Blood
Of Revenge
(1965)/Illustrious Corpses
(1976/both Radiance)/On
The Run (1988)/Rosa
(1986/both 88 Films)/Triple
Threat: Three Films with Sammo Hung
(Manchu Boxer
(1974) Paper Marriage
(1988) Shanghai, Shanghai
(1990)/Eureka! set/all MVD Blu-ray)
Picture:
B-/B-/B-/B/B- Sound: C+/B-/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C+/B/C+/B/B-
Films: C+
Now
for a group of crime dramas, sometimes with politics, always with
violence that have their moments, even when they do not totally
work...
Tai
Kato's Blood
Of Revenge
(1965) is a Yakuza film in which a new young gang tries to
assassinate the head of an older, more established group, fails and
the results are retaliation in the construction business and revenge
murders, including a second-in-command of the older group going after
the new gang himself! When it works, it is really good, but not
enough to justify its 91 minutes. Still, it plays better being an
older entry into the cycle and genre of this kind of gangster film
and completists will want to check it out.
Extras
(per the press release) include
Lice
Are Scary:
a short film by Tai Kato (1943, 14 mins)
Junko
Fuji: Flower and Storm: a visual essay by Mark Schilling (2025)
Reversible
sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time
Tomorrow
Limited
Edition booklet featuring new writing by Earl Jackson and an
archival review of the film
and
Limited Edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo
packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of
certificates and markings.
Francesco
Rosi's Illustrious
Corpses
(1976) is the sole Italian entry, a political thriller in which
several judges are suddenly killed in quick succession, prompting an
immediate investigation by a credible Inspector (Lino Ventura, very
good here) wondering why and why all of the sudden. Like The
Pelican Brief,
it starts out with promise, then does not know totally where to go,
what to do, how to do it and where it is going.
We
get star power here including Max Von Sydow, Fernando Rey, Charles
Vanel and some other familiar faces for those who have watched much
cinema from this period from them. I was not happy with the ending,
too obvious, and a ambitious screenplay lands up boxing itself up and
not going anywhere much. Piero Piccioni's music score is a plus that
helps the film more than expected.
Extras
(per the press release) include
a feature length audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox (2021)
Archival
interview with director Francesco Rosi (1976)
Archival
interview with Francesco Rosi and Lino Ventura (1976)
New
interview with Gaetana Marrone, author of The Cinema of Francesco
Rosi (2025)
Trailer
Gallery
Reversible
sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
Limited
Edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael
Atkinson, and newly translated writing by and interview with Rosi
and
Limited Edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo
packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of
certificates and markings
Alfred
Cheung's On The Run (1988) is anxious to imitate old Film
Noirs, Blade Runner, 1980s chic and the look John Woo would
soon be so associated with. It does this more often to the point of
overkill (putting style, no matter how well it is or is not done,
ahead of more original ideas) as a good cop (Yuen Biao) wants revenge
for the killing of his wife, not from a Triad, but from within his
own department and organization, so he disappears and even gets
unexpected help from a very effective female assassin (Patricia Ha)
who is not a confederate.
This
has energy and some solid moments, but it is a little carried away
from the start, gets wilder in ways that do not ultimately help it
and despite having a plausible ending, just never has a point where
it manages to establish itself in a solid way that allows one to
suspend disbelief long enough to allow the audience to really get
into it. Some will like it more than I did, thus this special
edition, but it was too much of all we've seen before. Try it
yourself if interested.
Extras
(per the press release) include
an O-RING RIGID SLIP CASE WITH NEW ARTWORK BY SEAN LONGMORE
Audio
Commentary with Kenneth Brorsson and Phil Gillon of the Podcast
On Fire Network
Audio
Commentary with Asian Cinema Experts Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto
Running
Away: An Interview with Alfred Cheung
Predicting
the Future: An Interview with David West
Alternate
Ending
Hong
Kong Trailer
and
a reversible sleeve with original Hong Kong poster artwork.
Joe
Cheung's Rosa
(1986) is the sometimes comical tale of a cop who is a bit much (Yuen
Biao) looking for a missing police informer, getting help from a
short-fused cop (Lowell Lo) creating a combination that throws
subtlety out the window, making solving the case much harder than it
already is. There only lead is the title character (Lu Hsiao-Fen)
who happens to be the informant's girlfriend and she's as screwball
as either of them.
