A couple early February leaks (thanks to Walmart listings):

One step closer to an uncut, uncensored SCHOOL ON FIRE, hopefully.

My set for The Killer just arrived yesterday. It's a super nice set. 3 discs and a book. I haven't seen it in a super long time, so I'll look forward to re-visiting it.

I got mu A Better Tomorrow trilogy a week ago. There are 3 different cuts of the movie including the Taiwanese cut. Is that worth watching? I do plan to re-watch the original cut. I haven't seen it since I got the Media Asia Fortune Star BD set years ago on a trip to HK.

There's only one cut of A Better Tomorrow. A Better Tomorrow II has two cuts; the theatrical and a newly discovered work print. A Better Tomorrow III has the HK cut and the Taiwanese.

The ABTII work print is 30 minutes longer than the theatrical and is the big discovery for this set. This is the first time we've ever seen this version. I haven't seen it yet, but it's the thing I'm most excited for.

The ABTIII Taiwanese cut is just an extended version of the HK cut. It's mostly extensions of existing scenes and doesn't really change the movie all that much. More of a curiosity than anything.

Yeah I meant 3. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the clarification

Barring any surprises, it looks like Shout's February slate is:

Prison on Fire I + II (UHD)
The Big Head (UHD)
Nightcrawler (UHD) steelbook
Deathstalker (Blu-ray)

...and a whole bunch of steelbook editions of existing titles.

I got the Jackie Chan volume 2 collection from Shout for $45 and change on BF. Not really a fan of his period martial arts comedies, so I passed on Volume 1. It quickly jumped to $90 and last I checked $60 something today.

Anyone have that set?

Got ‘em both circa 2023, one from Shout and one from Amazon, both at $49.99 in one sale or another. I see Vol. 2 is still $45.99 at Amazon just now, and Vol. 1 is $49.49 (maybe cheaper earlier, perhaps?).

It probably goes without saying around here that I’ve also picked up far too many versions of most (if not all) of these films over the years – and Chan’s films generally aren’t even my favorites when it comes to HK cinema, smh – including the Eureka and 88 Films ‘single’ editions plus 88’s recent run of big Blu/4K combo boxes because I’m an idiot who can’t resist a good sale (which 88 had recently) or a truly comprehensive package of just about anything from HK, so I’ll refrain from recommending or not recommending the Shout Vol. 1 set because of my inherent bias toward Hong Kong movies in general. I will say that $50 or less for the Shout sets is a pretty fair price considering all of their content, but I do understand that Chan’s older movies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea.

I assume you are already familiar with the films and are just asking about the set itself? I don't have it, but I have all the individual UK releases from 88 and Eureka. The presentations should be very similar if not identical, which is a good thing. Shout has different extras, which I can't speak on, but YMMV on which offering is better. I'm not a big James Mudge guy (he's all over the Shout discs), but that's personal preference.

Sometimes Shout can be a little sloppy, (for example Winners and Sinners defaults to a Mandarin track even though the correct Cantonese track is on the disc) and I don't like the font they use for subtitles (nitpicking for sure), but 8 films, many of which are classics, for $40 is tough to beat.

I will say that the newer 88 4Ks (Crime Story and Operation Condor) are a big improvement over the 88/Shout blus because 88 is doing new transfers with better contrast/color timing. The Fortune Star masters on the blus are good, but they tend to be very flat and neutralized. The caveat is that one of the 88 4Ks costs about as much as the entire Shout set. Also, the only other titles in the set that 88 will be upgrading are Armour of God and the Protector. Eureka has the rest and they haven't done much double dipping.

I got an extra copy of The Killer 4K/Blu LE Combo (sealed and new). If anyone wants it I'll sell it for $27 + $3.00 for s&h. It's currently $40 on Amazon. If interested just pm me.

If you hurry, Hard Boiled is back in stock at Gruv. I've been checking every day for a while... so this was welcome news.

Everytime I think I'm done with ordering, something like this happens. Ordered.

Got my shipping notice.

Hard Boiled arrived yesterday. Nice set.

I noticed on Fandango that Hard Boiled, The Killer and A Better Tomorrow are all getting theatrical releases in the new year.

It looks like The Haunting (the original) is getting the Scream Factory treatment shortly, potentially alongside The Devil's Advocate. I wonder if we'll finally see some other long-rumored titles too, like Miami Vice.

They started having theatrical distribution this Fall. I saw Hard Boiled and The Killer at my local art house theater. It’s very cool that they may get wider release in 2026.

Instant buy, especially now that it'll be available through GRUV.

Three itches, scratched.

Sort of.

As with other Shout releases from the Golden Princess library, there are issues that may make some of us hold out to see what Arrow does. Only the first film is 4K and Blu in Shout’s set. The other two are Blu-only. Not a deal-killer for me as I don’t bother with 4K, but the inconsistency here is nonetheless puzzling, especially considering SWORDSMAN 2 is widely considered the best film in the trilogy, and truly one of the greats of that whole era (the other two are no slouches!). Also, Brigitte Lin’s ‘Invincible Asia’ character from the second and third films – literally a key reason why the trilogy in general is so renowned – is nowhere to be seen in the new artwork. Finally, based on the extras in the list below, Shout seems to be skimping a little on bonus content, too. Not bad, but noticeable. I often say that commentaries run hot and cold for me, and I’ve especially grown tired of the unnecessary double-commentary thing on so many releases, but it might have been nice to have at least one for each of these. Byproducts of the budget cuts at Shout, perhaps?

Pre-order prices seem to be in the $45-50 range, but I’m sure sales will pop up down the road.

Not only are 2 and 3 Blu-ray only, but they don't appear to be from new scans either.

^ It’s definitely puzzling that they’re not providing info about those two. Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised considering other little Shout hiccups that seem to happen.

And this probably is just usual ‘grain of salt’ talk from curmudgeonly “netizens” but I’ve seen a couple of comments (admittedly not much) wondering if Brigitte Lin’s truly baffling omission on the cover is because her character is essentially trans (albeit unconventionally, to say the least). Considering the times we live in, it kinda wouldn’t surprise me if Shout caved because someone might have their feelings challenged. I look at that artwork – which isn’t half bad – and I can easily picture a close-up of ‘Invincible Asia’s’ piercing gaze floating behind those characters instead of that flag (which is relevant, but still).

Also, I though it was cool a while back that they tracked down Waise Lee for an interview on BIG HEAT, and I was hopeful they might have also spoken to him about SWORDSMAN 2 while they were at it, but I guess that didn’t happen.

Just noticed a couple of indicators today – mainly a press release popping up on social media and other forums – that TIGER ON BEAT 1 and 2 will be coming as a 4K combo from Shout Factory on April 28. Nice.

Shout's only new release for April is Tiger on the Beat I & II; everything else is steelbook reissues.

I'm sorry to rant but I have to get this off my chest: Shout's previous work is absolutely shitty when it comes to subtitles/closed captioning. I can't tell you how many discs I've encountered from their older releases where there is literally *nothing* for people with hearing issues.
I had found some Elvira's Movie Macabre discs at a thrift store and picked them up, hoping to enjoy the cheesy horror flicks on them but not a damn subtitle in sight and no CC either. I put them right on eBay. And of course all the MST3K discs they released don't have anything, and I constantly have issues understanding what is said in the original movie (usually because their source is so bad) but I can go on YouTube and watch the streaming episodes and they all have closed captioning that isn't perfect but at least gives me an idea of what is being said. I have very nearly every commercially released episode of MST3K on DVD and sometimes I've considered selling the whole mess of them and just watching online.


rant over, sorry