$125 is common for box sets with this amount of films. $62.50 during the B&N sale will be more than reasonable.

I've been wanting a good Bruce Lee set for a while, this will be a great pickup during the sale.

Fuck yet another Bruce Lee set I might have to get.

Nice to see the Lee set uniting ENTER THE DRAGON with the other four for a more complete overview than the Shout set could provide. This seems to port over a lot of the content from Shout's phenomenal boxed set from a few years ago, but it's hard to tell just how much by the way Criterion lists their extras. Really stoked about the inclusion of GAME OF DEATH II. I've never been able to upgrade my original non-anamorphic Universe Hong Kong DVD of that one thanks to the subsequent Kam & Ronson discs forcing their patented horrible 6.1 and 7.1 audio hatchet jobs on buyers. For my money, that's one of the best Brucesploitation pictures, but it would be nice if Criterion retains the original mono audio.

Still can't believe how many decades it's taken for popular Hong Kong cinema to be afforded representation in the Criterion Collection. And yes, I know about (and own) the Wong Kar-Wai films, but if I ever had to pimp Hong Kong cinema to newbies, I wouldn't start with those. The Bruce and Jackie films are far more "important" (using the label's terminology) in terms of popularizing the city's cinema globally. Hope they do more. I can think of bundles of semi-influential HK lesser-knowns that would make nice Eclipse sets, but that line seems to be dormant now.

I have never seen any of the Bruce Lee films, even Enter The Dragon, but I preordered based on Criterion's Godzilla and Zatoichi sets.

I’m not really a big enough Bruce Lee fan to justify the entire set. Too bad we couldn’t get an individual Criterion release of Enter the Dragon.

That would be a nice option. I'd just like to know whether they've brought over all the special features from the Warner Blu-ray. They only explicitly list the Blood & Steel documentary, but as I mentioned above, Criterion seems to be lumping various documentaries and interviews (but from where?) into a couple of vaguely worded entries on the list, so it's hard to tell what each film will have. Guess we'll have to wait until the reviews turn up.

For what it's worth, Criterion released The Killer and Hard Boiled on Laserdisc and DVD.

You're in for a treat.

Assuming they make it.

Man, I'm torn on the Bruce Lee box. It sounds like the movie presentations of the Hong Kong films, including the commentaries, soundtracks and restored transfers, are the same as the Shout Select "Collector's Edition" releases that they put out after the Legacy Collection. Granted those weren't in print very long, so few people probably have them. I only ended up buying the Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon Shout Select releases, but didn't really feel the need to grab Game of Death or The Big Boss at the time. I'm not terribly interested in the extras that have to do with the Brucesploitation angle nor am I compelled by the documentaries and interviews included that I already have from other releases.

I am interested in seeing what Game of Death Redux is all about. I have no desire to watch Game of Death proper ever again, but I do really like the Game of Death Revisited feature on the HKL DVD set that just strung together all of Bruce Lee's completed footage on its own. I've always wanted someone to intercut that footage with something like intertitles or "motion" graphic novel content that fills in the scenes in between with Bruce Lee's original vision for the film. It doesn't sound like that's what Redux is, but even if it's just the completed footage on its own transferred in HD, I'll probably be compelled to get this.

I would have been more excited about this if it included some "deep cuts" like all of the Longstreet and Green Hornet footage restored.

Content considerations aside, I'll still probably get this for a couple of reasons:
1. I want to support companies like Criterion releasing gems of Hong Kong cinema.
2. I do like the idea of having one cohesive box set that includes Bruce Lee's Hong Kong films and Enter the Dragon.

Definitely in for the Bruce Lee Set.

A bulk of the Bruce Lee films I own are in the DVD set that 20th Century Fox released in 2005.

Yup, those came to mind after I'd posted, but they were soooo long ago. And they were over-matted, to boot. Mind you, both absolutely deserve to be re-enrolled in the Criterion Collection, not only because they're absolutely quintessential works of Hong Kong cinema that have never had truly definitive, final editions released anywhere on the planet, but also to wash off the stink from the Dragon Dynasty/Bey Logan versions (not to mention the dubtitles that plagued the Dragon Dynasty, Fox Lorber AND Criterion discs!). Presumably Criterion still owns the John Woo / Terence Chang / Roger Avery / Dave Kehr commentaries from their earlier DVDs and LDs, and they could probably (?) source the solo John Woo commentaries from the old Fox Lorber/Winstar releases, plus a bounty of supplements that have been officially released in various corners of the world, plus many others that haven't.

With the Chan films and, presumably, these upcoming Bruce Lee titles (and of course the WKW movies), companies like 88 Films, Eureka and now Criterion are consistently disproving the long-held belief that negatives and prints for Hong Kong movies were dumped in the harbour (I'm kidding!) or otherwise badly mistreated (or unrestorable) after their theatrical usefulness had run out. That said, the Brits are still way ahead of us in releasing key Hong Kong titles from the city's heyday – which stands to reason as the place was their colony for so long – but I really wish some company over here would step up to the plate with a new series or sub-series of HK pictures, especially as so many of the UK discs are region-coded.

