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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: April 25th, 2023.
Director: Sammo Hung, James Glickenhaus
Cast: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Richard Ng, Lola Forner
Year: 1983, 1984, 1985, 1985
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The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 – Movie Review:
Shout! Factory brings together eight more films featuring the legendary Jackie Chan in Volume Two of their Jackie Chan Collection.
Disc One – Winners And Sinners:
Also known as Five Lucky Stars, Winners And Sinners, directed by Sammo Hung and released in 1983 follows Vaseline (Charlie Chin), Rookie (Fung Shui Fan), Teapot (Sammo Hung), Curly (John Shum) and Exhaust Pipe (Richard Ng). They’re a gang of small time crooks who have just been released from prison. Once they're free, they head on over to Curly's old house where his sister, Shirley (Cherie Chung) still lives. After some discussion of what they should do with their lives, they decide to turn away from crime and open up a legitimate business cleaning offices and homes.
It doesn't take them too long to rustle up a few clients, but this doesn't come without its own set of problems as the first building that they have to clean is a front for an illegal counterfeiting ring run by a Triad gang. Soon the Five Stars Cleaning Service finds themselves in the middle of a gang war. While all this is going on, Curly's four coworkers are trying to get with his cute younger sister, and a young detective (Jackie Chan) is trying to bust the gang's operations and at the same time not get run over while out roller skating. Watch for Yuen Biao in a small role towards the end of the film as well.
While not particularly plot heavy, Winners And Sinners succeeds with its nonstop barrage of action and comedy. While Jackie Chan gets top billed alongside Sammo Hung, this one really is Sammo's show. Chan's part is a supporting role and while he's on screen he is fantastic but Sammo gets a lot more done in this film and he does it with a whole lot of panache. Being considerably bigger than the rest of his co-stars you wouldn't think he'd be as fast as he is but it never fails to amaze me when Sammo busts into action as the man can move like a jackrabbit and he ends up kicking all kinds of ass in this movie.
The commercial success of Winners And Sinners lead to a few follows ups in the form of My Lucky Stars, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars and Lucky Stars Go Places which were also directed by Sammo Hung (except for Lucky Stars Go Places which was helmed by Eric Tsang) and they utilized a lot of the same cast members. The follow ups were fun, but they don't flow as well as this one does. The comedic timing and on screen friendly relationship shared by the five main players is not only hilarious but also quite charming. They seem like true friends both on and off screen and in fact many of them were. There's also some very amusing interplay between Shirley and her brother's four buddies.
While the focus of the movie is on comedy first, there are still some excellent action scenes in the movie as well. Chan's stunt work is as good as ever and seeing him on roller skates shooting through heavy traffic is as exciting as it is amusing. Richard Ng and Charlie Chin also show off their skills once the gang finds themselves in too deep with the gangsters. The fight scenes here are fast and furious and expertly choreographed.
Disc Two – Wheels On Meals:
The next movie in the set, directed by Sammo Hung in 1984, follows two cousins – Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Yuen Biao) who run a humble but fairly busy food truck in Barcelona, Spain. David does most of the cooking, while Thomas, extremely nimble on his feed, handles the deliveries by zipping around the town square on his skateboard. When a biker gang shows up to cause trouble, they use their martial arts skills to send them packing.
From here, the pair decides to head to a nearby mental hospital where David’s father (Paul Chang) has been interred. Here they bump into Sylvia (Lola Forner), the beautiful daughter of David’s father’s current girlfriend. When David is clearly intrigued by the pretty young woman, Thomas encourages him to make a move, but he’s too shy and can’t muster up the gumption to give it a try, assuming that she’d say no anyway. Things change later that same night when, at the good truck, Thomas runs into Sylvia who is posing as a lady of the evening. They quickly learn that Sylvia isn’t a streetwalker at all, but actually a pickpocket who uses her feminine wiles to lure in gullible male prey and make off with their money. When her latest job gets a bit heated, she heads over to the food truck to hide out until things cool down.
It’s clear that both cousins are taken by Sylvia, and soon enough she’s crashing at their place. Of course, when they wake up the next morning, Sylvia is gone as is all of their money. Later that day, they meet up with a man named Moby (Sammo Hung), a private detective type trying to track down Sylvia, who turns out to be set to inherit a massive fortune, on that a gang of crooks is trying to get their hands on. Sylvia winds up getting kidnapped, at which point the two cousins team up with Moby to break into a massive old castle where she’s being held captive.
