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In the Line of Duty III
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Eureka Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (20th March 2023). |
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The Film
 When a heist at the Tokyo exhibition of jewelry designer Yamamoto (Come Drink With Me's Yueh Hua) becomes a bloodbath with multiple casualties including his own partner Ken (Police Story's Chris Lee Kin-Sang), Japanese cop Hiroshi Fujioka (Ghost Warrior's Hiroshi Fujioka) swears vengeance and is willing to hand in his badge in order to track down the murderous thieves Nakamura Genji (Die Another Day's Stuart Ong) and Michiko Nishiwaki (My Lucky Stars' Michiko Nishiwaki) who are heading to Hong Kong to sell the loot in order to buy weapons for the Japanese Red Army. His superior, however, is willing to turn a blind eye to anything that happens abroad and arranges for Hiroshi to liaise with the Hong Kong police. Serious Crimes Section Captain Chuen (Peking Opera Blues' Paul Chun Pui), however, would rather hand Hiroshi over to the police political unit and instructs his team – including his niece Madam Yeung Lai-Ching (Madam City Hunter's Cynthia Khan) newly-assigned to the unit against his wishes after the very public apprehension of bank robbers – to babysit Hiroshi while he is in Hong Kong. As soon as he arrives, Hiroshi gets on the wrong side of the Hong Kong police force when he accosts visiting Yamamoto who he suspects was in on the heist (especially after he spots the pair of thieves among the arriving passengers). Madam Yeung yearns not just for excitement but to help Hiroshi on his mission, but she is caught between her loyalty to her uncle and her strict adherence to the law which Hiroshi continually violates by carrying illegal weapons and attacking suspects without probable cause. What Hiroshi does not realize is that Nakamura and Michiko are actually after Yamamoto as well for switching his jewelry with fakes while collecting the insurance money; and the clock is ticking since Nakamura is dying of cancer and is risking what little time he has left in the service of his cause. When Hiroshi and Madam Yeung and Nakamura and both men are gravely-injured in an attempt by Michiko and colleague Kikamura to bust him out, both Madam Yeung and Michiko swear vengeance upon each other and anyone who comes in between them is fair game. While Yes, Madam capably balanced violent action and a strain of comedy, and it sequel Royal Warriors scaled back the latter even further, In the Line of Duty III feels like a sharp departure from the earlier films, not only in the replacement of retired Michelle Yeoh – who married producer Dickson Poon but would resume her career after their divorce five years later with Supercop – with Taiwanese actress Yang Li-Ching (whose screen name "Cynthia Khan" was a combination of Yeoh who was still billed as "Michelle Khan" and co-star Cynthia Rothrock), but also with a tonal approach that is simultaneously ruthlessly violent and utterly generic. Helmed by cinematographer Arthur Wong (Armour of God) and stunt coordinator Brandy Yuen – brother of Yuen Wo-Ping who directed Jackie Chan's star-making duo Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagle's Shadow – the film is punctuated by action sequences blatantly patterned after the "heroic bloodshed" films of John Woo but feel more "robotic" than "balletic" with such casual dispatching of featured characters and tons of extras who might as well just be rag dolls. However brutal the slaying of his partner, the viewer may care no more for Hiroshi's vendetta than the fatalistic and sadomasochistic relationship between the thieves or Yeung's motivation for vengeance in the tonally-inconsistent violence upon her captain uncle. While some other Hong Kong cop films before the 1997 handcover depicted the Hong Kong police force as corrupt, In the Line of Duty III depicts them as worthy as not just tools of the corrupt but dupes worthy of ridicule apart in contrast to Hiroshi, with Yeung adapting the attitude towards "justice" of not just Hiroshi but also Michiko (both Yeung and Michiko separately refer to each other as "that bitch"). The climactic battle delivers the goods in martial arts action, gun play, and explosions, but it is drawn out beyond grueling to exhausting and the viewer may no longer care who wins in the end just so long as it does end. Melvin Wong has a supporting comic relief role as Yamamoto's local security – all the more interesting because his character is named "Michael Wong" which is the name of the character played by actor Michael Wong in the previous entry Royal Warriors and the next film In the Line of Duty IV: Witness (also available from Eureka) – but seasoned viewers may find even more confusing the comic cameos by "Lucky Stars" Richard Ng and Eric Tsang. 
Video
Unreleased theatrically in the United States or Britain, the first English-friendly version fans could find was the Hong Kong Universe Laser Co. laserdisc which came from a print with burnt-in English and Chinese subtitles. Universe's 1998 DVD featured a non-anamorphic letterboxed transfer with Cantones and Mandarin dubs as well as optional Chinese and English subtitles, and this edition was directly ported for Tai Seng's U.S. DVD the following year. While the film got an anamophic remaster by Fortune Star with an English-friendly Hong Kong DVD in 2009, the newer transfer did not hit either territory from Fox or Hong Kong Legends. An English-friendly German Blu-ray debuted last year, but the audio tracks were lossy and extras consisted only a trailer and photo gallery. We do not know the source of that master, but Eureka's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer comes from a new 2K restoration that strips the noise and murk off of the picture, restoring the slick sheen and saturation to the opening jewelry exhibition and the inky blacks of the night scenes. While there is some rough and ready Hong Kong location shooting, the color scheme does seem more considered in the Japanese scenes. 
Audio
Presumably there is no difference between the Hong Kong and export versions, so both Cantonese and English original mono tracks are offered on the same transfer in LPCM 2.0. Quality is rather similar, but the Cantonese track is recommended in the case of this film if only because it makes some of the characters more tolerable than they come across in English. Optional English subtitles are provided along with a second track enabled with the English track for onscreen text.
Extras
De rigueur for Eureka's Hong Kong titles, In the Line of Duty III is accompanied by a pair of audio commentarys. The first is an audio commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng, NY Asian Film Festival in which he discusses Khan replacing Yeoh, Khan's dance training and the need for her to learn martial arts and stunt work quickly for the film, her career amidst the decline of Hong Kong film production in the nineties, Japanese icon Hiroshi Fujioka from Kamen Rider as well as his Japanese co-stars – Ong appeared in a number of American amd British mainstream projects but was known in Hong Kong for his Category III work while Nishiwaki made her mark as Japan's first female bodybuilder (as much a physical feat as a cultural one), noting the physicality of actor/stunt performer Chris Lee here given his famous injury in Police Story, the brutal tone of the film, and the surprising nudity and sexual content.  The second track is an audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema who note the title confusion of the series – the third film in the series is known in some territories as "Yes, Madam 2" while the title here is translated as "Royal Madam 3: Male and Female Thieves" but it is also known as "In the Line of Duty: Force of the Dragon" – the film's attempt to prop up Khan as a replacement for Yeoh with the film's brutality possibly compensating, the series' attempts to court the international market with foreign locations (with Hong Kong not only the primary setting but also used to fill in location work as noted in the landmarks they recognize), as well as the commentators' familiarity with the lesser-known cast members including the Western ones like Jim Jones as Chuen's superior – Jones' career as a bit player in Hong Kong goes all the way back to Way of the Dragon and Game of Death – or Stephen Berwick who would also appear in the next film and Tiger Cage. The disc also includes the film's Hong Kong theatrical trailer (3:12) as well as an English export trailer (3:30).
Packaging
The disc comes with a reversible cover while the first pressing only includes a limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling and a 23-page collector's booklet featuring James Oliver's essay "A Woman's Work is Never Done: A New Recruit Faces Familiar Problems In the Line of Duty III" in which he describes the film as "a sequel to movies that didn’t originally exist [...] a 'threequel' because it was retroactively decided that Yes, Madam and Royal Warriors were actually the first instalments of a franchise called (guess what?) 'In the Line of Duty'" and draws parallels between Madam Yeung constantly having to "prove herself" in the film and Khan as a replacment for Yeoh.
Overall
In the Line of Duty III attempts a continuity with two earlier "girls with guns" films despite its extreme tonal shift and introduction of a new "Royal Madam." 
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