Black Mask (Blu-ray)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Hip-hop music also runs rampant throughout the entire film, obviously because this is a 90s flick and in the 90s, it was the in thing to put hip-hop in everything. I'm not a hip-hop hater by any means, but too much of anything is usually a recipe for disaster. I remember once when my friend Jeff pigged-out on cherries when we were kids. Jeff must have eaten a hundred or so in one sitting, and man did that guy ever have one hell of a stomach ache afterwards. In "Black Mask," the cheap hip-hop (or "rap" that's spelled with a capital "C") was in every nook and cranny, scratching away in scenes where it just didn't belong. I was in the same boat as Jeff with one hell of a headache afterwards.

The only tolerable part about the experience was Jet Li, and even then I wasn't blown away by the action sequences. They might have been amazing feats of brilliance once upon a time, but this time around it just seemed like pretty routine stuff.

Video:
"Black Mask" comes on a single-layer BD-25 (MPEG-2 video codec) and features a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. I must say that this is one of the worst transfers I've encountered. Some scenes have excessive grain interference, while the rest of the production seems to have a mild murky haze (and I don't remember seeing any smokers). I kept blinking thinking that it was my eyes, but no, it was actually part of the movie. As a result of this, colors are much softer and details are pretty lackluster, too. All in all, I just didn't experience anything close the crispness that I expect from Blu-ray.

Audio:
The high-definition release features a lone English dub DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless track as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles. The sound is easily the highlight of the disc and blows away everything else, but then again that isn't a very difficult task to begin with. I found a good balance between the front and center channels and the rear channels were cranked to enhance many of the action sequences. The bass, on the other hand, felt overdone to me and that's coming from someone who is normally a fan of heavy subwoofer usage. Between the clockwork explosions and seemingly nonstop hip-hop music, a powerful rumble every three seconds or so eventually became redundant and forgettable. It would have also been nice for Lionsgate to tack on the original Chinese language track for the hard-core fans, yet they still chose not to do so.

Extras:
Unfortunately, Lionsgate didn't include much in terms of bonus features for the "Black Mask" Blu-ray, either. In fact, according to the archived review of DVD Town's own John J. Puccio, you'll actually find more on the standard-definition DVD.

What we do have is a text-based feature explaining the "Wushu Technique." Jet Li is actually a Wushu World Champion and has practiced the martial art since he was eight years old.

"Wushu in Action" is basically just a section gathering all of the Wushu fight scenes together in one place and there are nine of them in total: "The Escape," "The Bathroom," "The Drop-Off," "Rock Saves The Black Mask," "The Setup," "Hospital," "The Tower," "The Graveyard," and "Final Fight."

After watching the film, viewers can test their "Black Mask" knowledge with a multiple choice "Black Mask Trivia Game."

The only real exclusive, which I'm being generous calling it such, is a grouping of high-definition trailers: "Bangkok Dangerous," "Forbidden Kingdom," "War," and "Crank." All four trailers also autoplay on startup.

The Final Cut:
John gave "Black Mask" a 6 for film value quite a while ago, and if I could travel back to the 90s I'd probably agree with him. But by today's standards, the film is severely dated and the one thing it really had going for it--the stunts--no longer amaze and bewilder when compared to what we see nowadays. Plus, the poor transfer combined with minimal extras just adds insult to injury.

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---