Category: Reviews

DVD Review – Motorway (2013)

Reviews

Motorway follows the story of two traffic cops, Cheung (Shawn Yue) is the fast paced rookie determined to impress his supervisors and Lo (Anthony Wong) is the seasoned veteran who is counting down the days to sweet, sweet retirement. These two cops become entangled in a case where Cheung is left in hot pursuit of a getaway driver that has haunted Lo in the past. The felon gets away with breaking a known triad out of prison. With the duo now planning a string of robberies, Lo takes it upon himself to teach Cheung that there’s more to driving than what’s under the hood.

Soi Cheang, a director of whole string of gritty crime thrillers (most recently the excellent Accident) essentially takes the drive-in route with Motorway. Not that I’m saying that’s a bad thing, Motorway is a good film, but strangely straightforward. We have the main plot, the clichéd subplot and a very throwaway attempt at romantic storyline.

Lead actors Shawn Yue and Anthony Wong are faultless, both of them do great work here – the main story is interesting with some predictable twists. The supporting cast includes appearances from both Gordon Lam and Josie Ho as higher ranking officers. The car chases are good, choreographed by seasoned action directors Char Kar-Lok and Wong Wai-Fau; the chase scenes taking place in the multi-storey parking garage and the mountains are both gripping and well thought-out.

Special Features on Arrow’s DVD release include roughly one hour of Behind the Scenes footage of almost every scene being shot, with the majority of the footage concentrating on how they constructed and later filmed the chase sequences. We see director Soi Cheang and action choreographer Chin Kar-Lok working out every moment and angle with the actors on set. It may be the only extra on the disc, but you can’t argue with a near hour’s worth of English subtitled footage.

Overall I have to say that Motorway is a good movie, but it’s not reinventing the wheel when it comes to car movies and cop movies to be honest. Although it should be said that we are quite lucky to see it being released in the UK at all, not enough Hong Kong cinema reaches these shores anymore. Sure, it has a very generic cover art which does the film no justice, but let’s be thankful that we get to see this film in the first place!

4/5

DVD Review – Boomerang Family (2013)

Reviews

Oh In-mo (Park Hae-il), a failed director and a failed husband, who is left in debt, finds himself flirting with suicide. Upon fashioning his noose, he receives a text from his mother inviting him for lunch – he accepts her offer and takes it one step further and decides to move in. Upon his return we’re introduced to his older brother Han-mo (Yoon Je-moon), a useless ex-con who spends his days sleeping on the couch. When he finds out his big shot director brother has moved back, he tries his best to get him out.

The brothers soon put their quarrels aside however and find solidarity when their younger sister Mi-yun (Kong Hyo-jin) and her teenage daughter Min-kyung (Jin Ji-hee) move back home after leaving her second husband. With all of these miserable, arrogant siblings under the same roof, their mother must be a saint, right? Well, it turns out that she too has some skeletons in her closet.

Song Hae-sung, director of Failan, delivers his vision of the South Korean dysfunctional family as based on the novel by Cheon Myung-qwan. In a nutshell, Boomerang Family is an amusing, but inadequate family drama. I couldn’t find any real laugh out loud moments in this film, the family is very dysfunctional, and there are some comical cringeworthy moments, but for most part the film is a real downer. You can only really sympathise with the mother, played by Youn Yun-jung. The story does its best to make us feel sympathetic for Han-mo, the first half of the film portrays him as a loyal family dog, but later ruins that image by turning him into a pervert in need of redemption.

The film just didn’t pay off for me as the story goes into the latter half, the twists in the narrative feel a little overbearing and when they spring the surprise happy ending, it didn’t leave me with that warm feeling.

This review is coming across a little negative; did I enjoy any of the film? Of course! I admit there are some great moments with the family; the uncles tormenting their niece for pizza is very amusing. But the moments of solidarity between the siblings is the most entertaining. When the sister starts a fight in a restaurant against a group of guys and the brothers immediately come to their little sister’s aid is quite pleasant to see, and their mother’s reaction in the car coming home afterwards sums it up perfectly.

When it comes to the Special Features on this DVD release we are spoiled! Boomerang Family was the closing film of the 2013 London Korean Film Festival and we’re shown footage of the closing ceremony with Youn Yun-jung, Yoon Je-moon and director Song Hae-sung. We’re also treated to a Q&A after the film as well as an interview with the director and the cast while at the festival. It’s well over an hour of special features which also includes a brief “Making Of” feature, as well as the standard movie trailer for the film.

Overall, I was mildly disappointed with Boomerang Family, but don’t let my review turn away any keen Korean cinema fans out there! Watch it, form your own opinion and tell me I’m wrong!

3/5

Blu-ray Review – Escape Plan (2013)

Reviews

Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is a professional escape artist who has spent most of his days in prison. Not for committing serious crimes, he’s in there to exploit their flaws and escape! Breslin is the key part of a crack team that are hired out by private security firms to test the security of their prisons.

When en route to his next assignment, Breslin is abducted and transported to a private ultra-high security prison, known as “The Tomb”. What’s different about this prison compared Breslins normal bread and butter? This prison has been designed as “escape proof” thanks to all of Breslin’s research. With nowhere to run, he now finds himself at the mercy of the highly dangerous inmates. Amongst the inmates is Gil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) a political detainee who harbours the only known whereabouts of a highly sought after criminal. Together they forge an alliance and work on hatching the ultimate escape plan!

Stallone and Schwarzenegger team together in the ultimate prison break out movie, which wants you think it’s a really, really smart movie – but in actuality, it’s a pretty decent prison movie. Ok, that sounds negative, but it’s not; Escape Plan is a good film starring two of Hollywood’s biggest action stars; yes they’re getting pretty old now, but with a good story they can pull off a fun, fanciful story.

But, the Special Features on the Blu-ray claim that this is the movie to end all movies! A story a pure as the driven snow, a film where you won’t know what’s coming next! Although you’ll figure out one of the main plot twists just under a hour into the film, it’s obvious Sly, stop telling us it isn’t. I understand that they’re promoting the film, but it seems as if they were shooting for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay – it’s a near-futuristic prison movie! This isn’t a three hour French film about lesbians!

For this film not being as action packed as Stallone’s prior films it was still fun seeing Vinnie Jones pop up as the head of security figure for the faceless security guards, and you know that Stallone is going to have fisticuffs with ole’ Vinnie at some point! Other notable cast members include Jim Caviezal as the head honcho of the state of the art high-risk prison and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as the tech support for Stallone’s A-Team, along with Amy Ryan aka Holly from ‘The Office‘ (US).

The film runs just under two hours, which is a tad long, but the banter between Stallone and Scharzenegger keeps it light and when Stallone brings the science to life it is quite entertaining.

Special Features include three featurettes; one focusing on the making of the movie (AKA the best story since sliced bread!), “Clash of the Titans” with cast and crew commenting on the collaboration between Stallone/Scharzenegger and one last feature focusing on the history of high security prisons. Other than that we’re given an audio commentary from the director Mikael Håfström and writer Miles Chapman as well as near ten minutes worth of deletes scenes.

3/5

Blu-ray Review – Cinema Paradiso (1988)

Reviews

Set in Sicily, Italy, Cinema Paradiso details the life story of a young boy, Toto and his unique relationship with Alfredo, the projectionist at his local cinema. The story spans over many years covering Toto’s life as a child, a young adult and finally as an adult returning home after 30 years.

My review of this film may come across as biased, but this film is wonderful! I had never heard of this film until I received the 25th Anniversary edition from Arrow Films and after skimming the plot, I knew then that I would love it. Two years ago I took up a second job, volunteering as a projectionist at my local cinema, so seeing Alfredo working in the projection booth was a delight to watch; his speech about his sense of achievement when he hears a packed house roar and laugh, I knew exactly what he was saying.

The film has many wonderful elements to it; the small village and all of its wonderful characters, we see into the lives of a crazed homeless man who believes he owns the town square or the relationship between the upper-class woman and the blue collar worker. With the story flashing back and forth from Toto’s childhood to his present day we are delightfully reunited with these characters regularly throughout the film.

The working relationship between Toto and Alfredo is the film’s main accomplishment, on the accompanying documentary the duo are referred to as “The Bear and the Mouse”, very fitting. Alfredo teaches tricks of the projection trade to Toto in one of the most smile inducing scenes between the two; when the cinema turns away a large crowd from the overcrowded cinema, Alfredo shows Toto a wonderful trick by reflecting the light from the projector, sending a second projection of the film onto the village’s square. This could possibly be the Oscar award winning moment of the film, a scene filled with so much joy suddenly turning to turmoil at a moment’s notice.

This review is based upon the Cinema Paradiso 25th Anniversary Remastered Edition Blu-ray released from Arrow Films. The set includes the newly restored print taken from the original camera negative. It also gives you both versions, the 124 minute Cannes Festival theatrical version and the 170 minute Director’s Cut. We’re also treated to some interviews with the director and cast in extras such as “Giuseppe Tornatore’s A Dream of Sicily Documentary” and “A Bear and a Mouse in Paradise Documentary”.

Overall, it’s a wonderful film and great extras to match it! It’s a buy from me!

5/5

DVD Review – Assault On Wall Street (2013)

Reviews

Assault On Wall Street depicts the story of Jim Baxford (‘Prison Break‘ star, Dominic Purcell), an ex-military man. He’s adapted to life back home working in security, he’s got some coffee shop drinking buddies, a nice little home and a loving wife, Rosie (Erin Karpluk). Rosie is overcoming a fatal brain tumour and is now hoping to start planning a family with Jim. However, the radical medical treatments that Rosie needed exceeded the limit of the couple’s medical insurance.

Jim looks to cash in his war pension which he put in the stock market; his broker admits they lost the money in a bad investment. Seeking advice from a high price attorney about getting his money back, he has to borrow a further $10,000 before the attorney will help. Surprise, surprise the attorney can’t help him, and events unfold further pushing the once happy husband to a man over the edge. Wait, let me rephrase that, a man over the edge with an assault rifle in his closet!

Uwe Boll the man, the monster, behind several movie adaptations of ’90s PlayStation games (House Of The Dead, Alone In The Dark) directs the story of a man driven over the edge by the fat cats of Wall Street. So my question is, why is this film such a slow burner? The film runs near 100 minutes, but Dominic’s character doesn’t bring out the heavy artillery until the last half hour of the movie. You have to sit for an hour and watch this man get his life ruined in all directions, to be honest I would imagine that most of you would rather just kill yourselves 45 minutes in.

You could almost describe this movie as star studded; it’s filled to the brim with stars from yesteryear. You’ll be delighted to see the likes of Edward Furlong, John Heard, Keith David, Eric Roberts and Clint Howard haven’t all washed up dead somewhere after escaping the gusty jaws of Sharknado.

There are zero Special Features on the DVD but the film itself is decent enough, probably a higher standard for Uwe Boll compared to some of the other films he’s churned out over the years. Want my honest opinion? Wait until it is streaming online or, as they said in the old days, wait until it’s on the telly. It’s not worth getting burned with a purchase.

2/5

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