This
is a good idea, but we get mixed results since the screenplay and
makers want to juggle all kinds of genres and ideas, but they never
totally resolve, gel or meld together like they might have under
other circumstances. To the film's advantage, the actors are cast
well and this could have been some kind of classic, but it all keeps
tripping over itself and I was disappointed in odder ways than usual
throughout. At least they tried, but hmmm, what could have been.
Extras
include
(per the press release) a LIMITED EDITION RIGID SLIP CASE WITH NEW
ARTWORK BY SEAN LONGMORE
LIMITED
EDITION 40-PAGE PERFECT BOUND BOOK
LIMITED
EDITION PREMIUM ARTCARD
AUDIO
COMMENTARY BY DAVID WEST
IMAGE
GALLERY
and
an ORIGINAL THEATRICAL TRAILER.
Triple
Threat: Three Films with Sammo Hung
has the actor, martial arts legend, fight choreographer and movie
producer in three films that show how involved he was in his work,
which was always ambitious, uneven, working well or only working so
well. These are about equally entertaining, but nothing stands out
either, though the first film has a slight edge over the latter ones.
Wu
Ma's The
Manchu Boxer
(1974) has Hung taking up the title sport to get revenge on a bandit
gang who haver it coming, not knowing who he is or what he is capable
of. The fights are the highlight years before Van Damme and the
energy is not bad.
Alfred
Cheung's Paper
Marriage
(1988)
has Hung as a boxer again, but living in the U.S.A. and being paid to
marry a young woman (Maggie Cheung) who has just come in from Hong
Kong. He has loan shark issues and she just wants U.S. citizenship.
Can they both get what they want. With recent events and how Hong
Kong was eventually returned to China around the time the film
arrived, this can be a sad one to watch in retrospect, but has its
moments.
Finally,
we get Teddy
Robin Kwan's
Shanghai,
Shanghai
(1990) has Yuen
Biao (see On
The Run
and Rosa
above) looking for his police officer brother in the title locale,
only to find trouble with corruption and a deadly gangster (Hung) in
an interesting matching of the two stars. I just wish the script and
final film took best advantage of its stars, but they are better than
the film a little more often than I would have liked.
Extras
included
in this Limited Edition of 2,000 copies are:
Limited
edition exclusive bonus disc
Limited
edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey
Limited
edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on Sammo Hung
New
audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema
expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist &
filmmaker Michael Worth
New
audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts
Stefan Hammond and Arne Venema
New
audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and
producer/writer F.J. DeSanto
New
interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung
and
Trailers.
Now
for playback
performance. Most of the films here are from 2K transfers and all
have flaws from their age and/or lenses used, so only expect so much.
The restoration efforts are impressive just the same and the hard
restoration work pays off. The English dubs in all cases are best
skipped.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Revenge can show the age of the materials used,
but nice compositions and how well monochrome film and scope framing
go together help make this more enjoyable. The Japanese PCM 1.0 Mono
is limited and show its age, but a 2.0 Mono track might have been a
better option. Otherwise, a good, if not great, presentation.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Illustrious
has good, consistent color and sometimes tight compositions to go
with the narrative and comes from two reversal prints since the
negative is missing or lost, while the Italian PCM 2.0 Mono is the
best soundtrack on the list, albeit that just about all the sound was
done in post-production. This at least will never sound better.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Run
can show the age of the materials used with more flaws than expected
for a relatively newer production and the Cantonese PCM 2.0 Mono
sound is also more limited than lit should be for its age. The
combination is obviously restored, but this was not as well preserved
over the decades as it should have been apparently.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Rosa
is easily the best-looking film of the six and best performer
visually, so this was made and preserved better with nice and
consistent color, but sadly the Cantonese PCM 2.0 Mono soundtrack is
still too sonically limited like most of the films on this list and
seems older than what you see on screen.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on all three
Triple
films show the age of the materials used, with Boxer
possibly being a scope film originally (???) but color can be good
and you get some decent compositions. The Cantonese PCM 2.0 Mono on
all three films is more limited on all three films, especially
surprising for the latter two being the newest presentations covered
here, but they have been remastered as well as can be expected and
just were not very well recorded or preserved. In all cases, we're
lucky these have survived as well as they have.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
