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Bruce Lee Premiere Collection
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Bruce Lee Premiere Collection
Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: November 11th, 2014.
Director: Various
Cast: Bruce Lee
Year: Various
Purchase From Amazon
The Movies:
Bruce Lee is the man. He needs no introduction. Here, on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, are some of the main reasons why:
The Big Boss (a.k.a. Fists Of Fury) (1971):
In Bruce Lee's first starring role, 1971's The Big Boss directed by Wei Lo in 1971, we find him playing a young man named Cheng who moves from the city to a small town where his cousins live. He's moved there so that he can work with them at the local ice factory. Cheng, before he leaves the city he grew up in, makes a solemn oath to his family to never fight again, no matter what. It doesn't take a genius to realize very early on that this promise will soon be broken.
Cheng is predictably forced to break this promise when a few members of his family start to mysteriously disappear once they have a run in with the management of the factory. It turns out that the men in charge of the plant are in fact drug dealers. After the ill effects that this has on his family, Cheng decides to take it upon himself to break his promise and take down the slime balls who are causing so many problems for everyone at the factory.
This one takes a little while to pick up steam, but once it does, boy howdy, watch out. Lee shows the world in his feature film debut why he is the baddest of the bad and The Big Boss himself is really no contest to this little man here, a man who is pissed off enough to take matters into his own hands and properly solve them once and for all. In short, here Lee is an instrument of vengeance sticking up for his family and for those who have been wronged by organized crime, something that would prove to be a recurring theme throughout his short career.
The whole movie is really just set up to show off just how amazing Bruce Lee's moves were, but it works. There's enough of a story here to hold our attention and while Bruce doesn't show loads of range in this picture he does what he does amazingly well - he beats the snot out of the bad guys. Female lead Maria Yi is, as the trailer promises 'cute and sweet' and Ying-Chieh Han as 'The Boss' is enjoyably despicable as the heavy. A young Tony Liu shows up here too.
Although the camerawork isn't really anything all that exciting the fight choreography is excellent and the main fight that takes place inside the ice factory has rightfully gone on to be pretty iconic. Bruce would, as we all know, move on to bigger and better things shortly after this one hit box office gold, but it really all starts here and The Big Boss remains a pretty bad ass kung fu movie.
Fist Of Fury (a.k.a. The Chinese Connection) (1972):
Better known in North America as The Chinese Connection, Fist Of Fury (not to be confused with The Big Boss, which is better known in North America as Fist Of Fury …confusing, I know) is in many peoples' opinions Bruce Lee's finest moment. Yes, it's a very traditional martial arts film and yes, he got a lot more creative in his later movies, but Lee in this film is the very embodiment of vengeance. Here he puts such an amazing amount of anger into his performance that even if he had never made another movie after this picture, he'd still truly deserve all of the accolades bestowed upon him for this film alone.
The film, once again directed by Wei Lo, follows a young man named Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee), an aspiring martial artist in training who returns to his dojo one day to find that his teacher has been killed. Chen quickly runs to his teacher's grave and digs up the body, overpowered by grief and rage. When a competing Japanese school begins to tease Chen's school over their loss during the ensuing funeral, Chen loses it. Once the funeral is over he pays a little visit to the Japanese school to teach them a thing or two. The result? Chen versus the entire school, and you know who's coming out on top, no contest. Chen is going to make the Japanese pay for what they did, in a big, big way.
No one, and I literally mean no one, has ever given such a genuinely, sincerely pissed off performance as Lee gives in this film. Sonny Chiba has come close in a few of his movies, but not even Sonny can top Lee's anger here as he yelps, screams, kicks, punches and busts his way through as many men as the Japanese want to throw at him. The inevitable show down is a high point not only in Lee's career but in martial arts films in general. Here we witness Lee unleashing all of his righteous anger and the full fury of his broken soul on his opponents, sparing no one and doling out his vengeance in as cold and brutal a manner as he can muster.
While the storyline may be pretty basic (man avenges teachers death, lots of ass kicking, the end) Lee is just so unbelievably fantastic in this film that it really doesn't matter. He's definitely the main reason to watch this one, and this is the film that proves as an on screen fighter he truly had no equal. His performance is also very heartfelt. When he throws himself on that grave and weeps, you feel it. He completely sells it and once we've bought, we have no problem accepting the follow through. The film definitely has a nationalist streak running through it a mile wide but when that Japanese are as nasty as they are in this movie, you can't help but go along with it.
