rocket1312

Is Thunderbolt Warner? I thought that was an old Miramax title.

I know Warner Archive has long promised more HK stuff and not delivered, but I think in 2023 they're finally getting back to pre-pandemic/pre-merger output. Wouldn't surprise me if we see something from them this year. I'd obviously take an uncut Rumble if it were available, but the North American version really isn't that different.

Twin Dragons and Who Am I are the two I want the most, but as you said, there are rights issues. I think Twin Dragons being a charity film for the HK directors guild (or whatever it's called over there) has made that one more complicated. Or maybe that was just speculation. I've mostly lost track of all of the conversation surrounding these releases. Once the US labels started getting involved it became too much for me to follow.

dex14

I have on DVD from New Line / Warners.

Boba Fett

People waiting on Supercop, I can't recommend more highly the Eurkea films 4K Police Story set. I got it back in late 2022, from Amazon UK. 4K discs are region free; fantastic release.

RocShemp

dex14

Yea. Better to order direct from Eureka though if interested. Free shipping.

RocShemp

Thanks for the tip.

dex14

Project A (and American Pie 2! ) is being teased on the bottom of their website. Probably a Region A release.

asianxcore

Taxi Hunter (1993) is being released on Blu-Ray on 6/13/23

https://cityonfire.com/taxi-hunter-blu-ray-88-films/

asianxcore

Magic Cop (1990) is being released on Blu-Ray on 6/13/23

https://cityonfire.com/magic-cop-blu...-mr-vampire-5/

Brian T

FINALLY! Some movement away from the Jackie/Sammo/Yuen/Shaw/Johnnie To routine.

Both of those are solid films to most fans of HK cinema, and they might even be litmus tests to see how well discs sell that don’t have more-or-less household names like Chan in them. I figured TAXI HUNTER - - which is Joel Schumacher’s FALLING DOWN done right - - might have been put out by the likes of Unearthed Films or VS, so it’s interesting to see 88 Films getting more into the kind of mid-level exploitation fare that kept the HK industry chugging along back in the day.

And surely they’ll be able to sit Michiko Nishiwaki down for an interview about MAGIC COP, not to mention all the other amazing action pictures that she appeared in that might make nice future editions!

flansered

I received my copy of Magnificent Warriors in the mail this morning. Packaging is nice. I was half expecting it to get delayed again.

Fielding Mellish

I got my copy yesterday, too. But thanks to that Super Protective Amazon Packaging®, the slip was torn and the plastic case suitably mangled.

flansered

I guess I got lucky with my copy from Amazon. I will probably order the In the Line of Duty boxset from somewhere like Diabolik cause I know they will ship in in a box.

dex14

Amazon UK has listings for Twin Dragons and the Fight Back to School Trilogy.

rocket1312

I thought Twin Dragons was in weird rights limbo, so this is a very welcome surprise.

Never seen Fight Back to School. Stephen Chow isn't really my jam, but I might check them out.

I was hoping 88 would announce Undeclared War. I only just the other day saw that Vinegar Syndrome put it out, but I don't totally trust them with these HK movies yet. So far they're 0-2 when going up against their 88 counterparts. Although Undeclared War might be more up Eureka's alley.

dex14

Yea... Ringo Lam seems to be more of Eureka's jam. I plan to get the VS version next sale though. I have their Burning Paradise already. I didn't get the Yuen Biao ones. I got 88's deluxe versions.

I have the HK versions of FBTS. Not sure if I’d rebuy.

rocket1312

The artwork for Twin Dragons gets a hard "no" from me. It won't stop me from buying it or anything, but talk about overthinking things.

Brian T

If one wanted an 'in' with Stephen Chow, those aren't a bad place to start, and some of them have top-notch action sequences. I don't recall them being released on disc in North America, though, and I'm not really sure they'd be worthy of the treatment now. Presumably they're UK only? I think many of Chow's films found more acceptance in the UK and Europe. That's actually true of a lot of Hong Kong cinema from the golden era. If you have Amazon Prime, all three of them are on there to sample. Chow's movies would really benefit from more accurate subtitles, especially if they could somehow add little 'explanatory' notes into them the way Animeigo used to do with some of their anime and live action titles. I'm a firm believer that "local" humour like Chow's 'mo lei tau' and language absolutely CAN be translated to other languages, but only if it's done

I have the VS edition of UNDECLARED WAR and didn't notice any issues with it. Have people found problems? I've always enjoyed it since I reviewed a VHS screener for my local paper back in 1991 or so, but it's not exactly a jewel of Hong Kong cinema, let along in Ringo Lam's crown, nor are there multiple versions that I'm aware of, so I can't imagine one Blu-ray trumping another in that case. Nothing about the VS release made me wish I'd waited for a UK company to jump on it, but with most of these releases I'm just happy to see that reasonably 'completionist' packages are being assembled on both sides of the pond (to varying degrees - sigh), even if it has meant buying both versions in some cases and then bitching about it on here!

