So this movie was actually first released in China in 2012, but this is the first time its made its way to the west as far as I can tell. It stars several established and some up and coming actors in Asian cinema such as Mark Chao, Bo Huang, Leon Dai, and the beautiful Angelababy. The name for the movie on IMDB is Black & White Episode 1: Dawn of Assault, and the structure of the film is such that sequels could make a lot of sense if done properly.
Black & White reminded me of movies like Rush Hour, Tango & Cash, Nighthawks, and Lethal Weapon. It’s kind of a buddy cop movie, but then again not so much given that only Mark Chao’s character, Ying-xiong Wu, is a cop while Bo plays Xu Dafu, a non-violent gangster. As you can surmise from the boxart, the two characters are thrown together and essentially forced to work together to survive some other common threat, or in this case, threats.
The story begins when the overly aggressive Wu is temporarily placed off of field duty while at the same time Dafu intends to borrow money from the crime family he is in to net a quick profit. Dafu is about as likeable as a gangster can be I suppose, and his role is in significant part for comedic effect. His intentions, which I won’t spoil for you, are actually agreeable and for ‘good,’ but things fall apart and Wu is literally caught in the middle of a black market deal gone bad.
With multiple threats all pursuing a suitcase that is thought to only contain some fifty perfect diamonds (yet contains something much more sinister) Dafu reluctantly relies on Wu to help him escape danger on several occasions. Meanwhile, Wu knows that something bigger is going on, but he is struggling to figure out the depth and breadth of this situation. I thought the story for Dawn of Assault was well crafted and it unfolds nicely through the two hours and twenty minute runtime. There are a lot of supporting characters, on both sides of the law, and the lines of who is on the good side and bad are blurry. Expect several clever betrayals that are well positioned throughout. The story develops well and maintains a good pace despite some rough cuts or action scenes that either just don’t look right (the chase scene at the start has some egregious use of wires that, while not visible, are clearly being used, making the scene look unnatural), or some brief moments in scenes that just don’t make logical sense. You’ll have to overlook some of these goofs, but it’s not asking too much I don’t think for what is in large part an otherwise fun movie.
On Blu-ray, the image quality is solid, no complaints technically. Audio formats include DTS-HD MA in Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as an English stereo dubbed track, and of course English subs which is how I always choose to watch foreign films. The extra features are light — just a whopping three and a half minute trailer in HD and a seven minute ‘making of’ in SD that features a lot of production footage but also a lot of clips from the finished movie as well as a lot of short bumpers that help pad the runtime. Short clips with interviews of the director and leading cast are included and worth watching.
With that, let’s get to the summary…
