackie Chan's character across the Police Story (PS) franchise. The first two installments were entirely set in Hong Kong and featured Chan as hot-headed inspector Ka-Kui, who is constantly reprimanded by his superiors. The 3rd feature goes international rushing off to China and to Malaysia. Also, Ka-Kui as a character now appears more mature and less inclined to go renegade. In fact in PS3 he is regarded as the "Supercop", fit to be entrusted with a covert mission to capture an important drug runner in cooperation with the authorities in Mainland China.

The first two PS films followed a similar pattern. Chan's law-enforcer is a passionate but unruly character, whose antics get him into trouble with both the authorities and his long-suffering airhead girlfriend played by Maggie Cheung. But a lot happened in the four years between PS2 (1988) and PS3 (1993). In 1990, Chan made a major bid for international stardom with Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, directly competing with the James Bond and Indiana Jones franchises in the exotic adventure genre. And with her work in the films of Wong Kar-Wai and Stanley Kwan, Maggie Cheung was also developing a reputation as a powerhouse performer.

The other major novelty in PS3 is the introduction of a partner for Jackie in the form of the incredible Michelle Yeoh. Like Chan himself, Malaysian origin Michelle had gained fame in the 80's as a bona fide action star that did all her own stunts. But after that she had taken a break from films for almost 5 years; PS3 would be her return to reclaim the title of action queen, and boy, she seems totally determined to do that. In the film, Yeoh plays a Chinese policewoman assigned to help Chan with his mission of infiltrating an international crime gang. Like all good chauvinists, he at first considers her a liability, so she has to show him what she's made of. There's a continuous game of one-upmanship between the two stars that works wholly in the film's favor.

PS3 is part of Jackie Chan's golden run, and successfully continues his trademark blend of action and humor. Unlike the previous films which were directed by Jackie himself, the third film is helmed by Stanley Tong. This was only Tong's second feature, and the first one of such huge scope. To his credit, PS3 equals and even exceeds the thrills of 1&2. There are a number of decent skirmishes sprinkled throughout the feature, but its tour de force is the extended climax, which ranks as one of the most ambitious action sequences ever.

Starting as an attempt to ambush a prison van, it becomes a major vehicle chase. Michelle Yeoh dangling by the side of the van as it hurtles through rush hour (ha!) traffic brings to mind Jackie's acrobatics outside the bus from the first PS. Michelle has the grace of a ballet dancer married with the physicality of a fighter and, to top it all, an absolute no-shits-given attitude towards risky stunts. On the other side you have Jackie hanging for real from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter as it flies across the city. After this the helicopter crash-lands atop a train, and there's a free-for-all between these two supercops and the villains on the train roof, while they all struggle to keep themselves from falling off. It's possibly just my impression but in these scenes Jackie seems to be aiming for a crazier take on Buster Keaton's stunts in Sherlock Jr and Steamboat Bill. Mind you, all this is done on location, no optical tricks or green screen computer wizardry. This portion of the film was done in Malaysia apparently because they would have never got permission for such stunts in Hong Kong.

Suffice to say that it all makes for an immensely thrilling experience that you will want to revisit multiple times, purely to convince yourself that you really saw all these crazy scenes. For fans of badass Hong Kong style action, this is a landmark motion picture experience.

This is the 1992 trailer for Supercop:

A few words now about the blu-ray presentation from Eureka Video:

Newly restored in 4K resolution, PS3 is also available as a 4K blu-ray, but since I don't have a 4k setup at present, I was content to go with the 1080p version. I'm not an astute videophile, but I was quite pleased with the presentation, which looked lush and organic, without any undue digital scrubbing. There's a healthy color spectrum that doesn't seem to be influenced by any yellow/teal push, a common complaint in modern restorations. The Chinese audio defaults to lossless mono (which I assume was the theatrical mix), with options given for stereo and even an Atmos track. There's also a lossless English mono track. The Chinese mono is a robust track with no distortions or other weaknesses. PS3 was shot in sync sound using the actors' original voices, because of which the dialog comes across better than in the HK films that were wholly dubbed in post.

There are so many bonus features crammed onto this disc, it's only the magic of fan favorite encoder David Mackenzie which ensures that everything is presented as best as it can be. First off, there's the alternate shorter US version called Supercop. This one seems to have been sourced from the same restored master, but has a much lower video bitrate and a slightly filtered look compared to the main feature, but it is still quite watchable; given it's a bonus feature I wouldn't pick any nits with it. Apart from the Frank Djeng commentary, there's a second full-length commentary from Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. These guys, like Djeng, are regular contributors on a lot of HK martial arts blu-rays. It is again an enthusiastic and trivia laden track that fans will find entertaining.

There's a video piece with a guy called John Kreng, who is described as a stuntman and choreographer. Initially I thought he might have worked on Supercop, but he's just a fan, who was inspired to get into the business. His piece is pleasant, but a little rambling (like this review, maybe). The best extras for me were the archival interviews with Jackie, Michelle and Stanley Tong. They have many recollections from the making of the film, especially it's thrilling action sequences. There are some special interest featurettes, including one about Jackie Chan video-games and a Hong Kong city location guide for various scenes from the first two PS movies. There's also almost an hour's worth of out-takes from the shoot and just about every flavor of trailer you might want. If you're still not sated, the first run of copies carries a booklet with an essay from James Oliver, who is frankly not one of my favorite writers, you also get a set of postcard stills.

In all, a comprehensive package that does justice to one of the most thrilling action films of all time.