Bullets of Love (2001)
Director - Andrew Lau
DVD Released by : Deltamac
Player reviewed with : Malata DVD-N996
Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925
 
Features:
Cantonese and Mandarin Soundtracks
English and Chinese Subtitles
Not enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs
Music Video
Dolby Digital 2.0
Running Time : 105 mins.
 
BULLETS OF LOVE begins with a police raid on a night club. An accumulation of years of work has merited a warrant for the arrest of Night(Terence Yin Chi-Wai), a Triad involved in many criminal activities. Sam (Leon Lai) is the arresting officer who also happens to be the boyfriend of Ann (Asaka Seto), the attorney for the prosecution against Night during his trial. When the trial ends with Night being sentenced to prison time, Sam and Ann take a trip to France to get away from things for a while. Unbeknownst to them, they are being tailed by a female assassin who works for Night. The assassin is known to shoot a person three times with a high powered rifle. The first bullet is so they know what is coming. The second bullet to take away their will to live. The third bullet, in the throat, so they can linger for a few minutes and feel their body shutting down. While on a crowded elevator encased in glass, Ann is struck down by the assassin while Sam tries in vein to save her. Devastated, Sam leaves his police work behind and tries to settle down and start over. Things get even more complicated when a mysterious Japanese woman who resembles Ann enters his life.

BULLETS OF LOVE starts off with a bang but downshifts quickly. A love story is sandwiched between some short lived intense action. What is very interesting is that the action scenes are stylized and quickly edited while the middle of the middle of the movie is more traditionally filmed. It's almost like watching two different movies. This is not an action movie. You'll be bored and disappointed if you are waiting more action to kick in after the first act. Taken as a drama, BULLETS OF LOVE is a decent movie. The movie actually resembles SHIRI in some aspects but on a much smaller, more personal scale.

For a non-anamorphic transfer, the DVD isn't bad at all on the 47 inch set. The source print does have some scratches but looks good otherwise. The transfer itself is a little soft and could have a little more detail. There are some artifacts but these are very minor and only occur in very dark scenes with smoke. Overall, this DVD looks slightly better than average.

The audio quality is serviceable but nothing to write home about. The sound comes from the front speakers with little or none coming from the rears. The dialogue is mixed well against music and sound effects although the overall audio mix is underwhelming and lacks a punch.

The subtitles are very easy to read and do not contain any spelling or grammatical errors. They appear below the image, so unless you have a zoom feature on your DVD player, they will be cut off slightly on a wide screen TV. Also, the subtitles sometimes go by too fast. This is most likely a quirk with the Malata than a defect in the DVD.

Extras consist of a music video with scenes from the movie.

If you watch BULLETS OF LOVE not expecting an action movie, you might be pleasantly surprised. Director Andrew Lau must like the "living ghost" theme as he has also directed BORN TO BE KING where Ekin Cheng's character meets a woman that resembles his lost love. I guess there is a little more to BULLETS OF LOVE than what lies on the surface. One thing to look out for is Frankie Ng as Uncle Tiger. You may recognize Frankie Ng from Young and Dangerous as B. Overall, the movie is worth a watch or a rental.