Review of Purple Storm

Introduction

Purple Storm is proclaimed by the box to be a big-budget, high octane techno thriller which is one of the most acclaimed films in Hong Kong movie-making history.

This is a story of terrorists linked to Cambodia with a master plan to further the aims of the Khmer Rouge. At the start of their film, an operation goes wrong leaving one of them in police custody with a serious head injury. The police take the opportunity to brainwash him into thinking that he is a counter-terrorist agent and use him to foil the plans of his former comrades.

Video

The video comes in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen and is, by Hong Kong cinema standards, very good quality, with a sharp image, free of dirt and grain and a reasonable degree of detail.

Visually, the film follows modern trends with plenty of fancy camera angles and slow motion, and for the most part pulls it off quite well, although as ever the slow motion is overdone at times. There are plenty of visual effects, and it`s here that the film shows it`s origins, with the explosions looking at times like a 10-year-old Hollywood movie. Similarly, the "Purple Storm" is not very impressive. However, when compared to many other Hong Kong movies, the visuals are certainly a step in the right direction.

Audio

Sound comes courtesy of a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and makes good use of the available channels. The sound effects are good, but there`s no power in the soundtrack - it`s very much like a standard stereo track mixed up to 5.1 channels and there is a noticeable lack of bass at most points where you would expect a thump!

The dialogue can be had in either dubbed English (yuk!) or Cantonese with subtitles - I of course chose the latter and found the subtitles to be easy to read and spelt properly which is a bonus! I`m not a Cantonese speaker, but it was apparent that there is a lip-synch problem in some scenes - with the characters on screen having stopped talking whilst the dialogue is spoken. This is mainly apparent towards the start of the movie.

Features

This is quite a feature laden disc and comes with an audio commentary track, an interview with Josie Ho, a making-of, a couple of trailers and an animated biography sequence.

The disc is packaged in a clear Amaray case which opens up to reveal the 30 chapter breaks printed on the inside of the cover.

Conclusion

Purple Storm is a well made film which didn`t quite live up to it`s own publicity. The film shows just how much Hong Kong cinema has progressed in terms of production in the last few years, but apart from the various action sequences, there is little substance to the film. None of the cast have any real screen presence despite all playing their parts well - there`s nobody with the charisma of Chow Yun Fat for example, and as a result, some of the dialogue scenes are fairly tedious.

The terrorist based plot is rather topical due to the current political and military events taking place after the attacks in America, and Purple Storm features a couple of skyscraper explosions, chemical weapons and a plane hijacking. The film is quite violent without being graphic (hence the 15 certificate) and some of the action sequences are very stylish.

A few years ago when people in the UK started getting very interested in Hong Kong cinema, the films were remarkably different from any of Hollywood`s output. The main problem with this movie is that it is remarkably similar to any number of Hollywood films, and not good enough to stand out from them. The price that Hong Kong cinema will have to pay for the technical progress of the last few years is a comparison to the mainstream movies that everyone is used to. In this case, despite high production values and a big budget, the film is let down by weak characters and doesn`t do enough elsewhere to carry the viewer`s interest through the lulls.