Vengeance (Blu-ray)

Vengeance is the sort of movie that on the surface should be rubbish, but thanks to excellent direction, subtle performances and some explosive action it becomes something a bit more. French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday plays Costello, a Parisian assassin-turned-chef who travels to Hong Kong seeking revenge after the massacre of his daughter’s family.

After a chance meeting with three killers, he hires them to help him track down the triads responsible for the shocking murders of his son-in-law and grandchildren. To make things a bit more complicated, Costello’s memory is slowly going due to a bullet that’s longed been lodged in his brain, and the men he’s hired may be more involved in what happened than he originally realised.

As I said, on the surface it’s a rather cheesy plot, but as the screenwriter says during the ‘Making Of’ featurette on the Blu-ray, Election director Johnnie To has a knack for taking what at first seems generic and clichéd and delving under the surface to look at what made these thing such popular conceits in the first place, as well as ladling on the style.

It’s a film filled with things that shouldn’t work in what seems like a pretty straightforward revenge-thriller, whether it’s a descent into surreal moments, or overblown slightly arty shootouts that are utterly farcical if looked at objectively, but there’s such as sense of loss and trepidation that it works remarkably well. It is a movie about the past, memory, trust and violence begetting violence, and while it has an awful lot of action, there’s as much a sense of it being a mediation on vengeance as anything else.

It’s helped in this by a subtle and powerful performance from Hallyday. Even his face is perfect. The 67-year-old looks a bit creepy in normal circumstances (a result, I suspect, of more than a little plastic surgery), but here it makes his character seem almost like he’s been sculpted from life experience – in the same way Mickey Rourke’s physical features were so important in The Wrestler – until he becomes as much walking metaphor as man.

Vengeance also works purely as an action flick, with some of the most OTT shootouts you’ve ever experienced. As Costello continues his quest, more and more people get involved, looking for payback or a way to bring him down, until it’s pretty much everybody shooting everybody else in long complex sequences. They’re extremely well put together, occasionally bordering on the bizarre (particularly when they have a shootout amongst giant rolling cubes of rubbish), but the action is certainly both violent and dynamic.

While not the most impressive Blu-ray transfer I’ve ever seen, it’s nevertheless effective, with good clarity and a nice colour palette. The only issue, which is probably down to the original negative, is very variable levels of grain, which often jumps between shots. However that’s only a minor quibble with what it otherwise a very good looking film. The audio is also very clear and particularly good on the action sequences, with the choice of either LPCM stereo or a DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track.

The only special feature is a making of featurette, which is surprisingly interesting, with the actors, director, screenwriter and various other people popping to give their thoughts on the film.

Overall Verdict: A very effective thriller that works as both all guns blazing action flick and meditation on memory and revenge.

Special Features:
‘Making Of’ Featurette
Trailer

Reviewer: Tim Isaac