My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (DVD) (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region All

For those who came to director Patrick Tam only lately through the quiet drama of After This Our Exile, My Heart Is That Eternal Rose will come as something of a surprise. Lensed by legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Eternal Rose is a classic Hong Kong heroic bloodshed film. The raspy voiced Kenny Bee plays Rick, a strictly small time hustler in love with the beautiful Lap. Rick is blind to everything but the object of his desire and when her gangster turned bar owner father is pressured into one last job - smuggling a mainland crime boss' son into Hong Kong - Rick happily agrees to drive as a way of winning favor with the old man. But things go horribly wrong. The crime lord's son is killed, Lap's father is kidnapped and certain to be tortured then slain, and Rick is forced to flee to the Philippines to save his own life. For her part, Lap sells herself to another crime boss in exchange for his intervention to save her father and is forced to live a life as a gangster's woman. Six years later, Cheung (Tony Leung) is working as Lap's driver and obviously in love with her when Rick returns to Hong Kong as a professional hitman determined to take his woman back. If you have any knowledge of Hong Kong film at all you know that there's only one way that this can end.

Tam's film features beautiful cinematography and classic hard edged action, all of it anchored by his sterling cast. The Shaw Brothers icon in this case is Gordon Liu playing a loutish gang lieutenant and obviously relishing the chance to play so far against type. The convoluted plot and high melodrama are par for the course with Hong Kong actioners of this vintage but Tam has such a sure grasp of his characters that it all works remarkably well. While the action never reaches the extreme highs that John Woo drove the heroic bloodshed genre to - arguably killing it in the process since there was simply nowhere left to go by the time Woo was done - what is there is very well executed and designed to further the dramatic elements. On the whole it's a very classy, very solid addition to the genre and one that hasn't received nearly the level of attention it deserves.

The DVD release features anamorphic widescreen transfers and reasonable English subtitles. The transfer is fresh and the transfer itself is of good quality but, unfortunately, the print is a bit aged and battered so while the transfer is good there is some damage visible on the print. The disc is formatted for all regions and so is playable anywhere in the world with no specialized hardware or software required.

by Todd Brown - Twitchfilm.net