Gen X Cops (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Good

Advantages:	Great action, great fights, great storyline, plenty of men to look at .
Disadvantages:	Predictable and cheesy at times .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

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SYPNOSIS
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Coming back from Canada after education, young and rebellious police cadets Jack (Nicholas Tse), Match (Stephen Fung), and Alien (Sam Lee) are recruited by loser Inspector Chan (Eric Tsang) to go as undercover thugs. Inspector Chan was deliberately given a 'Special Mission' to avenge his best friend's death by tracking down Japanese notorious dealer, Akatora (Toru Nakamura).

It was a Special Mission designed for Inspector Chan so he can be kept far away from the real recruited officers who are also dealing with this very same case. So, the race to crack the case is very much like a desirable and heroic James Bond with his fully equipped army force VERSUS disastrous Johnny English with Three Blind Mice - who will win I wonder?

Aiding the 'loser' team was Y2K (Grace Yip), a streetwise hacker who's became courageous and invaluable to the gang. I can't help but to think what her day job was, but I guess that is minor detail.

Hopefully, these delinquent cops will be able to take down vicious punk Daniel (Daniel Wu), who's associated with the evil Akatora. Among all the chaos of befriended different triad leaders (dodgy ground boys), it won't be an action film without the famous cameo of large tubes of glowing blue rocket fuels to cause explosions and to enable the young cops to show the audience what they are really made of. Will the rebellious cops every save the poor citizens from blowing into pieces? And will they ever track down the evil Akatora? As a predictable movie, I will leave this open.

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REVIEW
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The reason I wanted to watch this film was because of the debates it has caused in Hong Kong. There has been many views about whether this movie was the action best the country has made for a long time, or was the movie too much like the Hollywood big budget film. Is being too much like Hollywood a bad thing? It is a fusion of East meets West - where you have the great Eastern fights with the big Western blow-up stunts. I have no idea why the debate existed in the first place as the combination worked wonderfully. I guess since this film was made in 1999, and the mixture of the two cultures and styles was still fresh. It's no longer an issue today as Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeung and Zhang ZiYi has established themselves in the western side and collaboration between the east and west seems to be more like a norm. The camera angles and cinematography are more polished than most Hong Kong films I have seen, and are at times very Hollywood-like with all the big explosive actions such the skydiving, building jump, and exploding boat house.

I can say there is no criticism towards the breathtaking fight scenes and stunt actions. You can expect full-on cringing moments from watching the pain these characters have suffered from the villains (though they had their fair share of the revenge). The casts were a mixture of fresh faces and old-time veterans. This chemistry worked surprisingly well and I was generally impressed with the dynamic it has created.

Nicholas Tse, who played Jack, gave an impressive performance throughout the film. He was about 18 years old at the time, but he has proved that age isn't an issue. He played his character convincingly, and as much of a delinquent his character was, you watch him mature during the movie. I guarantee that you will grow to like him a lot.

I was overwhelmed to discover that they all performed numerous stunts without a stuntman. The fight scenes were choreographed extremely well with some outstandingly strong high kicks and body flipping. The cool stunts would not come as a surprise if you realise that Jackie Chan is actually the executive producer of the film. I'm sure he must have had some input to the fight scenes and you will see this action hero playing a cameo during the end of the movie.

The clear plot and well structuring of the film will keep the audience engaged, as the story unfolds slowly. You can't help but to wonder whether it is worth trusting anyone at all with all the alliances that were made during the movie. I did hope for a clever twist of loyalty within the goodies - but goodies were just goodies in the film. I'm not a soppy person, therefore the small amount of romance in the film was just right and did not dominate the films as some other action films may do e.g. True Lies, Crouching Tiger.

The film's director, Benny Chan, cleverly provides a good balance of action thrills as well as entertaining interaction between the many characters, whether they are goodies or baddies. This film is quite objective, therefore you are not sway in a particular way to like the goodies more. Obviously we would tend to lean on the goodies' side but you won't dislike the baddies. Both types of characters were able to portray their side of the story and the reason of the actions.

The film does have its fault. Certain scenes feel rather cheesy, which isn't an issue for comedy value. However, the cheesiness tends to happen soon after a dramatic scene, which loses the effect of what they wanted to achieve from a dramatic scene.

Overall, if you like John Woo's film, you will definitely like this one. It is a shame that they have not made it into a 15 certificate (with less violences) to attract a wider and young range of audience. I feel that younger audience can relate to this as the trio heroes are in their teens. But keeping to the Hong Kong traditions, triad orientated films tends to be full on 18 cert. with much blood and violence.

You won't be disappointed with this film and it's one of the best I have seen. It has a good contribution of loyalty, underdogs coming on top, action, fights, struggling, weapons, killings, shootings, screaming, being blown-up, parachuting, burning, comedy, romance, cheekiness, cheesiness - you name it, its got it….and a death of a loveable character.

This film has proven to be a success as Benny Chan has made a sequel 'Gen Y Cops'. I am hoping to see this one soon as it's more western orientated with a good number of western cast. I am wondering if this is Chan's mission to become established in the West.

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INFO
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I rent this DVD from independent DVD postal business called Screen Select via Internet and was disappointed that it was dubbed in English only. I know that the original Hong Kong film would have a mixture of many Cantonese (or Mandarin), English and Japanese. English and Cantonese subtitles are available. There was also no extra DVD bonus. However I've included some information if you are lucky enough to get the original version.

Running - 113 minutes
Director - Benny Chan
Screenplay - Benny Chan / Ben Logan (English Dialogue)
Country - Hong Kong
Cert - 18

If you buy it from Amazon:
DVD Bonus Features:
 Available Subtitles: English, French
 Available Audio Tracks: (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
 Deleted Scenes
 Making-Of Documentary -- Includes Music Videos and Teaser Trailer

You can get the DVD from £1.00 from Ebay. Obviously I did not have the luxury of viewing this myself, therefore I cannot comment or rate the bonus.