Full Contact (DTS Version) DVD Region All

In a bravura opening, gay dandy saboteur and assassin Judge (Simon Yam) rips off a set of gold Buddhas from a jewelry shop. On hand assistance is provided by .50 caliber machine gun toting human muscle, Deano, and panty-flashing, gum-smacking tart, Virgin (Bonnie Fu). The trio cut out a shopgirl's heart (set your audio track when you get to this point - on one track it's inaudible, on the other it sounds like shredding bone), pump the customers full of lead, and hit the road in a souped-up Chevy Malibu.

Chow Yun-fat, somewhat porky, plays Jeff, a nightclub bouncer having a romance with taxi dancer, Ann Bridgewater. He hangs out with partner and hanger-on, Anthony Wong, who happens to have this cousin, see? And his cousin wants to pull off a big job together, see? And his cousin's name is Judge...uh-oh. Things get twisted and dark at this point, playing out a nightmare noir scenario. However, we'll never see the notorious eye-gouging scene in which Anthony Wong gives Judge Jeff's eyes and Judge pops one in his mouth. The most you'll see is Anthony carrying something out of the house where he has his last meeting with Jeff. It's wet and it drips - looks like eyes to me. This has been trimmed from every print, but its shadow hangs there in Anthony's hand, a testament to how out there Lam can get when the mood strikes him.

But it's not the lavish blood and guts on display that makes the movie such an arresting experience. It could be the baroque characters and the straight-ahead psycho plotline, but there's something curdling beneath the surface that is the curse of Chow Yun-fat. Looked at in the right light one realizes that Chow's Jeff is the typical action hero - he takes a licking and keeps on ticking. But think about it: what kind of a toll does this take? Ringo Lam thinks about it, setting up Jeff as a tragic figure, destined to outlive his family, friends, lovers and even his own battered body. Triumphant? Perhaps. But also cursed. They don't call Ringo Lam the dark-faced god for nothing.

by Grady Hendrix