Great Street Fighter Movies (BFS/American Home Treasures)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C     Extras: C-     Films: C+

 

 

This is a companion review to two others on the site:  the Street Fighter set from VCI and the BFS Chiba set that features Sister Street Fighter, which happens to be on the VCI set to begin with, despite the fact that Chiba is not in it much.  Since those films have already been discusses, we will not summarize them again.  They are obviously of interest to anyone interested in the Karate/Kung-Fu cycle of the 1970s and Hong Kong action films today.  Quentin Tarantino, lately with both volumes of Kill Bill, has pumped up interest further.

 

Like the VCI set, all three films here are 2.35 X 1 letterboxed, but not anamorphic and the transfers are only so good.  The difference is that the VCI transfers have better color, while definition differences are negligible and make little difference, though the VCIs have better night images.  The sound is the same amusingly bad dubbing on both; all in Dolby Digital 2.0 from both companies.  Both also have bio/filmography extras, with little difference.

 

Give or take color, it just depends on what may interest you more.  The VCIs offer original poster art on their covers, while BFS are new creations.  The prices are of the same very cheap type, so they are negligible in this respect as well.  BFS likely compromises on picture simply by sticking three films on one DVD, though we have covered many of such single DVD sets in their catalog and have seen better results in titles like the Sci-Fi set.

 

So it is practically a draw.  They are so cheap, you might even want to get both to compare and decide by your own specific personal preference, but until someone gets the negatives and/or surviving original camera materials and sound masters to these films, secondary copies will be floating around on DVD for a long time to come.

 

Now you know what you’re getting.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo