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DVDfever.co.uk – Vengeance Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Optimum Home EntertainmentBlu-ray: 
DVD:
- Cert:
- Running time: 109 minutes
- Year: 2009
- Cat no: OPTBD1730R0
- Released: June 2010
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Technovision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £19.99 (Blu-ray); £15.99 (DVD)
- Extras: Trailer, The Making of Vengeance
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Johnnie To
(Cultured Bird, Election, Election 2, Exiled, Hu die fei, Life Without Principle, Mad Detective, Running on Karma, Triangle, Vengeance, Yesterday Once More)
Producers:
- John Chong, Peter Lam, Laurent Pétin, Michèle Pétin, Johnnie To and Ka-Fai Wai
Screenplay:
- Ka-Fai Wai
Music:
- Tayu Lo
Cast :
- Francis Costello: Johnny Hallyday
Irene Thompson: Sylvie Testud
Lee: Anthony Wong
Chu: Ka Tung Lam
Fatty: Suet Lam
George Fung: Simon Yam
Wolf: Siu-Fai Cheung
Python: Felix Wong
Crow: Ting Yip Ng
Madam Wong: Maggie Siu
Mr Thompson: Vincent Sze
Vengeancebegins with a wonderful opening as a man comes home from work to greet his wife and two children, then is distractedby a knock at the door.
As he approaches and looks through the front door peephole, he gets shotgunned in the face and chest. The door is thenkicked in and his wife gets shot, although she’s not dead, according to what we see during the opening credits.
At that point, her father, restaurant owner Francis Costello (Johnny Hallyday, right), sets out to avenge the deathof her husband, hiring three hitmen, Lee (Anthony Wong, below-right), Chu (Ka Tung Lam) and “Fatty” (Suet Lam),to find out who invaded his daughter’s home and take them out. Costello has a fewproblems of his own, such as earlier in life taking a bullet to the brain which is still lodged in there and causinghim to lose traces of his memory, so when he strikes a deal with the hitmen he wants to take photos of them toremember who they are. It’s not easy to find the right men, and he comes across them in a hotel corridor after they’vebeen sent to kill the adultress wife of their boss, George Fung (Simon Yam). And, without giving anything away ofwhat’s to come, that’s about it.
This is the first Johnnie To film I’ve ever seen, and while I understand he’s made many an action film, this reallydidn’t work for me. The gunshot battles are way too arty for their own good and a bit too muddled in the placing ofall the characters on both sides. In one, at 65 minutes in, some baddies are coming after our hitmen down some stairs,but a moment later, they’re running along at ground level while our guys are working their way down the stairs.Later on, they’re back at a higher level again. Eh?
Inbetween these, there’s long periods of nothing much going on and so I did find myself getting rather bored as itprogressed. However, shortly after meeting the hitmen and going to an outdoor space to test some weapons, it’s funnywatching them take potshots at a bicycle and not only start it moving but also keeping it going.
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic theatrical ratio, there is nothing to complain about other than a couple ofhazy-looking moments that have dogged previous Optimum releases. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
Audio-wise, you get a 5.1 DTS soundtrack which is faultless when it comes to getting across the gunshots, but they’refew and far between with little else inbetween other than dialogue.
There are just two extras on this disc, a Making Of (10:18), in letterbox 16:9, featuring on-set footage andchat mainly from the director, Anthony Wong (Lee) and screenwriter Ka-Fai Wai. The other is a Trailer (1:36) inanamorphic 2.35:1.
The menu is a static image of Johnny Halliday, alongside the menu items flickering away like Hong Kong street signs,with a short piece of the incidental music.There are subtitles in English, but only when French or Cantonese is spoken, not when English is. Surely the pointof subtitles is to have them ALL of the time! Especially since there are some difficult accents to grasp here.but the Chaptering is, again for Optimum, a typical embarrassment with just 12 over the 109-minute running time.How can the same company keep making the same mistakes over and over? Do the bigwigs actually read the reviews?
PICTURE QUALITY
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.