DJariya

That's about $63.58 in USD with that discount.

dex14

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Brian T

No doubt that SHE SHOOTS STRAIGHT will be announced by Vinegar Syndrome in the months ahead, with different supplements of course.

Fantastic film, though, with top-drawer choreography, including this legendary battle. You wouldn’t think a fight between ladies named Agnes and Joyce would be so nasty :

dex14

More likely Arrow, if that is the case.

I like this film a lot and pre-ordered direct from Eureka.

Brian T

Yeah, I figured it would be one of them. Probably should’ve expanded my list! Really wish they could’ve gotten an interview with Godenzi for this and what I’m sure will be their future release of the Joyce/Agnes followup LICENSE TO STEAL, but I suppose she’s off the radar these days. Or maybe some other archival stuff to balance the predictable double commentaries.

I’ll probably get the Eureka anyway. Still tempted by their four ITLOD movies even though I have the American 88 Box. Just waiting for standard editions on two of them (only PART IV has switched so far, with YES MADAM looking like it’s next) as I don’t need the slips and books.

dex14

From Beijing With Love is in the works: https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/from-...pwwc0xmde0ndq4

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Brian T

Years back, the Hong Kong company Joy Sales released a whole bunch of Golden Harvest films as a silver-slipped ‘Legendary Collection’ line, which included many popular ‘contemporary’ films from the 80’s and 90’s, and a quite a few of older vintage from the 70’s, including BEACH OF THE WAR GODS, LADY WHIRLWIND, HAPKIDO, THE SKYHAWK, THE COMET STRIKES, DISCIPLES OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE, FAST SWORD, THE ASSOCIATION, THE HIMALAYAN, INVINCIBLE SWORD, IRON-FISTED MONK, BROKEN OATH, THE TOURNAMENT, KING OF CHESS, KUNG-FU GIRL, THE LOOT, A MAN CALLED TIGER, WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES, STONER, QUEEN’S RANSOM, NAKED COMES THE HUNTRESS, SHAOLIN PLOT, ONE ARMED BOXER, THUNDERBOLT, WILL OF IRON, TATTOOED DRAGON, THE YOUNG DRAGONS and a few others that aren’t in the stack I’m looking at right now (Chinatown shops would often display these separately from the later films, and they never seemed to be big sellers).

A number of these have now turned up on Blu-ray from Eureka and Arrow, and an equally large number of them were released in Shout Factory sets years ago (two Martial Arts Marathon packs, and Jimmy Wang Yu and Angela Mao Ying collections) right around the same time as Shout had the rights to the Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films, much like Eureka and Arrow do now. I can’t help but wonder if Fortune Star, or whomever, basically forces these older films onto any western distributors who want access to the higher-profile fare in their catalog (Jackie, Sammo, Bruce, Yeoh, Rothrock, Chow Yun-fat, etc) because I just don’t see the demand out there for stuff like BEACH OF THE WAR GODS considering it’s previous availability and presumably low sales of the Shout sets (at least until they went out of print). Not to disparage the films, of course. Some are borderline classics; others, though, are decidedly just ok, which is why I suspect there’s a reason they keep getting reissued in close proximity to the real gems in that library. And yes, I’m probably overthinking it.

Also: it’s interesting that FROM BEIJING WITH LOVE doesn’t have any commentaries. That film is loaded with then-relevant Hong Kong film and pop music gags and references that could probably benefit from contextualizing in either a commentary or, preferably, a short video essay. Odd choice of title on which to not include stuff like that.

dex14

Looks like some good stuff in store for November.

The Royal Tramp, Hitman, My Father is a Hero.

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Brian T

Nice to see DR. WAI in that Jet Li collection. Personally I think it’s the the best of the three. My old notes tell me that in addition to the HK version, I also watched an alternate international version of that which dropped the contemporary framing material and added more period scenes, but that doesn’t seem to be included. Perhaps it wasn’t official or just couldn’t be found in good shape?

Also great to see Helena Law Lan given some attention in the ROYAL TRAMP set. It’s an older interview, but she’s such a gracious person, and at this point probably the longest working HK performer. At 88, she’s in Herman Yau’s DEATH NOTICE, which just opened in HK last week!

Brian T

Coming December 4 . . .

