China Moon (1994) |
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China Moon (1994) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Thriller |
Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Anatomy Of A Murder, Suspect, Blue Sky TV Spots-5 Featurette-Behind The Scenes Filmographies-Cast & Crew |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1994 | ||
| Running Time | 95:23 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | John Bailey |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Ed Harris Madeleine Stowe Benicio Del Toro Charles Dance |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent | ||
| RPI | $24.95 | Music | George Fenton |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)Spanish 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 | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
China Moon begins inauspiciously enough as Kyle Bodine (Ed Harris) and his partner Lamar Dickey (Benicio Del Toro) are called in to investigate a murder. Sizing up the clues is Bodine's speciality, and only his professional interest in solving the case motivates him. Lamar is his understudy, so to speak, and Bodine is trying to teach him the tricks of the trade. After a quick analysis of how the crime was committed and by whom, Bodine heads off to JJ's Lounge for some relaxation. Circumstances bring him into contact with Rachel Munro (Madeleine Stowe), who is seeking solace from her abusive husband Rupert (Charles Dance) and the attraction it seems is mutual. Not wanting to go too far, Rachel gently rejects Bodine, who decides to follow up the meeting and tracks her down. Rachel, who has had a private detective following her husband because she believes him to have been unfaithful, receives some disturbing photos, and after a domestic argument with Rupert allows Bodine to begin a relationship with her.
Director John Bailey, who is better known as a cinematographer, has succeeded in creating a surprisingly detailed movie with a simple storyline generated over a short 90-odd minutes. The actors obviously enjoyed their parts because there isn't a bad performance amongst the lot of them and in particular I liked Dance's restrained, yet brutal persona. The twists and turns don't come until well into the movie, but they are well-crafted and many of them are subtle, so if you blink you'll miss them. The ending is also one of the better ones I've seen in quite a while. Suffice it to say that this is a quality movie from the early nineties worthy of a viewing.
The sharpness is lacking as a result of soft focus being used during most of the movie. Much of the fine detail is lost behind this softness but you do tend to become accustomed to it after a while. Shadow detail is reasonably good with good depth on offer throughout the movie, even in the more darkly-lit scenes. Grain is present throughout although it is fairly fine and not troublesome. Low level noise wasn't an issue with deep blacks on offer without the merest hint of blooming.
The colour is quite exceptional. There is an excellent palette on offer and the lighting contributed wonderfully to enhancing the colours at times. There was some strong saturation of colours in some scenes, but there was no evidence of colour bleed or oversaturation.
There were some slight film artefacts noticed at the beginning of the movie, with small white flecks noticeable and a rather large chunk missing at 3:41. Other smaller bits can be noticed from time to time during the movie. Fortunately, most of them were black and easily forgotten. There was some slight telecine wobble at 19:37, some moiré artefact on Benicio's suit at 58:21 and some slight aliasing on offer throughout, the worst being at 8:04 on the forensic labs cabinet door. Besides these few problems, this was an excellent transfer.
There was a plethora of subtitles to choose from. They are easily readable and well positioned.
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| Overall | |
The dialogue sounded fine and was easy to understand. There didn't appear to be any major sync problems noticeable.
George Fenton (Groundhog Day, Anna And The King) offers up a subtle and embracing soundtrack. The music is never jarring and rarely overpowers the on-screen action.
There is some light surround activity at times during the movie, although it isn't anything to get excited about. A scene in the bar at 10:22 is probably the best use of the surrounds on offer. Otherwise, they are relegated to a very minimal supporting role but they did add nicely to the overall quality.
There was no LFE activity noted.
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| Overall | |
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Loewe Xemix 5006DD, using RGB output |
| Display | Loewe Xelos (81cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Rotel RSP-976. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Rotel RB 985 MkII |
| Speakers | JBL TLX16s Front Speakers, Polk Audio LS fx di/bipole Rear Speakers, Polk Audio CS350-LS Centre Speaker, M&KV-75 Subwoofer |