Not meant to be taken seriously for even a second, Wheels On Meals is one of the most entertaining films that Jackie Chan and the Lucky Stars crew had a hand in. It’s very fast paced and a terrific blend of action, comedy and manic stunt work. There’s solid fight choreography on display in more than a few scenes and Sammo’s direction is top notch. Granted, some of the humor is very much of its era and not necessarily politically correct but if you don’t need to let that bother you, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
The production values are really strong across the board. The location photography works really nicely, the stunts are grand in scale and execution and the cinematography is rock solid. Chan and Yuen Biao make a great team and play off of one another really well, and once you throw Sammo into the mix, playing a bit of a buffoon but doing a really good job of it, the whole thing just comes together really, really nicely.
Disc Three – The Protector:
Directed by James Glickenhaus in 1985, The Protector was another attempt to introduce Jackie Chan to North American audiences in the wake of Battle Creek Brawl, an entertaining enough picture that didn't really do a whole lot to help Chan cross over. The movie follows the exploits of Billy Wong (Jackie Chan), a New York City Police Department officer who, with the aid of his partner, attempts to stop a robbery in a bar they hit up after work one night. In the ensuing fight, his partner is killed in the line of duty but Wong manages to take out the crooks. Afterwards Wong is paired with a new partner in the form of Danny Garoni (Danny Aiello) and the two are put on crowd control and asked to work a fashion show. Here they witness the kidnapping of Laura (Saun Ellis), the daughter of a crime lord named Shapiro (Ron Dandrea), at the hands of some masked thugs. It turns out a Hong Kong based drug lord named Harold Ko (Roy Chiao) has a beef with Shapiro so kidnapping his daughter is payback of some sort.
You see where all of this is going, right? Billy and Danny head to Hong Kong where they have to save Laura from Ko and his men - and for the rest of the movie Billy and Danny basically fight everyone that they come into contact with before eventually figuring out where Laura's being held and how to get her back.
Not a particularly deep film by anyone's standards, The Protector is, at the very least, plenty entertaining. There are a few solid stunts here but most of the martial arts action is a bit more grounded in reality than some of Chan's more fantastic accomplishments. The action is plentiful and well-paced which helps to make up for the fact that characters tend to pop in and out of the movie without a whole lot of reasoning behind it and the fact that the story is pretty gosh darned predictable. Those accustomed to Chan's more wholesome image may be taken aback by the fact that the movie has a lot of swearing and a fair bit of (oddly placed) nudity scattered throughout - though those familiar with Glickenhaus' films probably won't be.
Chan was famously not a fan of working with the director on this and wound up cutting his own version of the movie for the Chinese market who were more familiar with him at this point in his career (for more on that see the extras). When this project was done, Chan took it upon himself to deliver his version of a hard hitting police movie, and out of that we got Police Story, itself a much better film than this. But The Protector, as it stands, is decent entertainment if never high art. The odd interplay between 'buddy cops' Chan and Aiello is... weird and of the movie never really allows Jackie Chan to do what Jackie Chan does best, but it's got chase scenes and naked ladies and lots of violence. Not even close to a high point in Chan's career, but yeah, this'll do as a disposable popcorn and beer flick.
Disc Four – Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars:
Once again directed by Sammo Hung, this time in 1985, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars the Lucky Stars - Kidstuff (Sammo Hong), Sandy (Richard Ng), Roundhead (Eric Tsang), Rawhide (Stanley Shui-Fn Fung) and Wormgrass (John Sham) vacationing in Thailand where they are tasked by the local police department with letting a beaitiful actress named Wang Yi-ching (Rosamund Kwan) live with them for a while. The police need to keep her safe as she has some pretty important dirt on a high powered criminal organization that could put them out of business for good, and the bad guys have put out a hit on her.
In hopes of catching the hitmen out to kill off the actress, cops Ricky Fung (Yuen Biao) and Swordflower (Sibelle Hu) take up temporary residence in her home, figuring that when the assassins show up, they'll be able to take them out.
While all of this is going on, the five goofballs the actress is holed up with are doing what they can to seduce her, but of course, none of it works. Eventually, Kidstuff and company wind up getting involved in stopping the assassination plot while another cop, Muscles (Jackie Chan), works with Ricky to save Swordflower who has been mistaken for the actress.
