Relentless
Summary
Director Alfred Cheung gives the film a relentless vibe that never quits, and with some stunts and lots of gunfire, the movie, even at less than 90 minutes, is exhausting.
88 Films brings On the Run to Blu-ray in a vibrant new 2K transfer, looking and sounding excellent. Tons of special features round out this otherwise stellar release, and fans of Hong Kong ’80s action cinema should pay attention.
Plot: A cop’s mission of revenge turns into tragedy the further he treads.
Review: A young, earnest cop named Heung Ming (Yuen Biao) shares a daughter with a fellow cop who is an undercover asset in a sting in an operation that could expose corrupt cops in another department, and when she’s killed by an assassin in a restaurant just moments after Ming left her, all hell breaks loose. Ming is told by his superior to let it go and “not be sad,” Ming shirks his orders and finds the assassin on his own and is surprised to find that it’s a woman named Pai (Patricia Ha), who was under orders … from people in the police department. Hired by people he knows and trusts, Ming decides not to turn her in for fear that he’ll be killed instead of commended, and so he makes an uneasy alliance with his wife’s murderer to go on the run together. Hunted by corrupt cops and gangsters through Hong Kong, they dodge bullets and bad guys, but as they become close allies rather than enemies, Ming and Pai inadvertently put Ming’s remaining family – his mother and his daughter – at risk of being killed as well.
A hard-hitting and shockingly grim action thriller, On the Run offers no easy way out for these characters, as it bluntly shows the tragedies incurred when innocent people try to get revenge. Bad things happen and there’s no happy ending for these characters, and even when you think it’s over, there’s a text crawl before the end credits that make things worse for them, telling us their ultimate fate. Biao, who usually starred in lighthearted fare, stars here as a brow-beaten innocent, courageous cop who doesn’t deserve the things that happen to him, and his co-star Pai is presented as a cold-hearted assassin who has enough humanity in herself to realize that she’s a killer and unapologetically so. The fact that these two characters team up is an interesting on-screen dynamic, and the film never flinches with its graphic violence. Limbs are chopped off, bullets blow brains out, and characters you hope will “make it” absolutely do not make it. Director Alfred Cheung gives the film a relentless vibe that never quits, and with some stunts and lots of gunfire, the movie, even at less than 90 minutes, is exhausting.
88 Films brings On the Run to Blu-ray in a vibrant new 2K transfer, looking and sounding excellent. Tons of special features round out this otherwise stellar release, and fans of Hong Kong ’80s action cinema should pay attention.
Bonus Materials
- O-RING SLIP CASE WITH NEW ARTWORK BY SEAN LONGMORE
- 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVE
- REMASTERED ORIGINAL CANTONESE MONOAURAL SOUNDTRACK
- NEWLY TRANSLATED ENGLISH SUBTITLES
- Audio Commentary with Kenneth Brorsson and Phil Gillon of the Podcast On Fire Network
- Audio Commentary with Asian Cinema Experts Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto
- Running Away – An Interview with Alfred Cheung
- Predicting the Future – An Interview with David West
- Alternate Ending
- Hong Kong Trailer
- Reversible sleeve with original Hong Kong poster artwork