THE FALL OF AKO CASTLE (Kinji Fukasaku; 1978)
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/the-fall-of-ako-castle/

CASINO RAIDERS (Jimmy Heung, Wong Jing; 1989)*
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/casino-raiders/

POLICE STORY 1-3 COLLECTION (4K standard edition)
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/the-...y-4k-ultra-hd/

* Once again, with a little more diligence, this one coulda been a two-film set – even a three-film set – but whatever at this point.

Casino Raiders II (1991) is equally as good as the first one, but I suppose since it's a Johnnie To film — and something of a stylistic forerunner of his late 90's early 00's noir thrillers — they'll want to milk it separately.

Trailers for all three CASINO RAIDERS films. Tell me these shouldn't be in a set together even though they're unconnected other than by theme:






dex14

Brian T

I noticed recently that the RoninFlix Jet Li titles (FIST OF LEGEND, TAI CHI MASTER, and FONG SAI YUK 1 & 2) officially went out of print in September, and that company doesn't seem to have much interest in Hong Kong stuff in general. Those releases were pretty much just repurposed, slightly upgraded Dragon Dynasty / Miramax jobs, so I'm wondering if Eureka or 88 or Arrow might see fit to release them (and maybe drop the Brett Rather stuff that RoninFlix left in).

Eureka's decisions are a bit baffling sometimes. KUNG FU CULT MASTER is a lot of fun, but the three films in the Jet Li Collection on their schedule are as good or better, but don't get individual releases (not that I'm complaining, price-wise ). Whatever works, I guess.

Also, I see the documentary BEST OF THE MARTIAL ARTS FILMS – which took some heat when Vinegar Syndrome released it unrestored (or whatever) as an extra on RIGHTING WRONGS – finally rears its head on a UK release as promised, as a bonus on WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES. I could've sworn some boutique already STRIKES on Blu-ray, but I'm probably thinking of a DVD version I have. Again, this one gets its own release, while HAPKIDO and LADY WHIRLWIND got doubled up. They could've paired this one with BROKEN OATH, THE TOURNAMENT or THE HIMALAYAN, as they all seem to be part of some package made available from HK. I'm still hopeful that the contemporary-set Angela Mao / George Lazenby movies STONER and QUEEN'S RANSOM might be double-featured down the road. I wouldn't be surprised if Eureka has the rights to them as part of the same package, much like Shout did years ago.

dex14

I would've guess it would've been paired with Broken Oath. I do think that will be getting a release soon enough. It seems pretty common for titles that show up on the Hi-Yah streaming service old school section ends up getting a boutique release.

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Brian T

If ever a Hong Kong Movie didn’t need two commentaries, it’s SLAUGHTER IN SAN FRANCISCO! That’s not a great picture, but I’ll surely bite as it at least contains two cuts. I’ve had this older Umbrella DVD from Australia for about a hundred years now, which has artwork (new at the time, I think) that makes Chuck Norris look like a freaky 70’s porn star!


That disc has the 77-minute UK cut (the shortest version of all), under a different title. The Hong Kong ‘Legendary Collection’ edition had the longest version if I recall correctly, but I missed out on that one. A lot of the MANY public domain tapes and discs of this film had run times of about 90 minutes on them, but I never bought one to see if that was true, so the fact they’ve included a 106-minute version here is pretty cool, even if I can’t imagine it making the film any better. And the new Sylvia Chang interview, especially for something like this, has me wondering if they also discussed other films with her during the same session for future use. Like an ACES GO PLACES collection (crosses fingers).

It does have some notoriety as it was intended to be a Bruce Lee picture, but because of his split with Lo Wei for reasons well-documented, it doesn’t have Lee in it, and it’s still directed by Lo Wei, so it’s inherently shitty.

DJariya

Wow. Never ever thought I would see this movie make it to BD. I remember trying to watch a VHS of it and I think it was dubbed in Cantonese and I found it unwatchable.

DJariya

Slaughter in San Francisco is $22.42 after conversion. Yikes! Even though I'm a huge Chuck fan, I don't need that movie that badly. I don't care if it's limited to 2,000 copies.

Brian T

I’d imagine they’ll do a standard edition down the road, which could be more affordably priced. I appreciate them getting this one on physical media in a decent presentation of both versions for the first time ever, really, but it’s definitely not an easy one to pull the trigger on.