Featuring some supporting work from Richard Norton and Gary Daniels, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars is another winner. It’s just as funny as the earlier Lucky Stars movie in the set, it once again features some great physical comedy, some awesome stunts and some impressive scenes of martial arts and stunt work. The emphasis is on humor but you’ve got to admire some of the physicality involved in some of the set pieces. This is another one that just works.
The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 – Blu-ray Review:
Shout! Factory brings The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 to region A Blu-ray on eight 50GB discs with each film properly and framed its original widescreen aspect ratio in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. All seven films are framed in their original theatrical aspect ratio. The packaging notes the following details about the transfers:
-Winners And Sinners: "4K Transfer From The Original Film Elements"
-Wheels On Meals: "2K Restoration From The Original Film Elements"
-The Protector: "2K Scan Of The Original Film Elements For The Original US Cut Of The Film"
-Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars: "4K Transfer From The Original Film Elements"
Generally speaking, the picture quality is really strong for these four movies. Colors in particular fare really nicely and look consistently bright and bold without appearing oversaturated. Black levels are also typically pretty solid and while there are some minor compression artifacts evident in a few spots here and there, the transfers generally avoid crush and show no problematic noise reduction or edge enhancement issues. Detail is pretty solid and there’s good depth and texture here as well. The transfers are also almost shockingly clean, showing pretty much no print damage at all while generally retaining the expected amount of natural film grain.
Audio options are surprisingly plentiful across the seven discs in this collection. Options for each film are laid out below, English subtitles are provided for each movie in the set:
-Winners And Sinners: Mandarin Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Mandarin 5.1 Dolby Digital, English Dub Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Cantonese Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Alternate Cantonese Mono DTS-HD Master Audio
-Wheels On Meals: Cantonese Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Cantonese 5.1 Dolby Digital, Cantonese 2.0 With Alternate Soundtrack DTS-HD Master Audio, Original English Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, English 5.1 (Classic Dub) Dolby Digital, English 5.1 (2006 Dub) Dolby Digital
-The Protector: English Stereo DTS-HD Master Audio, English 5.1 Dolby Digital
–Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars: Cantonese Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Mandarin Stereo DTS-HD Master Audio, English Mono DTS-HD Master Audio, Alternate Cantonese Mono DTS-HD Master Audio
Each disc has English subtitles translating the main Chinese language options and an SDH option for the English language tracks. Each of the DTS-HD options is a 24-bit track. While audio quality is generally pretty solid across the board here, the original language tracks always play better than the dubbed versions do – though it’s definitely nice to have them included here. Either way, those who want the 5.1 experience have that option, but most will probably opt for the original theatrical tracks as they’re how the films were originally presented. Tracks are properly balanced and quite clean and clear throughout. No problems to note here in that department.
Extras are spread out across the eight discs in the set as follows:
Disc One – Winners And Sinners:
Extras on the first disc kick off with an audio commentary by David West, critic and author of Chasing Dragons: An Introduction To The Martial Arts Film. He speaks about Sammo Hung's career as a director, where he saw commercial success, details on the members of the Lucky Stars troupe, the evaluation of Sammo's career both in front of and behind the camera, how Jackie Chan wound up appearing in the movie during what was a lower period in his personal life and career, Hung's relationship with Golden Harvest, the different bit part players that show up in the movie, the state of Hong Kong cinema in the eighties and nineties, some of the recurring themes and gags that appear in the Lucky Stars movies and lots more.
As far as the featurettes go, first up is A Winning Formula wherein Academic Dr. Luke White, the author Of Fighting Without Fighting: Kung Fu Cinema’s Journey To The West, talks about the Hong Kong martial arts comedy genre. He talks about how these movies tie back to the silent era of Chinese cinema, how they've evolved over the years particularly from the 1950's onwards specifically in Hong Kong, the influence of Peking Opera on the genre, the depictions of action and violence in the movies, the influence of Shaw Brothers output, how and where post-colonial discontent factors into some of these movies, the importance of Jackie Chan's movies and they are in many ways a celebration of Hong Kong and Cantonese culture.
An archival interview with Director/Actor Sammo Hung runs six minutes and sees the man talk about the tone of the movie, bringing different characters from different walks of the life in to the movie, really wanting to make the audience happy, working with Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao and more.