The new artwork created for a lot of these UK and US HK editions has been getting under my skin for a while, but this one kinda takes the cake. It's not that the artists aren't talented -- they absolutely are -- and I suppose companies like VS and 88 want to have a consistent 'look' to their HK lines, but it gets to be overkill sometimes, just piles of faces converted to 'paintings' in Photoshop. The original HK poster for TWIN DRAGONS is nothing to scream about, but it IS the original HK poster, like it or lump it. Presumably they'll make it a reversible sleeve. Eureka's actually the worst for this because they rarely give you that option.


Another followup on this one. I only recently spotted that Cat III rating on the image you posted, almost hidden in a dark spot on the image. To the best of my knowledge, this has always been a Cat II movie, despite a rather unpleasant scene early on that sets the title character off. I had to dig out my VCD from a very deep container to confirm this. I don't recall ever reading about a stronger version, but that certainly doesn't mean one doesn't exist. I'm curios to know what's going on with this one now.

Incidentally, this appears to be the new artwork for it. Again, it's a bit much . . .

Brian T

Listing for the FIGHT BACK TRILOGY set. Not much in the way of extras, but at least there's only one commentary on each for a change, and Frank Djeng is easily the best man for the job on those as he might be able to explain the culturally-specific details behind a lot of the gags, hopefully.

And the listing for the UK Untold Story 'Deluxe' edition:

rocket1312

I don't know if there's anything wrong with the VS Undeclared War. I didn't even know they had released until a couple of days ago. What I do know is that the VS editions of Iceman Cometh and Righting Wrongs are inferior (in terms of presentation) to the 88 versions. The VS Iceman Cometh's video transfer is normalized and tones down the colored filters. I also believe that the Cantonese mono track is not genuine. Possibly a mix-down. It has different subtitles as well, but I couldn't tell you which ones are more accurate. The VS Righting Wrong's transfer has also been normalized a bit, but from what I've seen, that one might be a question of preference. It's harder to nail down what the intended look might have been with that one. But it also has an incomplete version of the Mandarin cut. I don't think the differences are huge, and it's apparently what was provided by Fortune Star, but the 88 folks did their due diligence, spotted the missing footage, and were able to correct it. Bottom line is that these things are a YMMV situation, and I've mentioned before that all I really care about is the best presentation, but I definitely trust 88 and Eureka to go the extra mile. VS hasn't quite shown that to me yet and I don't want to buy multiple copies.

Didn't Leeder and Venema quit 88 after the Bey Logan kerfluffle? I don't think we've seen a commentary from them since that all went down. Unless they've reversed that decision, my guess is that Frank Djeng will be the only guy going forward. For whatever its worth, I agree with your assessment re:Frank, but I was listening to his Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon track recently and found it rather wanting. You can definitely tell there are movies that he knows/likes better than others.

dex14

Brian T

Good point. I'd forgotten about that. Guess we'll see. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of Leeder as a person, but that's another story.

Speaking of Logan, I've been tempted to grab the new Ronin Flix editions of Jet Li's movies, but the I can't help but detect his stink on them, which keeps giving me pause. For starters, they basically re-use the Dragon Dynasty artwork as well as many of the special features (on which he was a producer, as I recall). They've replaced his commentaries, though, which is fair, although why they retained the Brett Ratner interviews is beyond me. For those who may not even be aware of these releases, here they are:
- FONG SAI-YUK 1 and 2 (still using crappy Bey Logan-influenced retitling as THE LEGEND): https://roninflix.com/products/jet-li-double-feature
- FIST OF LEGEND and TAI CHI MASTER combo (also available separately): https://roninflix.com/products/jet-l...tai-chi-master