Fast paced, exiting, emotionally involving and at times stunningly violent, this is a hard film to match for on screen martial arts intensity.
Way Of The Dragon (a.k.a. Return Of The Dragon) (1972):
Lee's third feature film also marked his directorial debut (he wrote and directed this one single handedly). In it, he plays Tang Lung, a man of Chinese heritage who moves to Rome to help out some family members with their restaurant. When Tang arrives, he finds that they are on the receiving end of some harassment from a local crime group who want them to sell the restaurant. These hoodlums aren't afraid to get rough with Tang's family if they don't get what they want, and they prove to make life difficult for them.
Thankfully for his relatives, Tang proves to be quite the martial arts master and he gives the mobsters a taste of their own medicine. The mob leader sends out word that he wants the best of the best from the martial arts world to help him take down Tang, but like the mobsters themselves, these fighters are no match for Tang and his skills. Eventually an American martial arts master named Colt (a young Chuck Norris) is brought on board to take Tang down once and for all, and they square off in the now famous battle in the middle of the Roman Coliseum (Trivia note! Way Of The Dragon would be the last film ever shot there).
There are a few great fights in this one, but the two stand outs are the Lee versus Norris showdown in the end (anyone who doubts Norris' legitimacy as a martial artist would do well to watch these scene where he really is great) and a fight in which Tang takes a pair of nunchuk's in each hand and beats the crap out of some mobsters without missing a beat. Bruce's comedic timing was never stronger than it was in this film and he plays his character with the perfect amount of cockiness, hostility and naiveté at the same time. Chuck holds his own in that final fight too. He's obviously a much bigger man than Lee but he moves quickly and with deadly precision. His name might be more of a punch line these days than anything else, but here he really is a force to be reckoned with.
Fast paced and at times amazingly tense, this is a slick action film that makes great use of its some iconic Italian locations to help make this more of an 'international affair' then the two earlier pictures. This helps to differentiate it from the two earlier films in the set while Lee's directorial style has a bit of style and flair to it, also adding to the fun.
Game Of Death (1978):
Game Of Death could have been Lee's greatest moment. Really. Had he not died before it was finished, it's very possible that Game Of Death could have very well been his best film. The idea is great, the fight scenes are fantastic, it's just unfortunately marred by a 'Bruce-Lee-A-Like' and some obviously botched up work done to hide the fact that it isn't always Lee we're watching up there on screen.
The story follows Billy Lo (at any given time played by Bruce Lee or Yuen Biao or Tai Chung Kim), a movie star who fakes his own death in a manner all too similar to the way that Bruce Lee's son Brandon (star of The Crow) would die years later on set. The reason he goes to all this trouble? So that he can fight a crime syndicate that wants Billy and his lady-friend Ann (Colleen Camp from Cirio Santiago's Ebony, Ivory And Jade), a popular singer, to join their ranks.
Billy starts to track down the syndicate big wigs and eventually dons the now famous yellow jumpsuit (later rejuvenated by Uma Thurman's character in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill) to enter a pagoda where he fights his opponents one at a time, each on a different floor of the building. The most famous moment of the film, and rightfully so, is when Lee squares off against Kareem Abdul Jabar. It's wild to see the height differences between these two as they pummel one another in front of the camera. There's also a fantastic nunchuk sequence where Lee squares off against Danny Inasanto (who played Hatchetman in Big Trouble In Little China!).
The last fifteen to twenty minutes of Game Of Death are on par with any of the other fight scenes in any of Lee's other films. They're fantastic. They're vicious. They're brutal. They're elegant. In short, this is prime Lee material. Sadly, due to the circumstances under which the film was finished, getting there is an exercise in goofiness and a lot of the film consists of guys trying really hard to look like Lee by wearing big dark sunglasses and trying to sort of cover their faces.
Regardless, the film has undeniable historical significance and an amazing finale, which combine to make Game Of Death very much worth watching for the martial arts film fan despite its sometimes painfully obvious shortcomings.
Video/Audio/Extras:
These discs appear to be the same as those featured in the earlier Shout! Factory Bruce Lee Legacy Collection, or, to be more specific, the corrected versions of the discs featured in the Bruce Lee Legacy Collection. That set had some issues with the transfers that caused a recall and then there was an audio snafu on one of the replacement discs. It was, in proper Lee tradition, a cursed release.
