Review of Protector, The

Introduction

Jackie Chan is a global megastar today, his films gross millions and almost everyone knows who he is. It wasn`t always so, and indeed he spent more time than you would expect trying to break the American market. It wasn`t until Rush Hour that he truly achieved mainstream success. The Protector is being advertised as Jackie Chan`s first starring role in Hollywood, conveniently forgetting his previous attempt to crack the market with Battle Creek Brawl. The Protector came five years afterwards, and it is plain to see why it proved just as ineffective in establishing Jackie Chan in the West.

When there is an internal dispute in US-Hong Kong drugs syndicate, the tension erupts and the daughter of the US boss is kidnapped. Laura Shapiro is whisked away to Hong Kong, and under the pretext of rescuing her, New York cops Billy Wong and Danny Garoni have the ideal opportunity to tear apart the heroin smuggling operation. But Hong Kong is a tough nut to crack, the local police aren`t cooperative, and villainous drug lord Harold Ko won`t rest until they are dead.

Video

I wish Hong Kong Legends would drop the Ultrabit moniker. It sounds just like Superbit doesn`t it? Well it`s not. This film and its attendant soundtracks take up 6.54 GB of the dual layer disc, so it hardly makes use of the full capacity. What Ultrabit truly means is that these discs come without added features. Maybe if they tried an FSA style disclaimer of "no added preservatives, flavourings or extras" it would better reflect the disc`s contents. The transfer itself is unproblematic. Hong Kong Legends have a pedigree in getting the best out of what materials they have at hand. It`s just that this 22-year-old film has seen better days.

The 1.85:1 anamorphic image is clear in the brighter scenes, but darker scenes are indistinct, plagued with excessive grain at times and prone to ghosting. The opening scene is a misty, murky mess, and I wound up dreading any scene that would take place in a public bath, or a smoky office. The image just about passes muster.

Audio

Sound on the other hand is sub par throughout. The DD 5.1 English track is a glorified version of the Stereo. It`s very front focussed, and the music and effects are subdued. There is also plenty of hiss. The same applies to the English Stereo track, but the clarity is greater, making it the track of choice for this film. There aren`t any subtitles with this film, but as the dialogue is ludicrous anyway, they won`t be missed.

Features

As usual you`ll find trailers for six other HKL and Premier Asia titles.

The sole extra on this disc is a commentary track from Andrew Staton. To his credit, he is a fan of the film, and he is voluble and enthusiastic about it. Sadly, it is a track that is weighted more towards opinion than fact. He spends much of the time lauding this film, and not enough telling us about it. He gets quite defensive at times, aiming to pre-empt criticism of the film. He is also quite repetitive, and what facts he does supply are occasionally erroneous.

Conclusion

Oh dear God! They say every actor has a stinker or two in their past. I wished I had a gas mask while I was watching this. The Protector is one of those exploitative b-movies of the eighties, all drug dealer and avenging cops, with some pointless nudity thrown in. Billy Wong is one of those avenging cops who take the law into his own hands and dishes it back out with an Uzi. It could have been anyone cast in the role, but because it was Jackie Chan, you got a little kung fu into the bargain. But there isn`t enough kung fu, and only the briefest flash of his trademark humour. He has played the moody, hard-bitten cop since, but this character lacks dimension or any degree of sympathy.

The meat of the story above remains absent for the first half hour, as the director spends the time establishing just how badass Jackie is. It`s a pointless sequence that sees his first partner killed, and his explosive revenge, with a tacked on funeral sequence followed by a stereotypical chewing out by the foul-mouthed Captain. Incidentally, you know these cops are seriously badass, as they carry submachine guns, and when they use pistols, they don`t pull triggers, they just move them down violently so that the centripetal acceleration propels the bullets into the bad guys bodies. When these bullets do hit, they do so with such impact, that bodies are sent flying through concrete walls. I kid you not; there is one scene where Jackie trips up a car by shooting at it. It`s bloody hilarious.

The film really only gets going half an hour in, and it`s at the 35 minute mark that we see some kung fu. And it is utterly lame. The director James Glickenhaus insisted on directing it, and what we get is poorly shot, clumsily edited, rendering the choreography distorted. There are moments of Jackie Chan brilliance, but they are lost under the ponderous pacing and the excessive use of slow motion. But cheer up, for if you are getting bored, there is plenty of pointless random female nudity to perk you up. So we have lots of T&A, plenty of monosyllabic profanity, too many guns, and not enough kung fu. It`s an instantly forgettable B-movie that wastes the talents of its actors. Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello and Roy Chiao, could and should have been in a much better film than this.

Which is where Hong Kong Legends have really missed a trick, for this is the US version of The Protector, the same one that was originally released here by Warner. Jackie Chan was dissatisfied with the end result, and took the film, edited out the gratuitous nudity and the profanity, re-shot and extended the fight sequences, added a couple of subplots, and created a version that would suit the sensibilities of the Hong Kong market. So it would have meant listening to Danny Aiello et al dubbed into Cantonese, but this is the version that HKL should have brought to the UK market. They are not called Bad B-movie Legends after all.

This US release of The Protector may be a film that you`d want to own for completion`s sake, but you certainly wouldn`t watch it, not more than once at any rate.