R E V I E W :    Full Contact 

Reviewed 11/3/00 | Background | Movie Review | DVD Review | Recommendation

Background 

Mei Ah / 1992 / 99 minutes
Directed by Ringo Lam

Movie: plot, performances, production, rating

Talk about a movie with style to burn! Full Contact has been justly celebrated for its wildly-overdone action sequences, orchestrated by ringmaster Ringo Lam. The film is jam-packed with color and movement. One of the many unique shots comes late in the film, when the camera's POV is over the shoulder of Chow Yun-Fat as he rides his motorcycle and blasts away at villain after villain lined up in a semi-circle with a cool blue background, smoke and fire billowing in the background. The violence is brutal, explicit, and often up close and personal.

Where the film fails to live up to its reputation is in its story. The actions of nearly all the characters mystifies me. (Spoiler alert!) After the crucial sequence wherein Judge (Simon Yam) betrays Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat) and orders Sam (Anthony Wong) to kill Jeff, let me ask: Why does Jeff fail to make any effort to contact Mona (Ann Bridewater) while he is recuperating? (He has already been portrayed as a sensitive and emotional man who is concerned that Mona has not yet met his parents.) Why does Sam suddenly turn into a vicious killer capable of brutally and coldly murdering an acquaintance/friend during a robbery (while he has been developing a romance with Mona), then just as suddenly revert into a wishy-washy cypher when he sees the assumed-dead Jeff again? Why are the hysterically nasty Deano (Chan Chi Leung) and Virgin (Bonnie Fu) so extremely one-dimensional -- to balance out the twin drives of violence and sex that are inherent to Judge's nature but buried beneath his cool exterior? Not terribly convincing behavior. But the soundtrack rocks along pretty good underneath it all . . .

On balance, the lack of any true emotional underpinning for the characters eats away at the technical brilliance of the action sequences.

Category II. Extreme gore and continual explicit violence

DVD: look, sound, subtitles, and features

An average and somewhat disappointing presentation of an extremely colorful film. The exterior scenes look washed out to some extent, and even the interior scenes look a bit hazy.

The audio track of choice is the Cantonese 2.0 audio track. Also available are the Mandarin 2.0 and Cantonese and Mandarin remixed 5.1. You can choose from among eight different subtitles including traditional and simplified Chinese as well as English. The white English sub-titles are easy to read but have a number of spelling/grammar mistakes.

Trailers for Full Contact, Swordsman II, and Treasure Hunt are included along with a brief synopsis and cast and crew listing.

Buy, rent, or pass?

Rent first -- you may find the overall tone and execution over-the-top and delicious, or you may react like I did, appreciating what is on the screen but not wishing to revisit such weirdly unmotivated characters.

 

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