As far as the transfers go, all four films are presented in their original aspect ratios in AVC encoded 1080p high definition widescreen framed at 2.35.1. Despite the fact that The Big Boss is the oldest film in the set, it fares quite well on DVD. Some age related wear and tear is here but for the most part the image is pretty clean. Sharpness and detail aren't bad and if colors aren't perfect, they're certainly not bad. Fist Of Fury is a bit of a step down, the colors have a brown tint to them that would appear to be from some color fading, but again, detail and sharpness are okay and if minor print damage is present throughout, it's never really all that distracting. There's a bit of crush in the darker scenes, but it's not a deal-breaker. Way Of The Dragon has always had some shots that look soft and there may have been some focus issues at play during the original photography that make their way through to this Blu-ray release, as they were on the DVD too. Because of this the movie doesn't look quite as crisp at times as the others do. Again, minor print damage is present throughout but the colors look alright here though contrast is a bit erratic. The detail in the fourth and final film, Game Of Death, isn't as good as the first three movies and this is likely a combination of the problems that occurred while putting this movie together and a less than amazing transfer. Detail and clarity are inconsistent and black levels are a bit all over the place.
Audio options are plentiful for each movie. See?
The Big Boss: Mandarin Dolby Digital Mono, Mandarin DTS-HD 5.1, English Dolby Digital Mono (US Dub), English DTS-HD 5.1, Cantonese Dolby Digital Mono and a 'Rare English Dub Never Heard Before' also in Dolby Digital Mono.
First Of Fury: Mandarin Dolby Digital Mono, Mandarin DTS-HD 5.1, English Dolby Digital Mono, English DTS-HD 5.1, Cantonese Dolby Digital Mono.
Way Of The Dragon: Mandarin Dolby Digital Mono, Mandarin DTS-HD 5.1, Cantonese Dolby Digital Mono, Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1, English Dolby Digital Mono (US Dub), English Dolby Digital Mono (Japanese Theatrical Dub) and English DTS-HD 5.1.
Game Of Death: English audio only on this disc but it's available in DTS-HD 5.1, DTS-HD 2.0, Dolby Digital Mono and Dolby Digital Mono (Japanese Theatrical Dub).
There you go. Optional English subtitles are provided for each of the four films in the set, and regardless of if you prefer the different Chinese language options or the English tracks for these films, you're pretty much covered here. Some of the channel separation on the 5.1 tracks is a little on the forced side but they tend to have reasonable depth. It's a shame that that original mono tracks are all lossy, but that's the way it is, kids.
Extras? There are a lot of them. Hong Kong cinema expert Mike Leeder provides a commentary track for each of the four films, basically taking them all in order and starting off with The Big Boss by talking about Lee appearing on some TV shows before becoming a movie star and how shows like Ironside and of course The Green Hornet helped to launch his career. He makes some interesting observations about Lee's persona here in his first real feature and offers up plenty of details and interesting historical facts and anecdotes. The track for Fist Of Fury picks up where the first one left off, explaining how this movie also came to be known as The Chinese Connection, offering up some insight into the director's style, making some astute observations about the nationalism in the film and more. In Way Of The Dragon he speaks about how Lee had more control over this picture and how his influence is all over it, eschewing crazy trampoline effects in favor of more realistic fighting sequences. He also notes the international influence of the picture and how it had a huge effect on Hong Kong cinema at the time, noting how many of Jackie Chan's early pictures show this influence of a man from Hong Kong/China travelling abroad to help family or friends. He also talks about the humor in this movie and, of course, the involvement of Chuck Norris. As we move on to Game Of Death, he obviously goes into a fair bit of detail as to the events surrounding the making of this movie, Lee's death being the big one. He's pretty honest about what works here and what doesn't and he offers up some interesting thoughts about the fight with Kareem as well as the various substitutes that pop up in place of Lee throughout the movie.
Disc specific extras are laid out in the set as follows:
The Big Boss:
Aside from the commentary, this disc also contains a few featurettes starting with Return To Pak Chong: The Big Boss Revisited. This nine and a half minute long piece is made up of interviews with actor/martial artist Daniel Whyte who was obviously massively influenced by Lee as he travelled around to check out the original locations used for the movie. He talks about here as well as how Lee's work led to his own career shaping up that way that it has. Also on hand is Bruce Lee: The Early Years, an interview with stuntman and martial arts legend Gene Lebell. He talks for just under fourteen minutes about how he first heard of Bruce Lee and then about his career and his interactions with the late Bruce Lee. Once that's over, check out the Interview With Tung Wai who speaks for just over two and a half minutes about the time he met Bruce Lee and about the impressions that Lee made on him after stripping off most of his clothes and doing twelve pushups using only two fingers! Bruce Lee Vs. Peter Thomas is a two and a half minute segment that explains how Thomas came onboard to do the soundtrack for The Big Boss and how he tried to alter the soundtrack to appeal more to western audiences.
