Dragon Dynasty presents a new version of the DVD. Special features include a commentary track by Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan. He is engaging and not too stuffy like some film historians. He covers a lot of areas of interest and even suggests a funny drinking game whereby the viewer takes a drink of Jack Daniels every time Anthony Wong appears in a different primary-colored jacket. He also talks about the upcoming Woo film, Red Cliff, which was supposed to star both lead actors until Chow Yun Fat unfortunately dropped out.
There is also a 38-minute interview featurette with director Woo as well as other interviews with Producer Terence Change, co-stars Philip Chan, Tequila’s boss, and Kwok Choi, the villain with a code. All these segments use dubbed scenes instead of subtitled. The DVD audio is available in English and Cantonese and subtitles are in English and Spanish.
Close to the end of the picture is the film’s defining moment. Chapter 15 on the DVD features the brilliant single-take action sequence that deserves to be mentioned alongside and might even best Welles’ Touch of Evil, Scorsese’s Goodfellas, and Altman’s The Player in terms of difficulty. It’s not just the staging of the action in the shot, the speed of the film is changed during the shot and there’s a dramatic moment for the actors after a cop is accidentally shot. It’s very well done and is the main reason why my only disappointment with the DVD is that there is no commentary from Woo, like the one he did for The Criterion Collection’s version of the disc that is now out of print. Learning about how the shot was created would have been very interesting.
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