Anyway, I think in the case of some HK movies -- SKINNY TIGER being a good example -- a draggy 90-minute commentary may not really be necessary, thus my comment a while back about how these editions are starting to feel like busywork to keep the 'experts' from having to get day jobs. That's a film where, say, a 15- to 20-minute "visual essay" might've cover as much ground more succinctly, and would probably pair nicely with the archival interviews. Djeng's co-commentators can sometimes feel like padding when it's readily apparent that he doesn't have a mountain of research to present, nor is there a mountain of research available in the first place. Again, SKINNY is a good example; Bobby Samuels was actually in a handful of decent HK movies back in the heyday (although he wasn't much of an actor) but he's been cranking out crappy movies in the US that nobody sees for the past 20 years, so I'm not sure I see the value there. And it looks like Djeng's got another companion on the FIGHT BACK films. Pretty sure F. J. DeSanto has done other HK-related tracks before, but I don't recall if I've listened to them yet.

Agreed that the UK companies have a better track record than some of their US counterparts. Maybe it's the UK's closer relationship with Hong Kong from colonial days? I do try to avoid getting both – thus my frequent complaints about this cash-grabby tendency of putting exclusive supplements on both editions – but I did spring for both versions of RIGHTING WRONGS. To me, both of those presentations, visually, are acceptable, and both evoke my memory of first watching the film on the old HK DVD, which basically means I can't trust my memory anyway (and I never did compare the old DVD to either new edition). Catching the missing footage earns the UK label bonus points, for sure.

I have a feeling I may end up upgrading some of the early 88 Jackie Chan titles at some point, now that they seem to be doing some of them in Region A. Those are several cases where 88 really should've waited, and now we've got to double dip if we want the best versions, and after being told those earlier releases were supposed to be definitive. Mind you, some of Jackie's early movies really aren't classics, so it'll take a decent sale price to really persuade me.

I did go with the UK set for ICEMAN as well, though I hadn't heard about any of the issues you mentioned until now. I do wish they'd included VS's cinematographer interview. Condsidering the film's visuals, he seems like a pretty obvious person to talk to. I'm tempted by Shout's TIGER CAGE set, but if the only extra is yet more commentaries with different people delivering essentially the same info, I'll stick with 88's box.

Honestly, though, I just wish we didn't have to choose between versions, but that's how it goes.

Regarding the 0-2 on Vinegar Syndrome, have there been any reports of colour problems or missing footage with their editions of EBOLA SYNDROME and BURNING PARADISE? I honestly don't follow-up on that stuff as much as I probably should. Maybe those two would bump up their score to 2-4? For me, I could only compare them to the older discs (a Dutch special edition of EBOLA, and the Hong Kong VCD of BURNING -- cringe!), so the very act of upgrading them to HD was so revelatory that I probably missed if there were any issues.

Brian T

Amazon's FIGHT BACK TO SCHOOL listing has updated art showing the individual cases:

dex14

Yea... I think I'll just keep my HK copies of those.

Brian T

Tempted to do the same, but I think some (or all?) of mine might be old non-anamorphic DVDs so . . . time to dig 'em out I guess.

In related news, I just noticed the product description for 88's IN THE LINE OF DUTY SET was updated at Amazon. Not surprisingly, they seem to be picking and mixing the extras, forcing people to choose.

A quick skim tells me:

- Multiple versions intact where applicable; audio choices seem the same
- Eureka has the Leader/Venema commentaries on all four, 88 doesn't. I can live without those, but still.
- The Djeng commentaries appear to be ported over, but they make no mention of his co-commentator on Eureka's YES, MADAM disc, so is that one different?
- YES MADAM: Seems almost the same, except Eureka's listing says "trailers", while 88's says "Hong Kong trailer", so . . .
- ROYAL WARRIORS: Eureka lists Venema's locations featurette; 88's lists "missing aeroplane inserts". Eureka's John Sham interview seems to be moved to ITLOD 3 in the 88 set. 88's disc simply includes . . . "and more!" Seriously?
- IN THE LINE 3: Eureka has new interviews with Cynthia Khan and Michiko Nishiwaki; 88 doesn't list these, but says ... "and more!". Cute.
- IN THE LINE 4: Eureka has a third archival commentary (including Michael Wong), "new interviews with cast and crew" (???), archival Donnie Yen interview, and Donnie Yen "Action" featurette. 88 Films has the archival Yen interview.

I'm sort of leaning toward the Eureka sets now, but I doubt it would hurt 88 Films to actually provide a PROPER list of bonus features in this set, but this doesn't really surprise me. The pre-order price on the US set at Grindhouse was quite reasonable, so I'll just have to bide my time.