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Downtown Torpedos

  Country : Hong Kong
Year: 1997
Genre: Action
Format: DVD
Running Time: 1H29
Distributor: MEI AH Laser Disc Co., LTD
Date reviewed: 03/16/2001
   
Producer: Teddy Chan
Director: Teddy Chan

Cast:
Jordan Chan, Kaneshiro Takeshi, Theresa Lee, Ken Wong, Charlie Yeung

 


Story: A group of industrial spies are arrested by the Hong Kong government, instead of being sent to prison they are offered a special mission. The printing plates for the British Pound have been recently stolen but the Hong Kong government has found out that the plates are in the possession of MI5 (British Intelligence). In fear of the plates being sold to the counterfeiting market the Hong Kong government wants the industrial spies to steal the plates back. The team is composed of Jackal, Cash, Sam, Titan and Phoenix each of them with their specialties that will be invaluable to the completion of the mission.

Review: This is an action suspense spy type movie or in other words kind of like Mission Impossible. It is very close to the Mission Impossible genre as there is a lot of sneaking around, spying and well stealing stuff of extreme importance. Considering it's a spy movie the story is full of twists and turns, it starts off pretty straight forward but you will be set up for a couple of interesting surprises. Don't worry the story is presented in an easy to understand way, you wont have any trouble following it.

The story is focused around the 5 industrial spies, each and every one of them is unique and well developed. There is little background starting off but they manage to squeeze in some character development along the way so you understand them a little better. These unique characters with their special talents and weaknesses make the movie interesting, unlike another movie of the genre the fate of the mission and the fate of the team does not solely fall into the hands on an over paid and over hyped actor. There is strong cooperation between the characters and each one vital to the success of the mission. The other characters in the movie are pretty much secondary.

This movie holds some really interesting action, it is mostly spy gadgetry and investigation but the way they pull it off makes it look really spectacular. The missions are extremely well planned and how they turn out is also very interesting, as for the equipment and tactics, it all looked reasonable and the kind of stuff that does exist. They kept everything down to earth and exciting, you wont really say *Yeah Right* during this movie...ok perhaps some times. On the down side the action factor builds up to a very high point in the middle of the movie and for the second half it decreases somewhat. The second half is not bad its just more quiet, they make sure to get the story right and don't cut corners for the sake of action, which is a good thing.

The subtitles are nice and clean on the DVD version, unfortunatly burned, and the dialog is easy to follow. This was a pretty cool movie, it is not something we have seen from Hong Kong. The style of the movie is closer to the old Mission Impossible series on TV than the recent movies. A team of espionage specialist each with their special skill working together to accomplish a mission, there was no super hero spy that saved the day every time. This movie was certainly a pleasant surprise, we would say anyone interested in the action genre should find this movie interesting.

DVD [ NTSC, All Region ] :


This Mei Ah DVD dosent have any menu, the image quality was very average and as for the sound it was a good dolby digital 5.1. The chinese and english subtitle are burned on the copy so you cant turn them off. The DVD in general is very so so, but it still better than the VCD.

Reviewed by Peter Zsurka


Story Cast Entertainment Subtitles Overall
3.5 3.5 3 4 3.5


 

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