The Wisdom of Crocodiles (Immortality) (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Vampire	Dolby Digital Trailer-Egypt Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	94:55
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Po-Chih Leong
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Jude Law Elina Löwensohn Timothy Spall Jack Davenport Colin Salmon
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	Rental	Music	Orlando Gough John Lunn

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

• Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film: Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver
• Catalonian International Film Festival, Sitges, Spain: Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold
• Gérardmer Film Festival: Special Jury Prize
• International Festival of Action and Adventure Films: Audience Award

    As best as I can tell, this is the first film made outside of Hong Kong by the director, Po-Chih Leong who, along with a number of actors that each do an excellent job, has brought us a very interesting although somewhat quirky film. The back cover has the pivotal quote that the film is based on at the top:

"It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they could devour".

    To place this quote into a slightly larger context from Francis Bacon's (1561–1626) Essay on Morals: Of Wisdom for a Man’s Self

"Wisdom for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they could devour. "

    While this film could be called a vampire film, the mythology is all its own. Yes, the main character requires blood for survival but there the similarity to well-known mythologies ends. This is a torn man, as in one way that the above quote can be interpreted, he requires blood and the death of his victim, but unfortunately his affliction requires that he search for someone that truly loves him, and that he kill them. Part of the mythology is that the emotions are present in our blood as chemicals - when he feeds he draws in not only nourishment but also the emotions of his victim. He hopes and searches for a woman that will love him without reservation - he believes that the blood of such a woman would release him from ever having to feed on blood again. The catch is that it is most unlikely that a woman would fall in love with him without he himself committing his own feelings to the relationship.

    There are two main arcs to the story. Our protagonist, Stephen, and his search for love and blood is the first main story arc. The second is the interaction between Stephen and a police officer investigating the murder of a young woman, one that was the girlfriend of Stephen at the time of her disappearance. The film does manage to build some real tension towards the climax as you really don't know which way each of the characters is going to turn, and it will have you on the edge of your seat. The characters are surprisingly real and are brought to life with great skill by our actors. I think this is part of what builds the tension so well - you become involved with the characters and worry about them. I was particularly drawn by the portrayal of Anne by Elina Löwensohn, a wonderful mix of strength, vulnerability and innocence.

Video

    The sharpness varies throughout the film. The opening 1.85:1 section is at one end of the scale, with quite good definition, but once we change to 1.33:1 it starts to go downhill with some scenes positively blurred. Motion in particular is blurred with some very fast moving objects simply disappearing. Shadow detail is not too bad but there is a fair amount of low level noise triggered by the ever-present grain. This is particularly evident in the darker scenes such as at 48:24.

    While there are no bright splashes of colour, probably intentional in a film of this tone, the colours are accurate as are the skin tones, although both again are slightly affected by the grain.

    There are no major MPEG artefacts but the transfer does suffer a little from the compression required to fit it onto a single layer. There is some posterization (4:57) and minor blocking in the same scene, particularly on the woman's face. She is moving quickly at the time and the background is changing quickly as well so this represents the worse case. There is no aliasing or telecine wobble and film artefacts are restricted to the grain.

    The subtitles are very comprehensive and include audio cues for sounds as well. At one stage the subtitles show some dialogue that really can't be heard over the noise of a large machine.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue quality is good throughout except for the piece of dialogue that I wouldn't even have known existed had the subtitles not rendered what was being said. No matter - it is only an incidental piece of dialogue.

    There are no problems with the audio sync.

    Music is used sparingly in this film and is simple but quite effective.

    The surrounds do contain some ambience and the music when present. They are not overworked but add to the atmosphere.

    The subwoofer does not really get much to do in this film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (1:12)

    Strangely presented at 1.41:1, the trailer is accompanied by a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. It is a series of clips from the film interspersed with text-based questions such as "Can you resist him?" - a little over-dramatic for my taste.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer.
• Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
• Very short featurette
• multiple trailers for other films.

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• nothing that I can see.

    This gives us a clear Region 1 winner.

    I found this an intriguing film with some fresh takes on the vampire theme. While certainly not a classic, it is well worth a look if you get to the video shop a bit late and all the new releases are out. It was interesting to see Jude Law, who played one of the androids in A.I., in a film that still has impact but is not in danger of being charged with emotional battery.

    The video quality is disappointing.

    The audio is functional but a little boring.

    There are no real extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall