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Review Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Quentin Tarantino Presents: Hero [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Daoming Chen
  • Yimou Zhang
  • Jet Li
  • Tony Leung Chiu Wai
  • Maggie Cheung
  • Ziyi Zhang
Release date: 2005-02-21
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.48

Review Quentin Tarantino Presents: Hero [2004] / Buena Vista Home Entertainment:

Director Zhang Yimou brings the sumptuous visual style of his previous films (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) to the high-kicking kung fu genre. A nameless warrior (Jet Li, Romeo Must Die, Once Upon a Time in China) arrives at an emperor's palace with three weapons, each belonging to a famous assassin who had sworn to kill the emperor. As the nameless man spins out his story-and the emperor presents his own interpretation of what might really have happened-each episode is drenched in red, blue, white or another dominant color. Hero combines sweeping cinematography and superb performances from the cream of the Hong Kong cinema (Maggie Cheung, Irma Vep, Comrades: Almost a Love Story; Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, In the Mood for Love, Hard Boiled; and Zhang Ziyi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The result is stunning, a dazzling action movie with an emotional richness that deepens with every step. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Contender Entertainment Group / The Way Of The Dragon [1972]
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Lee
  • Nora Miao
  • Bruce Lee
  • Jon T. Benn
  • Robert Wall
  • Chuck Norris
Release date: 2001-06-11
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.88

Review The Way Of The Dragon [1972] / Contender Entertainment Group:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Warriors Of Heaven And Earth [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Zhao Wei Wei
  • Jiang Wen
  • Kiichi Nakai
  • He Ping
Release date: 2004-12-13
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.97

Review Warriors Of Heaven And Earth [2003] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Anybody hungering for a good old-fashioned Western needs to check out Warriors of Heaven and Earth, which-although it's set in 7th-century China-has all the valor and spectacle of a John Ford picture. It also has a goofy supernatural streak, for the chopsocky crowd. The opening 10 minutes or so offer an alarmingly convoluted plot, but it swiftly settles down. What's going on is that a long-exiled Japanese hit man (Kiichi Nakai), hired to kill a renegade Chinese warrior (Jiang Wen), temporarily teams up with his quarry in order to escort a camel caravan along the Spice Road. Of course, they are menaced by a brutal warlord, and beautiful Zhao Wei (So Close) is mixed in there too. Director He Ping (Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker) captures some magnificent vistas in the Gobi Desert, but more importantly he sketches the codes or honor and behavior essential to any such tale. -Robert Horton.

Review DVD Digital Distribution / A.W.O.L Absent Without Leave (AWOL)
Actors & Directors
  • Harrison Page
  • Deborah Rennard
  • Lisa Pelikan
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme
  • Sheldon Lettich
  • Ashley Johnson
Release date: 2008-01-21
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.99

Review A.W.O.L Absent Without Leave (AWOL) / DVD Digital Distribution:


Review Warner Home Video / Romeo Must Die [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Aaliyah
  • Isaiah Washington
  • DMX
  • Russell Wong
  • Jet Li
  • Andrzej Bartkowiak
Release date: 2001-04-09
Run time: 110 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £4.44

Review Romeo Must Die [2000] / Warner Home Video:

Cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak, the cameraman behind Speed, Lethal Weapon 4, and The Devil's Advocate, makes his directorial debut with a lively but by-the-numbers film that mixes Hong Kong action pyrotechnics with gritty urban gang drama. Jet Li stars as a jailed cop named Han who hightails it to Oakland, California, to seek revenge for the gang-related murder of his brother. What he finds, though, is a fierce war between his father's syndicate and that of Isaak O'Day (Delroy Lindo) for control of the city's precious waterfront land, as both groups are trying to make a deal with a corrupt football-team owner to build a new stadium. The political shenanigans are basically just a backdrop for the kick-ass action, and to give Li a number of enemies to lock limbs with. It also provides him with a love interest, Trish (hip-hop star Aaliyah), who's O'Day's daughter and like Han, the only straight arrow in a family of crooked mobsters. Li and Aaliyah have a teasing, gentle chemistry, and when they're onscreen together, the movie lights up and glides along smoothly. Li even finds a way to work Aaliyah into one of his action set pieces, using her arms and legs to fight a female adversary because "I can't hit a girl!" However, when these two aren't onscreen (and that's a fair amount of the time) the movie plods along, despite a stately turn by Lindo and Isaiah Washington and Russell Wong as two family allies who may not be as loyal as they seem. Li's action, though, is still phenomenal as ever, from his prison breakout (as he takes out a platoon of guards-strung upside down by one leg) to a knockdown-dragout fight with the agile and dangerously sexy Wong. And despite the Romeo and Juliet overtones, this is one mighty chaste romance, albeit one with a happy ending for the star-crossed lovers. -Mark Englehart, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review Universal Pictures UK / Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Jason Scott Lee
  • Lara Flynn Boyle
  • Nancy Kwan
  • Rob Cohen
  • Robert Wagner
  • Michael Learned
Release date: 2003-07-21
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.94

Review Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story [1993] / Universal Pictures UK:

This enjoyable and touching biography of martial-arts film star Bruce Lee stars Jason Scott Lee (no relation), an actor with a lively face and natural intensity, who makes every moment of this film compelling. Directed by Rob Cohen, Dragon traces Bruce Lee's slow rise over myriad obstacles-most of them race-based-to become an international superstar in films. Lee's origins are oddly set in San Francisco instead of his real home in Seattle, but then again there is plenty of artistic license going on as Cohen explores the actor's psyche through some powerful fantasy sequences. Lauren Holly is good as Lee's wife, Linda (whose book about her late husband inspired this movie). A scene involving Bruce's rescue of son Brandon (who died in a film-making accident in 1993) from a murderous spirit is plain spooky. The special-edition DVD release has a widescreen presentation, director interview, featurette, screen tests, closed captioning, optional French soundtrack and Spanish subtitles. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com -This text refers to the VHS edition of this video.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Michelle Yeoh
  • Sihung Lung
  • Yun-Fat Chow
  • Chen Chang
  • Ang Lee
  • Ziyi Zhang
Release date: 2001-06-18
Run time: 115 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.48

Review Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [2001] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is so many things: an historical epic on a grand scale, an Asian martial-arts flick with both great effects and fantastic fighting (choreographed by The Matrix's guru Yuen Wo Ping), a story of magic, revenge and power played with a posse of star-crossed lovers thrown in for good measure. Set during the Qing dynasty (the late 19th century), the film follows the fortunes of righteous warriors Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien (Asian superstars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, respectively) whose love for one another has lain too long unspoken. When Li Mu Bai's legendary sword Green Destiny is stolen by wilful aristocrat's daughter Jen (exquisite newcomer Zhang Ziyi), who has been trained in the way of the gangster by Li Mu Bai's arch-rival Jade Fox, the warriors must fight to recover the mystical blade. The plot takes us all across China, from dens of iniquity and sumptuous palaces to the stark plains of the Western desert. Characters chase each other up walls and across roof and treetops to breathtaking effect, and Tan Dun's haunting, Oscar-winning East-West inflected score. Directed by Taiwanese-born Ang Lee and co-written by his longtime collaborator American James Schamus, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon joins the ranks of the team's slate of high-quality, genre-spanning literary adaptations. Although it superficially seems like a return to Ang's Asian roots, there's a clear throughline connecting this with their earlier, Western films given the thematic focus on propriety and family honour (Sense and Sensibility), repressed emotions (The Ice Storm) and divided loyalties in a time of war (Ride with the Devil). Nonetheless, a film this good needs no prior acquaintance with the director's oeuvre; it stands on its own. The only people who might be dismissive of it are jaded chop-socky fans who will probably feel bored with all the romance. Everyone else will love it. [+]
-Leslie Felperin On the DVD: As might be expected this superb anamorphic widescreen version of the original 2. 35:1 theatrical ratio presents Peter Pau's spellbinding cinematography in its full glory; the same goes for the Dolby 5. 1 audio track that showcases Tan Dun's haunting score. Annoyingly, however, the default language option is the dubbed English soundtrack, which means you have to select the original Mandarin version before playing. The extra features are good but not exceptional, with an obligatory "making-of" documentary and commentary from Ang Lee and James Schamus being the best options: the director and producer/cowriter chat amiably and in some detail about their martial arts version of Sense and Sensibility. But it's the breathtaking delight of the seeing the movie in such quality that really counts, and this disc does not disappoint. -Mark Walker.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / The Karate Kid / The Karate Kid 2 / The Karate Kid 3 / The Next Karate Kid [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Ironside
  • Clarence Gilyard
  • Ralph Macchio
  • Chris Conrad
  • Hilary Swank
  • Christopher Cain
  • John G. Avildsen
Release date: 2005-10-31
Run time: 452 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £10.93

Review The Karate Kid / The Karate Kid 2 / The Karate Kid 3 / The Next Karate Kid [1984] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Metrodome / The Banquet [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Daniel Wu
  • Zhang Ziyi
  • Feng Xiaogang
Release date: 2008-06-02
Run time: 125 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.93

Review The Banquet [2006] / Metrodome:


Review Warner Home Video / Bloodsport [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Forest Whitaker
  • Leah Ayres
  • Donald Gibb
  • Norman Burton
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme
  • Newt Arnold
Release date: 2002-10-01
Run time: 92 min.
Price: £3.22

Review Bloodsport [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

A well-oiled Jean-Claude Van Damme makes his starring debut in what may be one of the few kickboxing films to be based on a true story. The Muscles from Brussels plays Frank Dux, the first Westerner ever to win the extreme "whupfest" known as the Kumatai (a long-running, no-holds-barred fighting tournament in Hong Kong). While a bit deficient in the script department (to say the least), this undeniably exciting flick succeeds by letting Van Damme play to his strengths: namely, minimal acting and a lot of impossibly acrobatic splits while kicking people in the head. Bloodsport is a guilty-pleasure testosterone blast of the highest order, with a memorable villain (the massive Bolo Yeung from Enter the Dragon) and a multitude of well-choreographed fight scenes. An embarrassed-looking Forest Whitaker cameos as a hapless (and non-kickboxing) cop. -Andrew Wright A well-oiled Jean-Claude Van Damme makes his starring debut in Bloodsport, which may be one of the few kickboxing films to be based on a true story. The Muscles from Brussels plays Frank Dux, the first Westerner ever to win the extreme "whupfest" known as the Kumatai (a long-running, no-holds-barred fighting tournament in Hong Kong). While a bit deficient in the script department (to say the least), this undeniably exciting flick succeeds by letting Van Damme play to his strengths: namely, minimal acting and a lot of impossibly acrobatic splits while kicking people in the head. It's a guilty pleasure testosterone blast of the highest order, with a memorable villain (the massive Bolo Yeung from Enter the Dragon), and a multitude of well-choreographed fight scenes. An embarrassed-looking Forest Whitaker cameos as a hapless (and non-kickboxing) cop. [+]
-Andrew Wright.

Review Universal Pictures Video / Curse of the Golden Flower [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Yun-Fat Chow
  • Li Gong
  • Jay Chou
  • Ye Liu
Release date: 2007-09-03
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.97

Review Curse of the Golden Flower [2007] / Universal Pictures Video:

Chinese director Zhang Yimou ends his bid to outfly Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with Curse Of The Golden Flower, the third in his Wuxia (the Chinese style of flying and fighting) films. Much like Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, it is drenched in colours so dazzling, and boasts action scenes so exhilarating, that you can almost forgive any shortcomings in the story. Almost. Despite its grandeur, this film is in many ways the least rewarding of the three. Set in China's tenth century Tang dynasty, the story sees Chow Yun Fat's emperor trying to poison his wife, a trussed-up and progressively unstable Gong Li, who is having an affair with her step-son Wan, and trying to manoeuvre her other son Jai against his tyrannical father. Let's just say that it gets more complicated from there on in, and involves lots of running through endless corridors, but really, it's best to just sit back and let that intense visual style work its magic. Swapping action for dramatic intrigue might have been Yimou's mistake, but there's no mistaking his knack for breath-taking cinematography. Even if purely on a visual scale, Golden Flower still manages to captivate, and the final battle scene is at least worth the slightly overlong wait. Die hard fans of these films might feel a bit stiffed, but everyone else won't be short of eye candy. -Luke Mawson.

Review Warner Home Video / Enter The Dragon (Special Edition) [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • John Saxon
  • Bruce Lee
  • Robert Clouse
  • Angela Mao
  • Ahna Capri
  • Kien Shih
Release date: 2004-08-02
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.98

Review Enter The Dragon (Special Edition) [1973] / Warner Home Video:


Review Quantum Leap / Shaolin Warrior - The Way Of Qi Gong
Actors & Directors
  • Shifu Yan Lei
Release date: 2005-12-05
Run time: 60 min.
RRP: £22.99
Price: £10.99

Review Shaolin Warrior - The Way Of Qi Gong / Quantum Leap:


Review Warner Home Video / Kung Fu - The Complete First Season [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Alex Beaton
  • Lee Philips
  • Robert Totten
  • Gordon Hessler
  • Walter Doniger
Release date: 2004-07-05
Run time: 792 min.
RRP: £30.99
Price: £8.46

Review Kung Fu - The Complete First Season [1973] / Warner Home Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Fearless [HD DVD] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Jet Li
  • Nathan Jones
  • Ronny Yu
Release date: 2007-11-26
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.50

