Customer Reviews

Jet Li's the Enforcer [VHS]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The Chinese title to this one was extremely deceptive: "Letters to Father". It suggests a full-out drama and, to its credit, The Enforcer (an entirely inaccurate title, actually) does contain more dramatic elements and better acting than the usual martial-arts/action fare.

What we have here is a true polarization: Truly amazing moments juxtaposed with extreme clumsiness at spots. The ultra-sentimentality of the script is beaten to death time after time in this movie, and sometimes even a pretty good actor falters because of the overkill. Anita Mui isn't very well used in this movie; the part when she breaks down and cries at the death of the mother is completely unbelievable, because the story didn't sufficiently set up the rapport between the women. Xie Mao, who plays the child, is unusually watchable as an actor thanks to some less-than-obvious choices (when his mother dies, he goes for an attempt to be strong which works quite well), and he moves well (though some shots of him in action appear to be sped up). But too much sentimentality still ends up hurting the character.

The action sequences and fight choreography are wonderful, without most of the vices that plagued Fist of Legend (slow-mo being the most important one). There *is* too much camera trickery at some points -- overheads, triple cuts, etc. -- but in this one it's acceptable. Less so are the incredibly disorienting ellipses in the storyline, and the incredibly bad acting of Yu Rong Guang, the lead villain, entirely without charisma or humanity, just another smart-cracking bad guy with no depth or real power. When will action writers realize that a villain works better when he's smart and likeable to a degree? This villain is a typical Wong Jing villain (Wong Jing being the tasteless exploitation producer/director who came up with this story), and completely grating to watch.

Jet Li does well in this movie, the character tapping into the more brooding side to his cinematic persona, but for nearly 20 minutes his character leaves the film, resulting in a temporary void.

Worth a look for slam-bang action sequences, but could've been much, much more given better above-the-line talent and less sentimental raw material.

Before buying this movie people should know that it is the same movie as My Father Is A Hero. Having said that, this movie was OK. Jet Li and the kid have one fight sceen each and then they have one together at the end. I watch martial arts movies because I love to see the fight sceens, and this movie just dosen't have enough fights. The story however was pretty good plus Jet Li is in it so I couldn't give it less that 3 stars.

Unfortunately, I must agree with the negative reviews above. I own every single title released by Dragon Dynasty and have always been very pleased, not as much with the selection of titles (some are just ok, nothing great), but mostly with the quality of their transfers both in terms of sound and picture quality. And the extras are good as well. However, here comes The Enforcer, the latest Dragon Dynasty offering, a Jet Li vehicle that is far away from his best efforts. The movie itself is watchable, fairly entertaining, overacted but nicely choreographed. The extras, though scarce, are fine as well. But the transfer is plain bad. The image is not as clean as any other DD title (even the oldest ones); it is easy to tell it has not been remastered. However, the main problem here is with the audio track: there is only one offering, a dubbed English track. And it is dreadful, and it makes this film a heck of a nightmare to watch. For as far as I am concern, this shows a lack of respect for us, the consumers, on the part of DD and its parents and/or affiliates and I would like to strongly urge you to not buy this movie and, if you have already bought it, to return it and wait for a proper release of this film.

This film is my all-time favorite Jet Li film. Jet's son in the film is set to be the next Jet Li and is an awesome powerhouse in his own right. This movie has some wonderful fighting sequences, though it does seem to drag in a couple spots, when trying to establish the relationships. I didn't get the English version "The Enforcer" because the title has nothing to do with the film (it sounds like a rejected Steven Segal title that a studio exec came up with) and that the dubs are a little cheesy. However, after watching this DVD, I'd have to say I prefer that version. The video quality is barely better than VHS video, and the audio is very tinny, no highs, no lows, even on a 5.1 system, it sounds like it was all recorded in a tin can. The disc seems to be recorded with little to no quality control. Putting the disc in my computer's DVD-ROM drive, the title did not show up as "My Father is a Hero", it showed up as "Untitled". Also, none of the DVD functions are labelled. Selecting subtitles does not give you the choice of English or Chinese (simplified) or Chinese (traditional), it gives you subtitle 1, subtitle 2 and subtitle 3. You get to play around with it to find out. The menus are static images with a single word in English and Chinese for each page/function. It looks like this disc was put together with no care about how it will look. All that I could forgive. The problem that made me return this disc to the store is the subtitles. Chinese film translators, understand this: CONSULT A NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. I hope they heard that. Every single scene in this movie is filled with lines that either make you go "hunh?" or make you laugh. When Kung Wei tells his boss that he has to go see his son perform, his boss tells him: "If you do that, beware your brain!" Yeah, I'll have to watch out for my brain there, jefe. The subtitles were so horribly/hilariously done, that it was so distracting I couldn't even watch the whole thing through. It's a travesty that this was done to my favorite Jet Li movie. Until some company releases a proper hybrid English/Chinese DVD with a readable/reasonable translation, I guess I have to stick with the cheesy, Hollywoodified dubbed version. Sigh.