The disc also includes roughly two and a half minutes of Rare Scene Extensions - there's nothing ground breaking here but it's neat to see them even if some of them are in pretty rough shape. Also included here are an alternate title sequence and an alternate finale sequence. Rounding out the extras are a bunch of trailers and TV spots, a pretty extensive still gallery, animated menus and chapter selection.
Fist Of Fury:
There are two featurettes on this disc, the first of which his Remembering First Of Fury which is made up of interviews with actor Jason Tobin and movie director Isaac Florentine who speak for just under thirty-one minutes about Lee's influence on their respective careers, the importance and influence of this film, how and why Lee has remained an icon over the years and interestingly enough how martial arts films peaked early with Lee's films and how in many ways they have yet to be surpassed. The disc also includes an Interview with Yuen Wah, which runs just under ten minutes in length and lets the man speak about his experiences in the martial arts film business, his martial arts training and his membership as one of the 'Seven Lucky Kids', his work as a stunt coordinator and of course how he came to appear in Fist Of Fury and what it was like working alongside Bruce Lee. He also talks about what it was like making his film debut in this picture and his thoughts on playing a Japanese character.
Aside from that, look for an alternate title sequence, an interesting alternate ending, some trailers, a U.S. TV Spot, a still gallery, animated menus and chapter selection.
Way Of The Dragon:
First up is a collection of Celebrity Interviews featuring the great Sammo Hung, the equally great Simon Yam and the also great Wong Jing. It's quick piece at less than five minutes in length but its Sammo talking about Bruce Lee, that alone makes it awesome as he talks about having to square off and work alongside Bruce in some of the tournament scenes. Yam shares his thoughts on how Lee's movies are 'solid' and director Wong Jing talks about Lee's death and how his fighting skills were so wide reaching but how his acting tends to be underrated. Actress Flora Cheong-Leen also shows up to talk about the masculinity inherent in Lee's sweat (?!?) and his sex appeal. Director Clarence Fok also pops up to briefly explain the importance of Lee's influence on the action films that would come out of Hong Kong in his wake.
Also on hand is a twenty-one featurette called Kung Fu? in which Jon Benn talks about his experiences working on this picture as a thug boss in his feature film debut. He talks about how he wound up in Asia and got into acting after meeting Golden Harvest's Raymond Chow at a cocktail party. He then talks about how long it took to make the movie, or at least how long his part took, his aspirations in regards to acting prior to this job, memories of working on the film and more. Rounding out the extras are an alternate title sequence, a healthy batch of trailers, a U.S. TV Spot, a still gallery, animated menus and chapter selection.
Game Of Death:
The biggest extra here is the Japanese version of Game Of Death, presented in high definition, running 1:39:52 versus the original version's running time of 1:40:50. It's not been restored from the looks of things but it is in pretty good shape.
Game Of Death Revisited is a featurette that runs almost forty minutes in length and features the 'original cut' of the film as it existed before the additional footage was added. So if you don't care about the story and just want to see Bruce kicking the shit out of people in the tower, this is the version for you! Game Of Death Locations is a seven and a half minute piece that does a 'then and now' comparison showing what the locations look like in the movie contrasted with what they look like in more modern times.
Aside from that, we get a montage of outtakes from the set of the movie, a blooper reel, a collection of trailers, an alternate opening scene, a few alternate ending sequences, some deleted scenes and a still gallery. Animated menus and chapter stops, those are here too.
That aforementioned Bruce Lee Legacy Collection boxed set release also contained discs with Bruce Lee: The Legend/Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth, The Legend, I Am Bruce Lee and some bonus extras not ported over. Additionally there were DVD versions of each of the four features included, also not ported over to this Premiere Collection set. All four discs in the Premiere Collection fit inside a standard sized Blu-ray case (two discs, one on top of the other, on each side) which in turn fits inside a cardboard slipcase. The flipside of the cover art features credits for each movie.
The Final Word:
Shout! Factory's Blu-ray release of the Bruce Lee Premiere Collection is a low cost alternative to the previously released Legacy Collection boxed set. It's scaled down in that it omits the fancy packaging, the DVD versions and the bonus discs but if you aren't too concerned with those aspects, this is a perfectly fine scaled down option. The movies themselves hold up incredibly well and while the A/V presentation isn't flawless, the extras are quite plentiful.
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