Review Fearless [HD DVD] [2006] / Universal Pictures UK:


Review Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK / Kung Fu Hustle [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Stephen Chow
  • Stephen Chow
Release date: 2005-10-24
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.41

Review Kung Fu Hustle [2005] / Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK:

Movie-kinetics genius. Kung Fu Hustle takes the gleeful mayhem of Hong Kong action movies, the deadpan physical humor of silent comedies, and the sheer elasticity of Wile E. Coyote cartoons and fuses them into a spectacle that is simple in its joys and mind-boggling in its orchestration. A run-down slum has been poor but peaceful until a bunch of black-suited gangsters called the Axe Gang show up to cause trouble-and discover that, hidden among the humble poor, are three kung fu masters trying to live an ordinary life. But after these martial artists repulse the gang with their flying fists and feet, the gang leader hires a pair of assassins, whose arrival leads to the unveiling of more secrets, until both the screen and the audience are dizzy with hyperbolic fight artistry (choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, who also choreographed The Matrix). Weaving through this escalating fury is a loudmouthed loser (writer/director/actor Stephen Chow) who suddenly finds himself having to live up to his bragging. Kung Fu Hustle more than lives up to the promise of Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer: it's a movie made by an imagination unfettered by the laws of physics. Hugely entertaining. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / The Yakuza
Actors & Directors
  • Sydney Pollack
  • Herb Edelman
  • Takakura Ken
  • Robert Mitchum
  • Brian Keith
  • Richard Jordan
Release date: 2008-02-19
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £4.97

Review The Yakuza / Warner Home Video:

REGION 2 UK DVD - OFFICIAL WARNER BROS RELEASE - HARD TO FIND CLASSIC STARRING ROBERT MITCHUM.

Review Prism Leisure Corporation / Kickboxer [1989] (Jean-Claude Van Damme)
Actors & Directors
  • David Worth
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme
  • Mark DiSalle
  • Dennis Chan
  • Dennis Alexio
Release date: 2003-01-06
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.49

Review Kickboxer [1989] (Jean-Claude Van Damme) / Prism Leisure Corporation:


Review Pathe Distribution / House Of Flying Daggers [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Andy Lau
  • Takeshi Kaneshiro
  • Ziyi Zhang
  • Yimou Zhang
Release date: 2005-08-15
Run time: 119 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £2.66

Review House Of Flying Daggers [2004] / Pathe Distribution:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Fearless [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Ronny Yu
  • Nathan Jones
  • Jet Li
Release date: 2006-10-23
Run time: 99 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.39

Review Fearless [2006] / Universal Pictures UK:

A moving and inspiring story of redemption and personal triumph in the face of great odds, Jet Li's Fearless is the based-on-facts story of Chinese folk hero Huo Yuanjia (Jet Li). The son of a martial-arts master whose greatest strength was his restraint, Huo grows into an unbeatable fighter whose pride and thoughtlessness lead to a chain of tragic losses. After a classic wanderer-in-the-wilderness penance, Huo reinvents himself as a mature instructor of Wushu, a martial arts system that embraces all forms of fighting without preference or pre-judgement. He also becomes a populist symbol, at the dawn of the 20th century, of China's refusal to entirely capitulate to the boot of Western colonialists. Taking on whatever European, American, or Japanese fighter the outsiders bring in to demoralize the natives, Huo becomes a legend that, in real life, is still revered. Thrillingly directed by Ronny Yu (Warriors of Virtue), Jet Li's Fearless is a dazzling action movie that transcends its breathless fight sequences with Huo's sportsmanship virtues, i. e. , knowing when you've won by example, rather than by the fist. Jet Li is superb in the role. -Tom Keogh.

Models & Brands:
Quentin Tarantino Presents: Hero [2004], The Way Of The Dragon [1972], Warriors Of Heaven And Earth [2003], A.W.O.L Absent Without Leave (AWOL), Romeo Must Die [2000], Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story [1993], Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [2001], The Karate Kid / The Karate Kid 2 / The Karate Kid 3 / The Next Karate Kid [1984], The Banquet [2006], Bloodsport [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Curse of the Golden Flower [2007], Enter The Dragon (Special Edition) [1973], Shaolin Warrior - The Way Of Qi Gong, Kung Fu - The Complete First Season [1973], Fearless [HD DVD] [2006], Kung Fu Hustle [2005], The Yakuza, Kickboxer [1989] (Jean-Claude Van Damme), House Of Flying Daggers [2004], Fearless [2006]

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