REVIEW: ‘PTU’ (DVD – Dragon Dynasty)

The Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty label continues to broaden its library of Asian action films with the release of PTU, Johnnie To’s arthouse police drama starring Simon Yam and Lam Suet. The single-disc DVD release comes with exclusive interviews with Johnnie To, Yam and actress Maggie Siu, as well as commentary from Hong Kong movie expert Bey Logan.

There are only a couple niggling complaints on presentation and performance. The cover art is misleading as it shows a helicopter and building exploding, neither of which appear in the film. Simon Yam is shown wielding two guns, as if this were a John Woo actioner from the 1980s, which I find amusingly inaccurate. At least he’s not holding a single gun up to his chin like virtually every other action film DVD cover in existence. Inside, the film looks and sounds great. Per usual, viewers can choose optional English subtitles or dubbing. One small annoyance in the special features section is that when you click to watch the interviews, which are all in Cantonese, the English subtitles are off by default. Because dialogue begins immediately, you may find yourself having to stop the track, turn on the subs and rewind to the beginning to catch everything.

Audio Commentary by Bey Logan – I must confess, for lack of available time I was only able to check out the first 30 minutes of Bey’s commentary, long enough to make sure he wasn’t singing karaoke or something similarly out of character instead of providing his typically knowledgeable and insightful commentary. Sure enough, listeners will benefit from more insider perspective on the Hong Kong film industry, as well as city topography, profiles of actors and crew, and various bits of trivia and opinion. I noticed Bey was repeating some of the same stories revealed in the interviews that accompany this release. He does this for other releases and it’s not a big deal. Bey usually puts his own spin on the information, although it can sound a little redundant if you’re watching all the extras back to back.

Exclusive Interview with Simon Yam (22 minutes) – Much respect goes to Yam for taking time out to be interviewed for this U.S. release. He discusses working over a three-year period with Johnnie To, explaining the director’s style of shooting without a script. From a humble observer’s perspective, I respectfully disagree with his opinion on the subject. Shooting without a script and intentionally leaving your actors out of the story loop sounds like a recipe for disaster. Hong Kong filmmakers have a tradition of shooting films from the hip when it comes to plot and dialogue and their output shows it, often with less than ideal results. In the case of PTU you have very talented folks making it work, which is rare. Yam also forms an opinion about the value of team spirit by police officers as displayed by his character in the movie. I take exception to this thought as well. When “team spirit” involves nearly killing someone just to cover up an act of irresponsibility by one of your comrades, I wouldn’t support that. This is an aspect of PTU that I consider to be poorly presented and one example of why well thought out scripts are a necessity. (Johnnie To explains his intentions on this subject in his own interview.)

Yam covers other topics of interest related to the film and his own career. I cannot fault him for coming to the defense of the Hong Kong film industry by pointing out its strengths. Even in its current state, one of the industry’s biggest assets remains the incredible work ethic of the actors and crew who still typically work twice as hard as their counterparts in Hollywood for half or less of the pay.

Exclusive Interview with Johnnie To (13 minutes) – To explains why it took three years to complete PTU and some of the challenges faced. I was happy to hear his explanation for why his depiction of police procedure was so morally indistinct. This interview was rather short and To never strayed to other topics. I suspect we may see more of the interview in future DD releases of To’s films, at least I hope so.

Exclusive Interview with Maggie Siu (13 minutes) – Siu is not a recognizable actress in the U.S. and her roll in the film is unremarkable yet it’s still interesting to get her perspective on shooting PTU. I appreciate that the DD team makes the effort to track these actors and filmmakers down as it is may be the only chance Western audiences have to get a glimpse into the wider Hong Kong and Asian film arena, beyond Jackie Chan and the talents we already know well.

Trailer Gallery – Includes the original PTU trailer and Dragon Dynasty’s new U.S. promotional trailer.

Format: Region 1 NTSC DVD
Aspect Ratio: 16×9 Widescreen (2.35:1)
Audio: Cantonese (DD 5.1), English (DD 5.1)
Subtitles: English, English (CC), Spanish
Length: 88 minutes
Release Date: 2008.03.25

Related Topics: Dragon Dynasty, DVD, Johnnie To