Yes, Madam Blu-ray Review

Playing with Toys

“Sorry. I like to laugh a lot,” boasts Yes, Madam’s comical villain (James Tien). That line stays within Yes, Madam’s often wacky, sometimes serious tone. Focusing primarily on three incompetent villains, the jokes stem from their idiocy as they become involved with high-level thugs hunting for a piece of microfilm. That’s entertaining, if not what audiences came for.

Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock star, but for much of this story, sit in the background waiting for their opportunity; so too does the viewer. As cops from different countries, the imbalance in styles (Yeoh generally following rules, Rothrock prone to violence) allows for character growth, if as an aside. This isn’t their story.

Less engaged than its predecessor Royal Warriors, Yes, Madam sticks to formula

Yes, Madam serves as a parody for chunks of runtime. Rothrock takes a suspect in for interrogation, the smokey room and tiny, focused lamp playing up cop cliches to an extreme. That’s fun, coming after a bombastic street shootout to open Yes, Madam. Aside from tiny skirmishes paced unevenly throughout, the major action is saved entirely for the finale. There, Yeoh and Rothrock put on a glorious genre set piece, the stunt work absurdly dangerous and painful, but the best violent entertainment.

Bringing together some of the “Lucky Stars” gang fresh from Jackie Chan’s output (including Sammo Hung in a short cameo), Yes, Madam’s energy stems from the energy put forth by John Sham, Hoi Mang, and Hark Tsui who, despite their challenges as a team, always come around for one another. Their bond makes for easy viewing, and their comic timing is nothing short of impeccable. In their own movie and their own story minus expectations, Yes, Madam likely works better than it does.

Less engaged than its predecessor Royal Warriors, Yes, Madam sticks to formula, at least in terms of investigation and frustration over the law’s inability to take down an obvious career criminal. In that, the script is nothing more than rote material, saved by a climax that lets the two leads finally display their stunt and athletic abilities. It’s worth waiting for, but drags in getting there.

Video

From a recent master, Yes, Madam sports excellent detail in close and when still. Grain is easily resolved thanks to a fine encode. Sharpness holds firm too.

Unfortunately, filtering leads to light smearing and the occasionally waxy moment, especially at mid-range. Detail looks wiped, and what grain does hover over the image takes on an artificiality.

That’s a shame since Yes, Madam looks otherwise superb. Firm color replication emboldens flesh tones, and Hong Kong scenery shows superb color density. Primaries glow, assisted by the consistent black levels. Yes, Madam’s contrast doesn’t let up either, perky and bold.

Audio

The audio menu defaults to original Cantonese DTS-HD, and a Cantonese home video mix is offered too. A fresh English dub in 5.1 is available too, but it’s hardly worth the trouble. Either of the Cantonese mixes suffer from harsh, hard-on-the-ears dialog and it’s better to have this one turned down low – as firm a criticism as they come in the home theater enthusiast department. Blown out treble impacts all sound effects, from gunshots to tires squealing. Yes, Madam is pitched far too high.

Extras

Alongside the Hong Kong version, Frank Djeng provides a commentary track. Djeng joins Cynthia Rothrock on a select scene commentary too. Interviews with Rothrock, Yeoh, and Mang Hoi pair well to a 10-minute featurette titled Battling Babes.

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 39 full resolution, uncompressed HD screen shots grabbed directly from the Blu-ray: