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Released by: Well Go USA
Released on: August 11th, 2015.
Director: Sheng Ding
Cast: Jackie Chan, Ye Liu, Tian Jing, Tao Yin, Yiwei Liu
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
Written and directed by Sheng Ding, who directed Jackie Chan in one of his best recent efforts (that'd be Little Big Soldier and it's a great movie!), 2013's Police Story: Lockdown has a lot more in common with the less popular 2004 New Police Story movie than it does the first two genuine classics. As such, those hoping for a return to form for the series aren't going to get it, but is this latest entry as bad as some have made it out to be? No, it's not. But it's hardly a classic.
When the movie begins, a cop named Zhong Wen (Chan) is heading into a seedy city setting to meet the daughter, Miao Miao (Tian Jing), he hasn't exactly been all that close with over the years at a nightclub. Their relationship hasn't been the same since his wife/her mother died and her disappointment in him is easy to spot from the moment they meet up. Unfortunately for not only the two of them but for everyone else in the nightclub, a criminal named Wu Jiang (Ye Liu) and his heavily armed associates take over the club and hold everyone there hostage.
As the story plays out, the connections between the different characters unravel and the truth behind Wu Jiang's motive for attempting this in the first place come to light. Will Wu Jiang's quest for justice and his drive to avenge his sister's death cause him to slaughter a whole bunch of people who may or may not be innocent or will top cop Zhong Wen manage to get this under control before it gets even more out of hand?
More of a dramatic thriller than a typical action movie more often associated with Jackie Chan, the movie gives him a decent part that allows him to actually act rather than play to the tried and true 'clown prince of kung-fu' mantra hoisted upon him after his early films hit box office gold. In fact, the martial arts scene in general are really toned down here in a big way, relegated to only a few quick hand to hand scenes that are shot fast and quick. There is a cage fight sequence that will satisfy adrenalin junkies looking for a fix, and Chan does handle himself like a legitimate force to be reckoned with here and there, but there's a lot more emphasis on the unfolding of the plot and in building tension.
Normally that wouldn't be a bad thing, but here is where the movie falters a bit in that it dolls out a whole lot of clichés. The cop who has a strained relationship with his kid? Who pines away for a deceased wife? The bad guy out to get not monetary or financial gain but vengeance? The lone wolf having to fight his way out of a hostage situation? These are pretty familiar concepts to anyone who has seen more than a few cop movies in their lifetime and Sheng Ding has trouble making this feel different from what we've seen before. If the movie can't deliver in the martial arts arena, there's more pressure on the story to grip us and Police Story: Lockdown has trouble here.
To Chan's credit he handles the dramatic side of the role well enough. Tian Jing out acts him more often than she doesn't but it's not such a huge stretch to believe their relationship here. The movie is really nicely shot but there are definitely stretches where the pace slows down a bit. So yeah, this movie does allow Chan to do something different and had the story been a bit more interesting it might have genuinely succeeded but there's just too much familiarity here for the movie's own good. As such, a movie that should have been great turns out to be just sort of okay. Not terrible… just okay.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The AVC encoded 2.35.1 widescreen 1080p high definition picture on this disc is excellent. Detail is strong, colors are reproduced beautifully - particularly in the opening scenes that feature a lot of great neon signs and what not in the night time. Black levels are nice and the transfer is rich in both detail and texture. There are no issues at all with dirt, debris or visual detriments of any kind and the disc is well authored, showing no noise reduction or heavy edge enhancement. Outside of some slight shimmer here and there, the movie looks beautiful on Blu-ray - almost reference quality.
Mandarin language audio options are provided in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo with removable subtitles available in English. The lossless track here is an impressive one from start to finish that does a remarkable job of putting you right in the middle of the action. The score is spread around perfectly with some nice pans thrown in for dramatic effect while bass response is consistent in its power but never to the point where it buries anything that it shouldn't. It's hard to think of anything negative to say here, this is pretty much a reference quality mix. English dubbed options are provided in DTS-HD 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo as well and the quality is comparable, but the dubbing hurts the movie.
Extras on the disc start off with a Making Of Police Story: Lockdown featurette that is basically a five minute selection of fly-on-the-wall style footage shot during production presented without much actual context. From there, and more interesting, are a collection of interviews in which we hear from director Sheng Ding, Jackie Chan, Ye Liu and Tian Jing. These individual segments run between four and six minutes each so they're not super in-depth but they do at least give us a bit of information in regards to the production, the stunts, the casting, the fight scenes and more.
Aside from some trailers for other Well Go USA properties that play before the main menu loads, the disc also includes a trailer for the feature.
The Final Word:
Trying something new and different within a successful franchise is always admirable and never easy. Police Story: Lockdown tries but can't ultimately succeed in taking the mix of action and humor that made the earlier entries so much fun and such popular films and turning that into a gritty crime caper. It is, instead, a fairly generic cop picture. It's not the complete disaster some would have you believe, and in fact it has some stand out moments, but it doesn't really offer us anything fresh. Well Go's Blu-ray release looks and sounds great and has a few okay extras. Chan fans will want to see it and make up their own minds - he's definitely made worse films and he's definitely down better - this one sticks somewhere in the middle.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
