| Dimension has recently released a version of the film. Like most of their releases of HK movies, it has been cut. It is hard to tell exactly how much has been cut, since the US version actually runs longer due to the new title and end credit sequences, but here are a few of the differences:
The US version, as you might guess, has been dubbed. The dub is pretty good for the most part, but it changes the movie a bit. For instance, when Uncle Lau is showing Chow the dead undercover cop, the dubbing in the US version ("Hong Kong won't miss him") doesn't show as much how deep Chow has gone undercover. There are several clumsy attempts to "Americanize" the dialogue a bit. When Uncle Lau is drunk, he says "I might as well just be pissing on the fires in this city", which doesn't flow very well (the dubbing also makes him seem more drunk). Also, there are a few attempts to work in humor which doesn't work (one of the robbers says "Show me the money" ala Jerry Maguire before the heist).
The score has been totally re-done. It's the usual guitar rock/techno that Dimension tends to favor in their dubbing (at least there is no rap). The new score is okay, but it loses the atmospheric flavor of the original.
The first scene where the undercover cop is killed has been slightly trimmed (the end bit where he is wrapped in the sheet and stabbed).
Chow's confrontation with the man who is sleeping with Carrie Ng has been almost totally cut out.
Maria Cordero's song about how tough life is for the working class has been taken out and replaced with an English one about sex. The sequence that plays during the song (where Chow is eluding the police) has been trimmed.
The sequence where Danny Lee shoots the cop in the head during the robbery has been trimmed.
Chow's torture scene has been trimmed.
A bit after the torture where Uncle Lau convinces Chow to stay on the case has been deleted.
The final robbery has several small cuts for violence, the most notable being a close-up shot of Danny Lee shooting the two cops in a car. |
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