I love Bruce Lee, but more than anything, I want these movies back in the Criterion Collection. Throw in the A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2 as well!

All four of those plus BULLET IN THE HEAD would make a phenomenal "John Woo: His Greatest (Bullet) Hits" boxed set. All five are the crowning achievements of the Hong Kong portion of his career. They could even throw in A BETTER TOMORROW 3 as a bonus feature to show the "other" result of Woo's split with ABT producer Tsui Hark. And as a further bonus, and to illustrate Hong Kong cinema's endless penchant for cannibalizing itself, they could add 1994's unconnected but thematically-similar RETURN TO A BETTER TOMORROW. Including the 2010 Korean remake (produced by Woo) would probably be stretching things a bit, even if it's not that bad of a movie.

I don't know that "disproving" is the right word. There was truth in that belief. Many of these movies changed ownership over and over again through the years, making it difficult to track down original materials, and few of the owners took proper measures to archive or preserve them. In recent times, however, ownership has significantly consolidated as a few mega-corporations bought up the libraries of smaller ones. And film restoration tools are much more sophisticated now than they were even just ten years ago, making it possible to fix damage previously thought irreversible.

Fully agree, but that was kinda my point, too, which is why I mentioned that they were often labelled "unrestorable", although I meant that the description still seemed to float around even past the point at which it did become possible to perform proper rescues and restorations on such films. Mind you, considering that a lot of what we've seen from companies like 88 Films and Eureka in the UK, and now Criterion here, are/were top-tier, A-list Hong Kong films that were, at least, more likely to have original elements (or close to them) stored properly somewhere, (i.e. Golden Harvest Films, Shaw Brothers), today's restoration tools probably don't have their work cut out for them like they would if someone was trying to restore, say, old Yukari Oshima or Moon Lee pictures, which were often small studio or indie productions. Some of those types of films have literally never had decent presentations outside of their initial theatrical appearances.

Also, regarding the Bruce Lee box . . .

In digging through one of far too many totes stuffed with Hong Kong movies here last night, I stumbled across Fortune Star's 'Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection' boxed set from 2004, which not only includes ENTER THE DRAGON – a first, as I recall, and with alternate opening credits – but also GAME OF DEATH II on its own disc (so it looks like I have it in anamorphic after all ). All six films appear to be "canon" according to Fortune Star's catalogue, which I guess explains why GODII is included in the Criterion set; it is important in its own way. The box art was very similar to the ENTER-less Fox box released in North America around the same time (they also released GODII as a stand-alone DVD), except this one was a hard box with a magnetic flap housing thin-pack cases. At the time, it was probably the best presentation of these films on disc to date, but I'm sure it's long been surpassed, and will be even moreso by Criterion's box. It came with a 32 page book with enough insubstantially-written content to fill about three pages (with contributors oddly labelled "Experienced Journalist" or "Experienced Film Promoter"), and seventh bonus disc containing a rather thin mix of supplements, including "celebrities interviews" which I vaguely recall being HK stars who had little to no connection to Bruce Lee talking about how much he "meant" to them. Remembering that in turn reminded of me of a recent Bruce Lee doc (I AM BRUCE LEE, maybe?) where a bunch of MMA stars and other nobodies did pretty much the same thing. Sigh. The Fortune Star bonus disc also lists a "GAME OF DEATH Collector's Cut", which I recall being the collected Bruce footage from that film cut together with weird new music or some such.

Easy sell for me on the Bruce Lee set. I’m sure it will come out on the Criterion Channel but this is a must own for me.

Yeah, in my estimation the Shout Factory Legacy Collection Blu-rays surpassed any previous DVD presentation by a good margin and then the subsequent Shout Select "Collector's Edition" Blu-ray releases were a further improvement, from new 4K scans. I assume Criterion is probably using the same transfers as the Shout Select discs.

Screw it. I'll get the Bruce Lee set when it's on sale. I don't need it as I've posted a few times that I have practically all the Bruce Lee content you could want.

But, I do want to support Criterion putting out this kind of content.

Getting the Bruce Lee set and War Of The Worlds

I could do with an upgrade for War of the Worlds.

Absolutely! I got the Legacy set once they corrected the issues with the discs in its initial run, then bought the Select versions, albeit more for the reversible art than anything else! It's so rare to see original painted/illustrated Hong Kong poster art on North American releases of films from there. The UK companies have been doing reversible sleeves for a while now. Although I wish they'd all just use the original artwork only, I understand the need to appeal to a more diverse, modern audience and keep graphic artists and illustrators gainfully employed. It'd be nice if Criterion was able to use original art on individual cases in their boxed set, but something tells me it will be some big cardboard gatefold thingy (perfect for getting damaged during shipment) with discs inserted into the pages. Guess we'll see.

Definitely in for WAR OF THE WORLDS, too. Finally!

At the very least, I'll be picking up The Lady Eve and War of the Worlds. I'll confess to being disappointed that the latter didn't get a physical UHD release, given that a 4K/HDR version has been available on VUDU and the like for so long, but the killer artwork and wealth of extras make that an easier pill to swallow.