| DVD Released by : WA |
| Player reviewed with : Malata DVD-N996 |
| Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925 |
| Features: |
| Chinese Soundtrack |
| English Subtitles |
| Not Enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs |
| Running Time : 87 mins |
Two woman, Bullet (Yukari Oshima) and Moon (Moon Lee), are sent from Hong Kong to Thailand to capture a woman and two men who will be making a major drug trade. The woman has several aliases and is wanted on many charges and must be taken alive. Going undercover, Moon and Bullet discover the meeting place of the drug dealers. They are soon discovered. Moon follows the woman and acts as if she is a counterfeiter who is looking for a buyer of the fake money. Bullet is uncovered when she bugs the men's phone. She does manage to fax headquarters with the location of the big drug swap before her scuffle with the men. When suspicion is cast on Moon, she escapes from the woman and her men. The drug dealers then travel to the location of the deal where Moon, Bullet, and the army led by Carrie Ng, do everything they can to stop them.
MISSION OF JUSTICE is a decent entry in the Girls With Guns category. Moon Lee and Yukari Oshima are good as the agents sent to foil the drug plot. The fight scenes are pretty abundant and these heroes are definitely not invincible. Carrie NG is the tough talking Colonel who is under-utilized in this movie. She just tells people where to shoot most of the time. The female leads elevate the movie a notch as is the case with most movies in the Girls With Guns genre. What would be a forgettable movie, turns into something fresh. Besides, I like watching Moon Lee beat the hell out of two guys at once.
When I put the DVD in the player, it scared me. The copy warning, and titles looked bad on the big TV. The menu (no English) also worried me. Surprisingly, the movie itself isn't bad at all. The film print has some scratches and you can see a blue line on the left side of the screen during some scenes. This is probably eliminated but overscan on most TV's. The transfer is about average when compared with other imports. There was no pixelation and very minimal artifacts. Detail could have been a little better but overall the picture is better than I expected.
This DVD only has a Mandarin soundtrack. I miss the original Cantonese track but being a WA title this is the norm for them. This is the only version of this movie on DVD so there isn't much choice. Since I don't know either language, the Mandarin isn't jarring in the way an English dub would be. The sound says 5.1 on the case but I didn't hear any sound from the rear speakers. The sound was mixed well but the vocals echoed. I can only say the sound is fair. The absence of a Cantonese track bothers me but as mentioned before, this is the only version on DVD.
Subtitles appear on the image and not in the bottom black bar. They are easy to read and seldom contain any spelling or grammatical errors. They are timed well with what is being said and stay on screen long enough to read them.
There are no extras on this DVD. I can live without the star's file but a trailer would have been nice.
MISSION OF JUSTICE is at least worth a rental. The movie
itself is decent and sets the pace for the Girls With Guns movies to come.
The DVD is bare bones, the picture is pretty good but it's missing the
original Cantonese track. If you really like this movie, not having the
Cantonese track may be an issue. One little note of trivia: Sophia Crawford
appears briefly in this movie. She is now a stunt double on the TV show
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER as well as many Hollywood movies.
Reviewed - 6/20/2002
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