Teapot Tango is a second interview with Sammo Hung that runs thirteen minutes. He speaks about the different characters in the movie, trying to bring funny details into the background ot the movie, how the Five Lucky Stars comedy group started, working with Richard Ng, John Shum, Stanley Fung and Charlie Chin, his own character in the movie, his relationship and friendship with Jackie Chan, putting together some of the stunt sequences and the importance of taking the right precautions with stuntmen and action direction.
The Man Behind The Legend: Sammo Hung is a twenty minute featurette that goes over the man's life and career by way of interviews with friend and protégé Bobby Samuels, friend and Martial Law co-star Elaine Lui, friend and Chilli-partner Monica Lo, friend and Wing Chun advisor Guy Lai, actress Cecilia Yip-Tong and actor Richard Norton. By all accounts, he's a very kind and caring man with a love for very spicy food and a great sense of humor. Along the way we get a look at some of the movie's he's made and hear different stories from people that have collaborated with him over the years. There are plenty of fun anecdotes in here as well as lots of clips from different movies he's been involved with.
Finishing up disc one are five minutes’ worth of outtakes, the alternate Japanese end credits sequence, the original Hong Kong teaser trailer, the original Hong Kong theatrical trailer, an English trailer, a Japanese trailer, a Japanese TV spot, a still gallery, menus and chapter selection options.
Disc Two – Wheels On Meals:
David West provides a commentary for the second film in the set as well. He goes over the film's release history and box office success, the different fighting styles that we see on display in the movie, thoughts on Sammo Hung's directing styles, the character development that occurs in the movie and what sets it apart from some of the other films that the group made together, details on pretty much all of the cast members in the movie, Golden Harvest's involvement in the production, where Jackie Chan's career was at during this time, some of the locations that were used for the movie and other details related to the movie and those who made it.
The disc also features Break-Neck Brilliance: A New Era Of Jackie Chan And Skeleton-Shattering Stunts, which is an eighty-eight minute feature length documentary that covers how Jackie Chan really broke down the walls in terms of stunt work and choreography when he came back to Hong Hong in the eighties. This is made up of interviews with stuntman and actor Vincent Lyn, stuntman and actor Wang Yao (who was on the Jackie Chan Stunt Team at one point), academic Dr. Lin Feng, Manager Of Talent at Golden Harvest Emma Lee, New York Asian Film Festival Director Frank Djeng, author and critic Kim Newman, author David West, Police Story's Executive Director Chen Chi-hwa, the different injuries Chan incurred while making some of these films and Armour Of God II: Operation Condor (U.S. version) composer Stephen Endelman.
This covers how Chan's career got to where it was during this period, the stint he did in America before coming back to make these movies, the state of Hong Kong and its film industry in the eighties, the different people that Jackie Chan collaborated with and what they brought to different projects, the insane caliber of stunt work that we get to see in so many of these movies, details on various highlights from the movies made during this period, what Chan himself was like to work with, the creativity that Jackie Chan brought to his stunt set pieces, how important his sense of humor was to his work, what Chan is like to be around when the cameras aren't rolling, locations that were used for various productions and how a lot of this led to Chan heading back to Hollywood and finally making it to the big time once Rumble In The Bronx found some success.
The disc also includes four minutes of outtake footage, an original theatrical trailer, a still gallery, menus and chapter selection options.
Disc Three – The Protector:
Extras for The Protector include a new audio commentary from author and critic Kim Newman, moderated by filmmaker Sean Hogan. The talk about the very eighties look of the opening scene and its post-apocalyptic vibe, how the history of the NYPD ties into the movie, details on the different cast and crew members that worked on the picture, how the movie compares to other cop movies and Jackie Chan movies, Jackie Chan's film career outside of Hollywood, James Glickenhaus' career and work as a director, thoughts on the different action set pieces and lots more.
