JHosk

I was in Wlamart the other day picking up the new Tool album (which is awesome), and noticed a small rack in the corner with a bunch of old martial arts flicks. They were put out by two companies. One called Front Row and the other Beverly Wiltshite (or something like that). They ranged in price from 6-9 bucks Canadian (4-6 US).

Martial Arts of the Shaolin temple - An older Jet Li flick that was originally Shaolin Temple 3. I loved the first Shaolin Temple flick, and this movie was good too. The dvd was bad though. Burned in subs, a transfer from an older VHS copy (at least thats what it looked like). Also it started off widescreen, and then about 10 minutes into it the picture zooms and its fullscreen and the sub-titles are cut on the ends. Pretty lame dvd, but it was worth the 6 bucks just to watch the great old skool fights.

Lord of the Wu-Tang - this is really a re-named Kung-fu cult Master....one of hte only fantasy movies that I really liked. DVD was quality was sub-par. It was widescreen, but it had burned in sub-titles and looked only marginally better than dubbed VHS copy.

Born to Defense: Not one of Jet Li's better movies. Quality was same as the others. Do you sense a trend here ??

Drunken Master: great flick....bad dvd...it is widescreen though.

Shaolin Wooden Men: see Drunken Master

Blind fists of Bruce Lee: older Bruce Li flick. Its pan and scan but quality is surprisinly good. Its on par with the better martial arts theatre discs from Tai Seng.

Masters of the Tiger Crane: Stanrd old skool chop fest. Widescreen transfer but print is severly worn.

Just thought I would share this. Although the dvds are in general pretty bad, some of the movies are great, and the price is good too...

Slumbering Fist

Yeah, Born to Defense is pretty weak, except for the last ten minutes, its pretty much drudgery. My local Best Buy has a bunch of those Wu Tang cheapies, I’ll be buying a couple fairly soon regardless of pic quality. Way I see it, I’ve paid for tons of bad vhs of HK films, at least the DVD doesn’t wear out.

Ky-Fi

Thanks for the reviews, JHosk. I must admit I've gotten a lot more picky about the picture quality of kung fu movies since I got into DVD---I can't watch the pan&scan, EP quality movies anymore, no matter how good the movie is. Dang, I wish a good, cheap DVD was out of Shaolin Temple 3, with a good widescreen picture. I've never seen it, but I would imagine with Lau Kar Leung directing Jet Li with no wires, it MUST be great.

Trigger

Kung Fu Colt (Cult) Master is awesome - I bought my copy from DDDHouse and the quality was fine. It was also under 10 bucks. I hate that it just ends though - wish the story went on. I know there is a series somewhere without Jet Li, but F if I'm going to go looking for it.

axolotls return

All of those Beverly Wilshire/Telefilms/Saturn DVDs are pure bootleg crap.

The only ones worth it IMHO are

Martial Arts of Shaolin - even though the zoom to full screen cuts off a lot of the subtitling (yet only R0 version available)

Snake in the Eagles Shadow - surprisingly good quality for a boot (again only R0 version).

Looks like a pre-schooler with a VCR, crappy video dub, and a DVD recorder did all of these transfers.

Slumbering Fist

Okay, I've been putting off aquiring some of these, and I know I've read fair- to horrible- to middling things about some of the titles...In addition to JHosk's reviews anyone else want to help consolidate it a bit and weigh in with worth it (under $5) or not worth it opinions. Thanks

so far in the worth it category, I guess...
Flying Guillotine
Drunken Master
Master of Tiger Crane
Shaolin Wooden Men
Shaolin Drunken Monkey
Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin
Blind fists of Bruce Lee

middling to bad...
Martial Arts of the Shaolin Temple
Lord of the Wu-Tang (Kung Fu Colt Master)
Born to Defense
God of Killers(mentioned in another thread)

not mentioned...
Last Hero in China
Young Master
The Kid w/ the Golden Arm
Five Fingers of Death
Young Tiger
Dragon Lord
and a few other that escape me, anyone got these?