Read this carefully. This movie is fun and exciting. It's a well done Jet Li film. I like the chemistry between Jet Li and his son. But this release by Dragon Dynasty is horrible. They did not release the film in it's original language nor with its original soundtrack.

If you are a purist then avoid this release and find a Hong Kong import that does the film the just that it deserves.

This is a well done movie, the little kid is fantastic, I just wish he had shared more fight scenes with Jet. The female cop sent to find him is also very good, their scenes show an underlying friendship/love and admiration. Very well done and one of my fave Jet Li flicks..

This is the second release in the Jet Li collection by Dimension Home Video and where its first release Fist of Legend suceeded The Enforcer fails. First off, Jet Li is magnificent in the few fight scenes he is in, and the movie My Father Is A Hero (The Enforcer) is one of Jet's better all around films. However Dimension seems to have sped up Jet in his final fight scene in this release and the music and revamped sound effects do not always coincide. I would have given this film a four stars if not for this shortcoming. Fist of Legend was beautifully done in this aspect to bad The Enforcer didn't follow suit. Hopefully Twin Warriors (Dimension's next release aka Tai Chi Master) will learn from its first progenitor rather than this one. This still does not encumber the beauty of Jet's kinetic and irresistable screen presence.

Although much of this movie was spent on character development and plot-setting (i.e. the dying wife), and that Jet Li's fighting prowess was only a small percentage of the action sequences, I have to give this movie a high rating. The storlyline was easy to digest: Hong Kong policewoman (Anita Mui) pursues undercover Mainland cop (Jet Li) who's helping to bust a crime lord (effectively portrayed by equally amazing martial arts actor Yu Rong-Guang). Martial Arts prodigy, Xie Mao (as Jet's son), livens up the screen with his genuine artistry. Be prepared to sit through some very "slow" scenes but you will be rewarded with incredible action.

this is a good movie similar a bit to Hitman. it is packed of action and more! u should get the subtitled version "My Father is a Hero". this dubbed version has been changed a bit from the original.

I remember when I first saw this movie (subtitled) and I really enjoyed it a lot. I really enjoy Jet Li films but since I already have the movie, why would I buy this version? Well, due to Jet Li's popularity, I wanted to see what Dimension Films had up their sleeve. I just had to checked out how a dubbed Jet Li movie would be. Now, all I can say to Dimension is... Please add the original language version with English subtitles.

The first strike was the lack of features and the second major strike is the lack of the HK soundtrack and only released dubbed. Sure, I could buy the Tai Seng version but this was upsetting because I am not a big dubbed fan but then again, I have seen a few good dubs in my life and possibly, this movie might be one of them....wrong.

This really cool movie was replaced by horrendous dubbing, a bad transfer where you can see the film scratches and the DVD has no major extras. I'm just lucky to hear the 5.1 surround.

I could still watch through the movie and enjoy it but I like the movie and the storyline. Why they changed the name to "The Enforcer", I don't know. Maybe they felt, "My Father, The Hero" was weak...not sure.

So, if you had to buy a certain version, spend a little more for the Tai Seng version of this movie. This movie deserves to be watched in its original Chinese language and if you can't understand it, watch it with English subtitles.