Maybe the most interesting extra on this disc is the inclusion of Jackie Chan's preferred cut of The Protector. Chan was not particularly impressed with the direction that Glickenhaus was going with the film and so he made his own version of the movie that took out the profanity and nudity (shots were added with fully clothed women in the lab) and which included some additional scenes directed by Chan. The main differences between this version and the US version are that Chan's cut includes a subplot with Sally Yeh and her uncle at the massage parlor. Additionally, the fight scenes are cut differently and run longer. As to which version is better? Opinions will vary but Chan's cut does include more intense action. Also worth noting is that this cut includes a scene with Bill Wallace near the ice warehouse that better establishes his character for the big fight he has with Chan's character later in the film. Chan's cut also uses a different score. This version of the movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen standard definition and with Cantonese theatrical mono, Cantonese home release stereo and or a Cantonese/English hybrid mix, all in Dolby Digital format, with optional English subtitles provided for each track. The transfer is presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition using up 15GBS of space, so it’s considerably more compressed than the feature version but it’s perfectly watchable even if the quality isn’t as nice. This version runs 1:32:09 including the Fortune Star opening logo as opposed to the feature cut which runs 1:35:17.
Extras for The Protector also include From New York To Hong Kong, an interview with Director James Glickenhaus, which runs just shy of ten minutes. Here the director speaks about his version of the movie, his issues dealing with Chan, and what his intentions were from the get go with this project. Maybe not so surprisingly, Glickenhaus didn't want to make a typical Jackie Chan film and wanted instead to go for a harder action picture, eschewing Chan's penchant for comedy in favor of slightly darker fare.
Locations: Then And Now is a cool four minute segment that shows the locations used for the film as they appeared then compared to how they appear now. If you're one of those people who find locations and how they change as interesting as some of us do, you'll want to give this a spin as it does show some interesting 'evolution' in some of the key locations used.
Closing out disc three’s supplemental package is a behind the scenes trailer, an original trailer, a Hong Kong trailer, a Japanese teaser, a Japanese trailer, a still gallery, menus and chapter selection.
Disc Four – Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars:
Once again we get a commentary from David West that offers up plenty of detail about Sammo Hung's work behind the camera as well as in the acting realm, his relationship with Golden Harvest, how the Lucky Stars movies became so popular, the broad comedic appeal of these films, the different supporting cast members that show up in the movie, how the plot takes twenty minutes or so to really be established, when and where the movie feels like a product of its time and other details surrounding the film and its history.
The disc also includes the alternate extended Taiwanese version of the movie taken from a 4K transfer from the original film elements. This version runs 1:47:01 as opposed to the feature version which runs 1:35:00, both running times taking into account the Fortune Star opening logos. The Taiwanese version features some differences to the opening, different credits, a longer breakfast scene and quite a few other scene extensions placed throughout the movie, some of which elaborate a bit on Sammo Hung's character arc.
A Life Of Laughter is a twenty-one minute interview with actor Richard Ng who talks about being born in Hong Kong but educated in the United Kingdom where he spent fifteen years and working as an actor in London in the late sixties. He then goes on to detail appearing in Empress From Hong Kong with a walk-on role, why he moved back to Hong Kong, getting his start in the film industry there, doing television work and writing work, how he came to team up with the Lucky Stars, how they connected with Jackie Chan, what it was like working with Chan and Sammo Hung, the collaborative nature of many of the films they worked on together, what the other Lucky Stars were like personality wise, his thoughts on Jackie Chan's abilities to do comedy as well as action and shooting his nude scene!
Gentleman Warrior is an interview with actor Richard Norton that runs for thirty-three minutes. He talks about how he got into martial arts as a kid in Australia, details on his training and some of the people that he worked with early on, what he did before he got into making movies, the importance to his life and career of meeting Chuck Norris, working with Norris on The Octagon, where his weapons fighting experience came in handy, how he came to Hong Kong and started working in the movie industry there, getting involved in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars, working with the different actors in the movie, filming his fight scene with Sammo Hung, working with Jackie Chan, the dubbing done in these movies and his own thoughts on Jackie Chan's abilities as an actual martial artist.
This fourth disc also includes four minutes of outtakes, an original theatrical trailer, an English trailer, a Japanese teaser, a Japanese trailer as well as a still gallery, menus and chapter selection options.
The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 - The Final Word:
Shout! Factory’s Blu-ray release of The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 is, overall, really strong. It brings together an excellent assortment of Jackie Chan’s films from what is the most popular era of his career for a reason. While not all of the films here are classics, most of them are and each one is given a very nice presentation and loads of extra features documenting its history and cultural significance. Here’s hoping there’s a third volume in the works!
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized The Jackie Chan Collection Vol. 2 Blu-ray screen caps!
