R E V I E W :    Black Cat  

Reviewed 8/20/00 | Background | Movie Review | DVD Review | Recommendation

Background 

1991 / 92 minutes
Directed by Stephen Shinn

Movie: plot, performances, production, rating

What a great rip-off of La Femme Nikita (and I mean that in most affectionate terms)! Jade Leung's lack of history both as an actress and as a character is an advantage over Annie Parilloud's shallow playing in the French original, and the direction by Stephen Shinn keeps it moving at a good clip.

It's hard not to be drawn in when the protagonist is so full of fury and running around with a gun or other implement of destruction so much of the time. A lot of fun in a B-movie sort of way.

DVD: look, sound, subtitles, and features

Decent looking. Picture is somewhat washed out with a poor source print, sound is only average at best, and subtitles have many mistakes. The sound is fine, nothing extraordinary.

Widescreen, Cantonese and Mandarin DD 5.1 audio tracks, usual multilingual subtitles (which are mostly not needed for English speakers, since so much of the film is in English).

Buy, rent, or pass?

A dark and violent joyride with jolts of emotional electricity - definite buy, with strong replay value.

Editor's note (added 3/9/01): I later downgraded my recommenation (after seeing more and better action flicks) to a rental.

 

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