Gorgeous (1999) |
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Gorgeous (1999) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Dolby Digital Trailer-City Isolated Musical Score Audio Commentary-Jackie Chan (Actor) Featurette-Making Of-The Making of Gorgeous Biographies-Cast |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1999 | ||
| Running Time | 95:15 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (56:54) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Vincent Kok |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Jackie Chan Shu Oi Tony Leung Emil Chau Richie Ren |
| Case | Brackley-Trans-No Lip | ||
| RPI | $36.95 | Music | Dennie Wong |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Dutch Polish Czech Hungarian Icelandic Hindi Hebrew Bulgarian Danish Swedish Finnish Norwegian Greek Dutch Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes, during credits |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The film opens in a small seaside town in Taiwan with Bu (Qi Shu), who is looking for love in all the wrong places. She finds a message in a bottle from Hong Kong, and it stirs her unfulfilled fantasies of romance and love so much that she immediately sets off for the mainland in search of its author. The author is tall, dark, handsome and.... gay! Deciding to hang around a while nonetheless, Bu's more than passing resemblance to a gangster's girlfriend brings her to the attention of C.N., and she is determined to snare him.
C.N. is having a few problems though: his best friend L.W. (Emil Chow) is also his worst enemy, and after a stock market play from C.N. which ruins him (for totally honourable reasons, of course), L.W. vows revenge, but it is not death... nor pain... nor sending pizzas to his house at all hours that is the punishment of choice: L.W. determines that C.N. must... lose face! In order to give effect to this, he hires a professional boxer (Brad Allen) to beat C.N in a fist fight, and to make matters more humiliating, he ensures that his fighter is smaller and more handsome than C.N.
Jackie Chan, as always, exudes such a charm that no matter how silly his dialogue, you can't help but get swept away. And of course the fight scenes, as always, are brilliantly choreographed and beautifully executed. The big surprise to me, however, was Qi Shu, who really is gorgeous. She fills the film with an infectious energy and innocence (unusual in a former porn star). The chemistry between her and Chan keeps the film rolling along despite the nothing plot. Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Hard Boiled) is hilarious as the extremely camp Albert, and Emil Chow (Rumble in the Bronx) is also good for a few laughs in his role as L.W.
Director Vincent Kok bravely steps out of the usual Hong Kong genre, and I'm sure that his decision was made a little easier once Chan got on board. The fighting is quite slapstick, everyone gets on, and as a result the only tension that remains is the sexual tension between the two leads. A gentle, romantic, environmentally-friendly martial arts movie may not sound like too attractive a proposition, but I enjoyed Gorgeous nonetheless - not enough to add it to my "must buy" list, but it was good for a laugh, and say what you will, but ya gotta love Jackie Chan.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. We get a reasonably sharp transfer, but there is the slightest lack of background detail throughout. It is reasonably crisp, with only the merest hint of excessive edge enhancement at times. There was no grain present (except for a hint at 61:27), and shadow detail was fairly good, although in such a brightly-lit movie, there were hardly any shadows to speak of.
The best things about this transfer are the colours, which are beautifully vibrant throughout. If this movie is any indication, Hong Kong is stuck in the eighties, with all manner of gaudy pinks, yellows and oranges covering everything from the clothes to the decor, and here they are represented in all their glory without a hint of oversaturation or bleeding.
Although I detected no MPEG artefacts, film-to-video artefacts were out in some force in the form of aliasing: on some steps at 11:00, boat rails at 14:50, in the factory scenes at 41:09 to 42:20 and in most scenes in C.N.'s office which must have given the mastering team a nightmare as no less than three walls were covered floor to ceiling with horizontal chrome strips. Film artefacts were also almost a constant problem, which is especially frustrating in light of the age of the source material. Black flecks were the order of the day, and more noticeable problem areas were at 10:00 to 11:00, 24:15, 57:06, 62:33, and 72:18 to 72:31.
One major annoyance is the fact that the English subtitles appear to be a transcription of the dubbing used for the English audio track. This is all too obvious at times, especially at one point where according to the subtitles one character says to another "You speak English" and she replies "Yes, I do" despite the fact that they both continue to speak in Cantonese. There are also a couple of instances where there are subtitles, but no characters speaking! (such as at 2:15). One of my favourite subtitles, though, had to be "It's all on paper, their cash is poor".
This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change placed at 56:54. As the fairly lengthy pause occurs mid-scene, it is quite disruptive to the flow of the movie and it goes without saying that more subtle placement could have been found.
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Unfortunately, I couldn't understand any of the dialogue whatsoever, but then again, I don't understand Cantonese. Typical of studio-recorded dubbed soundtracks, the quality of the English dialogue was excellent. It was difficult to determine whether audio sync was an issue, but it appeared to be just fine.
The score, by Dang-Yi Wong, was keyboard-based, and was quite reminiscent of a children's movie-type score, and as such accented the fantasy/dream themes of the feature to great effect.
The surrounds were only heard from occasionally, as was the subwoofer. Both could have been used for greater effect, especially during the many fight scenes. Disappointingly, not much was heard from the surrounds in the way of ambience, making it a very front-heavy mix.
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There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Toshiba 2109, using S-Video output |
| Display | Sony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre. |
| Amplification | Pioneer VSX-D608 |
| Speakers | Front: Yamaha NS10M, Rear: Wharfedale Diamond 7.1, Center: Wharfedale Sapphire, Sub: Aaron 120W |