First Episode 54: 特警出击 The New Option

[renzhe]

A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info.

emule - youku - tudou

Difficulty: Intermediate

This Hong Kong show from 2007 is one in a long series of movies and TV shows about an elite HK police squad. As far as I can gather, this time they are dealing with terrorists from Thailand and Vietnam.

The version linked here is the Mainland version, so it is dubbed into Mandarin and has simplified subtitles. The dubbing is quite simple and clear, but a bit fast. If anyone finds a Cantonese version, please let me know, this could be good practice for Cantonese too.

--- Plot Summary ---

A quick recap of the plot. This one took me some time to figure out, hope it helps somebody.

There are two police squads in this episode. The first one is 重案组, a regular detective/investigative department who have been trying to crack a hard case for the last 6 months, without success. The other one is 飞虎队, an elite SWAT-style special op squad. The plot starts when 飞虎队, led by an old fox with troubled past 斯东 (Stone), comes to capture a number of armed organised criminals, after the 重案组 have surrounded them. It turns out to be a false alarm, as the place if full of counterfeit DVDs, but no weapons in sight. 重案组's commanding officer 周长官 and the two officers in charge of the operation, 韩坚 and 叶苏 get grilled by the superiors who are planning to cancel the operation for lack of progress.

周长官 is retiring, and the boys from the 重案组 are celebrating with him. Other than 韩坚 and 叶苏, they are 李可, 阿胜, 瑞克, 小凯 and 文西. They are joined by a couple of people from the 飞虎队, namely 斯东, 阿祖 and 阿标. During the evening, they are introduced to their new commanding officer, 阿安 (Anna), who is returning from special training abroad. We find through a flash-back scene that she was in a relationship with 斯东 before leaving, and that another woman was involved, and he was planning to go to Canada. The other woman is not alive anymore.

We also find out that the police were not mistaken -- there is a dangerous group planning something big, but they are too cunning, and they covered their tracks well.

Another storyline in this episode is that the 飞虎队 are recruiting. We are following a traffic policeman called 幸运轮 (I think), a bunch of other guys whose names were mentioned, but are probably not important, and 叶苏, who dreams of joining the squad and being a sniper. The other guys don't like 叶苏 much because he acts too cool all the time and doesn't mingle with them. He's also on the phone much of the time having suspicious conversations. The episode ends with 叶苏 failing to make the squad.

--- End Summary ---

指挥 zhǐ huī * to conduct / to command / to direct

部署 bù shǔ * to dispose / to deploy / deployment

狙击手 jū jī shǒu * sniper / marksman

平面图 píng miàn tú * a plan / a planar graph / a plane figure

会合 huì hé * meet / have a meeting

军火 jūn huǒ * arms / weapons (industry)

清场 to clear a place (crime scene)

重型 zhòng xíng * heavy / heavy duty / large caliber

武器 wǔ qì * weapon / arms

装备 zhuāng bèi * equipment

解释 jiě shì * explanation / to explain / to interpret

推三推四

防弹衣 kevlar vest

晕眩弹 gas mask?

克星 kè xīng * nemesis / bane / (superstition) fated to be ill-matched

就此罢休

低调 dī diào * low key / low-profile

资源 zī yuán * natural resource (such as water or minerals) / resource (such as manpower or tourism)

顾问 gù wèn * adviser / consultant

例会 lì huì * regular meeting

出席 chū xí * to attend / to participate / present

儿戏 child's play

高尔夫球 gāo ěr fū qiú * golf / golf ball

受训 shòu xùn * to receive training

协助 xié zhù * provide assistance / aid

联络 lián luò * communication / to get in touch with / to contact

龙虾 lóng xiā * lobster

螺蚬

尊重 zūn zhòng * esteem / respect / to honor

全力以赴 quán lì yǐ fù * do at all costs / make an all-out effort

投考 sign up for an examination

假发 jiǎ fà * wig

威风 wēi fēng * might / awe-inspiring authority / impressive

斯文 sī wén * refined / educate / cultured

亏心 kuī xīn * a guilty conscience

抛弃 pāo qì * discard / dump / abandon

阴谋 yīn móu * plot / conspiracy

精英 jīng yīng * cream / elite / essence

切身 qiè shēn * direct / concerning oneself / personal

津贴 jīn tiē * allowance

课程 kè chéng * course / class

奔驰 bēn chí * run quickly / speed

朴素 pǔ sù * plain and simple / unadorned / simple living

All in all, I found this quite interesting. Some of the comments online seem to suggest that it's not pure quality all the way through, but at only 20 episodes, it's worth a shot. Some interesting characters in there.

We haven't had many police shows, so it's a nice contrast to all the special agents and Qing court intrigue.

The language is quite easy, but I gave it "Intermediate" because it's dubbed and because the plot is a bit hard to follow in the first episode (who is in which squad, and what their names are).

Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:21 PM by renzhe

[roddy]

Some vocab additions:

会合 huì hé * meet / have a meeting - here it's probably more like assemble, get into position

推三推四 - he's referring to all the gangsters trying to push the job (whatever it was) onto someone else.

晕眩弹 gas mask? - stun grenade

就此罢休 - give up because of this, take this as a reason to stop. Not really a fixed phrase

I watched about 20 minutes of this and then accidentally closed the browser window. Don't think I'll worry about it, it was pretty generic.

[renzhe]

The second episode has some action, but it's basically a pretty standard cop show.

I'm probably missing some things, not having seen one of half a dozen movies which preceded this show (with the same actors), and which probably provide much of the back-story.

This is not a must-see, but it's certainly no worse than the average show we've seen. I really appreciate the absence of cheesy humour. Being a police show set in HK, it's also a welcome change from most of the other shows.