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Released by: Well Go USA
Released on: December 6, 2011.
Director: Derek Yee
Cast: Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, Charlene Choi, Bingbing Li
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
Derek Yee's Triple Tap starts off with a scene where a detective named Jerry (Daniel Wu) sets a record in his department with his sharpshooting skills, only to be almost immediately outdone by a rich guy with a faster trigger finger and better aim named Ken (Louis Koo). Ken's got the uncanny ability to 'triple tap' with his gun and hit the same target in the same spot three times in the blink of an eye. With the impromptu competition over, Ken calls it a night and heads for home only to run into a bank robbery in progress where he figures he can use his skills to help save the day. When he sees the crooks shoot a guard point blank he pulls out his gun and goes to town but one of the would be robbers makes a clean getaway.
The cops show up, as you'd expect, and are curious as to Ken's involvement in all of this - after all, there are a few dead bodies lying around and a seriously hurt traffic cop who got caught in the crossfire littering the ground. Given the fact that Ken shouldn't have had a gun on him in the first place, they hall him back to the station where, surprise surprise, Jerry is waiting for him and wondering if he is as innocent as he's saying he is. From here, the cops try to figure out just what Jerry was up to that night, something that proves to be more complicated than you might expect when that surviving thug shows up and starts to develop an unusual relationship with Ken.
Triple Tap starts off pretty strongly, establishing our two main characters rather well and setting up the obvious competitive streaks in the two of them that will come more into play in the second half of the film. That second half, however, ditches much of the suspense of its first part in favor of a stronger focus on the legal aspect of all of this. All of this would be well and good if it remained as interesting as the early part of the film but it can't quite maintain that momentum throughout and there are some parts in the later chunk that drag where they should gallop. Additionally, the writers cram a romantic subplot between Ken and the two women in his life - a nurse and his boss - with all the subtlety of a crowbar. It doesn't belong in the story and it doesn't add anything to the story save for some eye candy on the part of the two lovely actresses cast in the parts (they being Charlene Choi and Bingbing Li respectively).
When the film focuses on the action, however, it's quite exciting. The film is shot with loads of style and makes great use of its inner city locations to provide quite a glamorous backdrop for all of this to play off of. The soundtrack pumps along nicely and there's great use of sound during the shoot out scenes and the action sequences in addition to plenty of slick camerawork, interesting angles, and very professional looking cinematography. On a technical level, the film earns top marks - it's just a shame that there are those nagging pacing issues.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Triple Tap arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 2.35.1 1080p high definition widescreen transfer. You'll notice as the film plays out that the colors have been tweaked and played with, giving things a slight oversaturation but in the context of what the filmmakers are going for here, it works. There's a welcome coat of grain evident throughout and detail is generally pretty strong, particularly in close up shots. Contrast and black levels look good and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts, edge enhancement or heavy noise reduction worth complaining about. All in all, this is a pretty nice looking effort from Well Go USA.
Audio options are supplied in Cantonese or English dubbed DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and 2.0 Stereo tracks, with optional English subtitles. Unless you've got an aversion to subtitles, don't bother with the English track as it doesn't suit the film nearly as well as the original language mix does. Regardless, both tracks sound quite good though there are a few spots where the sound effects tend to spike a bit in the mix. Aside from that, the audio is punchy and strong with solid directional effects aplenty.
The only extras of much substance are a collection of interviews with cast members Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, Charlene Choi, Bingbing Li and Chapman To and an all too short interview with director Derek Yee. Here the interviewees discuss their characters, what it was like working together and what their feelings are on the project. There's almost an hour of material here, but it never really manages to scratch beneath the surface and it's all a bit dry and unenthused.
Rounding out the extras are two trailers, seven minutes of deleted scenes, animated menus and chapter stops. All of the extras are presented in high definition, in Cantonese with English subtitles.
The Final Word:
The extras may not be much to write home about but this is otherwise a pretty strong presentation for a decent action thriller that, if imperfect, still manages to provide some decent scenes of tension and conflict. If it's a bit erratic in spots, so be it as the good outweighs the bad - here's hoping that Yee can reel it in a little more next time, as the this one would have been a little better had he shown a bit more restraint in terms of the scope of the story he was trying to tell.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
