Blu-Ray Spotlight: Sakra
Donnie Yen’s latest project with Kam Ka-Wai makes its way onto physical media.
Donnie Yen’s new directorial effort has brought a little buzz with it. Most of this buzz has come in the form of some less-than favorable reviews but primarily in the way that paints the film’s ability to entertain as a whole. The film has its clear artistic merits and does in fact entertain quite well despite some issues which will be touched upon later. Despite some technical aspects in Sakra, it can be said that Donnie Yen has still got it. But his age is making some roles become a little more questionable now, where he plays Qiao Feng (a character roughly half Yen’s age) in his adaptation of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils as a scrappy young leader of the Beggars’ Sect. Yen’s spirited performance doesn’t bring any doubts about his ability to channel Feng’s attitude or convictions, and the fight choreography on display is simply incredible despite some dodgy CGI.
Video
Sakra looks quite beautiful, honestly. The camera captures light sources with a wonderful glow, particularly the film’s natural-looking light during daytime. For instance the opening sequence that introduces Yen’s beggar character of Qiao Feng conversing with a Buddhist monk who brings a prisoner to an inn (which is more of an outdoor square with covered areas) is bathed in golden light that plays well as faux natural lighting. The film’s close shots share a heightened sense of detail with some of its wide shots, which is likely attributed to the Red cameras used during production.
The CGI used can range from acceptably cartoonish given the film’s tone to slightly jarring in cuts from fast, sweeping movements to an abrupt halt in completing the action, such as a nearly-60 year old Donnie Yen leaping a mere dozen meters to land sturdily and perfectly in a sitting position on a chair or on two feet. But the wire work on display is unmistakably wire work, something that shouldn’t be a surprise to any wuxia film enthusiast, and gives the movie a hearty visual boost to say the least.
Audio
Well Go USA’s audio offerings are some of the best here, most notably with a Dolby Atmos track in Cantonese. For the same dialect there is as usual the choice of 5.1 DTS-HD surround and 2.0 stereo tracks, plus a 5.1 DTS-HD and stereo track for both Mandarin and English dubbed tracks. There are also optional subtitles for both traditional and simplified Chinese, plus two English subtitle tracks. Important to note: one English subtitle track is labeled SDH, but this is actually a subtitle track for the English dub. It does not provide captions for music cues, sound effects, or anything that accommodates the deaf or hard of hearing.
Special Features
Aside from the usual batch of trailers for other Well Go USA releases, there is a short making-of featurette (5 mins, 43 secs) that includes testimonials from various producers & members of the production team and Donnie Yen himself in between behind the scenes clips of Yen directing and working
Final Thoughts
There’s an approach to the filmmaking here that effectively splits it nearly down the middle in terms of personal taste. Virtually all of the technical parts of this work very well together, from the fights, the cinematography, the score, and set design to costuming, makeup effects and hair. The harshness towards Sakra seems to be directed more towards how the narrative progresses.
In its logic it manages to frustrate the viewer perhaps more so than Qiao Feng himself, in a repeat series of events where the phrase “wrong place, wrong time" applies to almost comedic levels of timing here. And there is a breach in logic that even among the most lenient movie watchers will notice. In particular, when a room full of Shaolin monks surround our hero holding a clear imposter who has the same face as one in the larger group not one of them notices or says anything, including the one whose face has been stolen. Not too much later their mask, quite literally, starts to slip yet not one of the many dozens of monks seem to see this even in surrounding these two. However this is early on and becomes less of an issue as the story goes forward.
But there is a kind of disparity between Sakra’s action-forward efforts and the way it chooses to adapt key points of Qiao Feng’s story for the screen. Besides its logic the reasoning behind Feng’s trust in others is questionable and leads to some pondering of how much may have been excised from Yen and Ka-Wai’s adaptation that didn’t get a proper smoothing over to connect some points in a more clear manner. The film still provides an exuberance that entertains despite its shortcomings, and some large part of its audience will hopefully be willing to return to Qiao Feng’s story should Yen make a follow-up. The film’s artistic merits put it in a place for it to come recommended, however, and hopefully some of the above problem components in any future sequels can be worked on with more attention to detail.
Sakra releases on DVD & Blu-Ray on Tuesday, June 13th from Well Go USA and is available for pre-order.
Disclaimer: Well Go USA has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Be sure to get a copy from one of these retailers rather than just going to Amazon. I recommend these stores who have the disc in stock:
Gruv
Deepdiscount
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