THE TRANSPORTER [2002 / 2015] [Limited Edition SteelBook] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
The Film XXX Wishes It Was! Rules Are Made To Be Broken!
Frank Martin [Jason Statham] is the best at what he does: transporting illegal goods with no questions asked. But his latest shipment, a beautiful woman kidnapped by slave traders, brings deadly complications to the delivery plans. Now Frank Martin must kick into overdrive to save his precious cargo — and his life.
Cast: Jason Statham, Qi Shu, Matt Schulze, François Berléand, Ric Young, Doug Rand, Didier Saint Melin, Tonio Descanvelle, Laurent Desponds, Matthieu Albertini, Vincent Nemeth, Jean-Yves Bilien, Jean-Marie Paris, Adrian Dearnell, Alfred Lot, Audrey Hamm, Sebastien Migneau, Laurent Jumeaucourt, Christian Gazio, Frédéric Vallet, Stefan Gudju, Sandrine Rigaux, Cameron Watson and Vincent Tulli (uncredited)
Directors: Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier
Producers: Alfred Lot, David Lai, Luc Besson, Mehdi Sayah and Steven Chasman
Screenplay: Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen
Composer: Stanley Clarke
Cinematography: Pierre Morel (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Italian: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English SDH and Italian
Running Time: 92 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ [2002] Here we have Director Jet Li and the combination of the latest attempt by the French one-man film industry Luc Besson to produce a film that keeps you on the edge of your seat and especially throughout the film, where you get to see Jason Statham do some totally awesome and very dramatic over the top driving sequences in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France and also in Paris, France with the Black BMW 7 Series M760Li xDrive V12 luxury car that will take your breath away and is to some people, if not better than what you will see in some of the James Bond films and check out the audio commentary comments to hear about some hair raising moments. Filmed mainly in the South of France, and adding to this action packed film is of course Jason Statham, who is one of England's rising generation of macho style stars, who holds down the lead as the taciturn reserved and uncommunicative professional driver for criminal undertakings, and the accomplished French actor François Berléand, a familiar face in art-house films joins in the fun packed film.
François Berléand plays that beloved stock figure of French crime thrillers, as the police Inspector Tarconi who knows and respects his adversary Frank Martin [Jason Statham], and gets to share a coffee with him while he plays a waiting game in trying to find out if Frank Martin was involved as a driver in a latest bank robbery. Lai [Qi Shu] plays an even more conventional role of a package Frank Martin [Jason Statham] has agreed to deliver, bound and gagged in his trunk, to a bunch of shady operators led by an American known only as Wall Street [Matt Schulze] who you get to hate big time.
The plot unfolds routinely enough, where Ex-Special Forces operator Frank Martin falls in love with Lia [Qi Shu], and together they take on the evil Wall Street, a smuggler of Chinese refugees who is in cahoots with Ms. Qi Shu's own father figure Mr. Kwai [Ric Young]. But directors Corey Yuen and Louis Leterrier, keeps the exercise moving with stylishly executed car chases, shootouts and kung-fu confrontations, one of which finds an unarmed Jason Statham polishing off what looks like a dozen criminal henchmen adversaries. Frank Martin breaks all his own rules about remaining neutral and gets personally involved in a complicated plot involving people-smuggling, over the top gunfights, and some equally amazing martial arts action.
The film starts off on a high note, with Frank Martin picking up four criminals coming straight out of a bank robbery. What follows is an excitingly staged, perfectly edited car chase through the streets of Paris that works with a few standard jokes directed at police officers who cannot seem to apprehend one driver no matter how many units of backup they call in. This is our introduction to Frank martin, showing him at his fastest, funniest, and cleverest action hero. Jason Statham mugs, he punches his weight, and he is very funny, very strong, and he is a lot more of a threat than he appears.
Once Frank Martin is established as a quiet, sophisticated loner, he is given another package to deliver. Aroused by a newfound curiosity, he opens the package and discovers that it is a young Chinese woman Lia [Qi Shu], who is most likely on a hit-list, but after Frank gives Lia a moment to herself, she escapes and sure enough complications arise.
Later, we discover she is connected to the smuggling of 400 Chinese people in The United States and the threat of their execution. Though she is not directly behind it, Frank Martin has his suspicions. The real villains are the father of the young woman Lia, who is a businessman named Wall Street [Matt Shulze] whose line of work is so vaguely described and is definitely the definition of a nasty belligerent over the top “movie villain” that we all love to hate. Jason Stratham is delightfully cool as the imperturbable Transporter, and Qi Shu brings us a cute face, but despite a poor command of the English language, brings a love interest/woman-in-distress role opposite Jason Statham. Matt Schulze is imposing as the nasty bad guy that we all hate on first impression, as well as throughout the film and eventually and deservedly gets his due comeuppance, especially being an absolutely terrible cardboard cut-out and one dimensional actor.
The action sequences are virtually non-stop, with only the occasional brief interruptions to facilitate minor exposition. Every example of hand-to-hand combat that would feature in lots of martial arts and the bonus of high kicks abound, and enough explosives ammo that could be expanded to supply a small army. The film opens with an amazing thing: a car chase that is not at all boring and it is so outrageously over-the-top, that it is just a great deal of fun packed action that really gets the adrenaline kick in. Overall, ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ film will definitely satisfy anyone who is on the lookout for a really good and over the top action flick and definitely ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ film destination moves at great pace and is well worth viewing and especially adding to your Jason Statham film collection.
THE TRANSPORTER MUSIC TRACK LIST
THE CASE (Written by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe) [Performed by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe]
FIGHTING MAN (Written by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe) [Performed by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe]
ROCKIN’ AND SCRATCHIN’ (Written by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe) [Performed by D.J. Pone & Drixxxe]
TRANSFIGHTER (Composed by Alexandre Azaria) [Orchestration and Conduction by Marie-Jeanne Serero and 1st Violin Floriane Bonanni]
LOVE RESCUE (Composed by Alexandre Azaria) [Orchestration and Conduction by Marie-Jeanne Serero and 1st Violin Floriane Bonanni]
LOVE OF A STRANGER (Composed by Matthew Wilder and Nadia Fares Chasman) [Performed by Nadia]
ALLEGRO (Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (Extract from "Concerto for Clarinet in A Major #622") [Conducted by Karl Böhm] [Performed by Alfred Prinz and Wiener Philharmoniker and The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra]
SCREAM aka ITCHIN’ (Composed by Missy Elliott and Tim Mosley) [Performed by Missy Elliott]
SO LOW (Composed by A. Pilkington and S. Shippey) [Performed by Custom Blue]
BOOGIE 2NITE (Composed by Tweety (as C. Keys), Nisan Stewart and J. Smith) [Performed by Tweety]
MUSIK (Composed by Knoc-Turn'Al (as R. Harbor), Kanye West and S. Christian) [Performed by Knoc-Turn'Al]
I GOT LOVE (Composed by Nate Dogg (aka N. Hale), R. Harrell and Bank) [Performed by Nate Dogg]
Blu-ray Image Quality – 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment brings you this awesome action packed film in an amazing 1080p image presentation that really enhances the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Although this film was released in 2002, during which time a sequel has been released and Jason Statham has cemented his action-star status, but this film still looks like a new release. The image quality is top notch and looks far superior to much more high-profile 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Blu-ray launch titles such as 'X-Men: The Last Stand' and 'Fantastic Four.' The film sports a very clean slick look, with pin sharp image and the visual design aspects are highlighted with a very glossy and punchy array of colours, with lots of shiny surfaces and during interior scenes, nicely stylized lighting. Blacks are really excellent, and the contrast is really bold also, but not blown out of all proportion in the high end image presentation. Without a doubt, ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ film on this Blu-ray disc delivers an appreciable upgrade over the standard inferior DVD release. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment presents this Blu-ray disc with a clever and active sound design comes through nicely in a 5.1 DTS HD lossless mix. The disc also offers us a choice of three audio presentations of English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Italian: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound and English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio. Music and sound effects are an integral important aspect of this film, and at times are interchangeable with all elements are well represented throughout the sound design at various points, providing a spacious feel with a very immersive experience. There is also a nice audio balance especially with the dialogue, which is not obscured or overpowered at any point in the film. I really liked the punchy sound design experience of this audio presentation.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Audio Commentary by Jason Statham and Producer Steven Chasman: First up to introduce himself is Jason Statham and then informs us that Steven Chasman is sitting next to him and are here to input their personal comments on the film who of course were personally involved in this film. The opening shot in the multi-storey car park was shot in Niece and they spent six weeks shooting schedule in that part of France. Jason comments on the Black BMW 7 Series M760Li xDrive V12 luxury car he drove in the film, that has a manual shift and is one of a kind and felt very lucky and honoured to drive it and also comments it was very fast, and the gadgets he got use made it very special to drive, and when he use to watch James Bond films, always dreamed of those special fast cars and now his dream has come true in this film. When we see Jason drive off with the three bank robbers and all that extremely fast driving through the very narrow streets were filmed in real time and most of the time no stunt driver was used and the authorities allowed all the streets to be shut down to interact with the police cars chasing Jason and unfortunately the police eventually do not get there man. The house owned by Jason takes the young Chinese girl Lia, who in the morning makes breakfast and especially bakes the Madeleines de Commercy and when the Police Inspector turns up and gets to eat one the Madeleines and in reality hates and detests the taste and nearly throws up, and in-between shoots Jason and the crew had a good laugh with the situation. As to this house of Jason, that was located in Cassis, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, was built especially for the film and of course we get to see what happens to the house when the gangster henchmen let their fury on it and all the locals came out to film the shoot on their video cameras, but with the film crew had 15 cameras to catch every moment of its destruction and some of the stuntmen got injured. When we see Jason in the prison cell who talks to the actor François Berléand who plays the Police Inspector, well Jason says he was a very funny person to be with in-between when the cameras have stopped filming. When we see Jason at the Old Port of Marseille where they filmed with the containers and both commentators state that it was totally freezing cold and was a five day shoot, and with the dramatic fight scenes around the containers, Jason informs us that he suffered with very bad grazes with all parts of his body. As the credits roll up the screen, Jason thanks us for watching the film with their audio commentary, and hoped their comments were not boring. Jason also comments that when he first watched the finished film, he was very pleased in what he viewed and also watching the film with all the bad acting scenes cut out and feels the whole experience was very rewarding, especially what was filmed in what they created and especially filming in the very nice locations and felt very rewarded in seeing the film again, and brought back a lot of good and fond memories and feels the film looked really beautiful, and Jason felt the people he worked with were very talented people and again comments that he is very proud to be involved in the film. All in all the audio commentary was quite interesting in hearing Jason Statham talking in a very personal manner, but sadly there were too many silent gaps, but despite this, you should still view this audio commentary, as we hear some very interesting comments about the making of the film.
Theatrical Trailers: Here we get to view five Original Theatrical Trailers and they are as follows: ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ [2002] [1080p] [2.35:1] [1:27]; ‘BEHIND ENEMY LINES’ [2001] [1080p] [1.78:1] [2:35]; ‘SPEED’ [1994] [1080p] [2.40:1] [2:47]; ‘FANTASTIC FOUR’ [2005] [1080p] [2.40:1] [2:33] and ‘THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN’ [2003] [1080p] [2.40:1] [1:13].
Finally, ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ film is a great deal of fun, and also very down-and-dirty action packed film, the type of film fan of Jason Statham we like to view. It is unapologetically politically incorrect, features sleek visual style, and Jason Statham at his best. This Blu-ray release is a pretty good. The transfer and soundtrack are generally excellent, although Fox continues to not deliver many extras on its initial Blu-ray titles. If supplements are important to you, then you may have to wait and hope for a more extensive remastered Blu-ray disc in the future, but suspect this will not happen. Otherwise, overall the film ‘THE TRANSPORTER’ is good enough to take out for at least one spin, or even more, if you are a fan like me of the awesome Jason Statham action man. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
