The Extras
The Extras
Unlocking Warner Bros' Golden Harvest Vault: THE BLADE 4K & Jackie Chan's BREAKOUT HITS 4K
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Warner Bros. archivist and Hong Kong film expert Jeff Briggs, joins the podcast to discuss some recent 4K releases from the Warner Bros’ Golden Harvest Library. First up we review Criterion’s 4K of The Blade (1995), a seminal work of director Tsui Hark. Then we take a preview of the upcoming Arrow Video 4K Box Set JACKIE CHAN'S BREAKOUT HITS, a six film, 10 disc set releasing June 30th. Jeff worked directly with both Criterion and Arrow to provide them with film assets and expert review.
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JACKIE CHAN'S BREAKOUT HITS 4K
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Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Millard, your host, and joining me today to talk about some recent and upcoming releases from the Warner Brothers Golden
Welcome And Guest Introduction
Tim MillardHarvest Library is Hong Kong film expert and current Warner Brothers archivist, Jeff Briggs. Jeff, good to have you back on The Extras. Tim, it's been so long. Wonderful to see you again. Yeah, it has been uh a few years. And fortunately, I get to see you at some uh events and other things because you're still there at Warner Brothers. You work with George Feltenstein and you work at the Warner Archives, and you specifically work in the photo I know uh archives a lot. And that, of course, is different from the Warner Archive collection, which releases the Blu-rays. But you and George and and the team there work uh fairly intimately. Yes, and we have we share the same passion. Uh the passion that George has is the passion that I have, and all my colleagues at the Warner Brothers archives have. Yeah, and and it's uh it's a really unique position that you have there. We, when I was working at Warner Brothers, of course, our primary interaction was when I needed photos for some of the extras or things of that nature, and you were always a great resource. But we have had you on to talk about the Golden Harvest Library from the that the Warner Brothers owns. But I think we should probably just, for those who are just tuning in now and haven't seen some of our previous podcasts or heard some of them, uh just let people know what is the Warner Brothers Golden Harvest Library and how many films are in there, and just like a two-minute history of that. So Golden Harvest was a film production company in Hong Kong. They came out of a couple of dissatisfied executives who worked at Shaw Brothers
What The Golden Harvest Library Is
Tim Millardin the late 1960s. That's Leonard Ho and um Raymond Chow. Uh, they decided to leave Shaw Brothers and create their own studio, and they their first release came out in January of 1971, so uh 55 years ago. They slowly took over um and basically after a few years started to dominate the Hong Kong box office. And by the latter half of the 70s, they were on top of the world basically with uh a lot of comedies and action films. Uh the films of Michael Hoy um were gigantic hits in the 1970s, and then they managed to get Jackie Chan uh in 1980 for his first film Golden Harvest film, The Young Master, which was a smash hit, and then the rest is history, and his relationship with Golden Harvest, you know, took them, you know, to an unknown heights, basically. And they kept that relationship with uh Jackie Chan kept it with them until the late 90s when Golden Harvest essentially disbanded. And what had happened was uh Raymond Chow decided to in 1993, he sold uh the bulk of the library, the Golden Harvest Library, to a company called Fortune Star. Still exists. Um, and now a lot of those films are being released on physical media, thankfully. But it was at 1998, they sold a remaining chunk of their library. Um, a lot of films which would have been made post-1993, and then a lot of films that they had distributed going back into the 70s, some fairly obscure titles. Uh, they sold those to Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers picked them up in 1998, and I remember being at the um at one of our photo warehouses, probably around 1999, and finding some boxes and opening them up, and it was filled with Golden Harvest lobby cards. And I'm like, what the hell is this? Um, that's like a gold mine for you. Oh man, yeah, it was it was uh it was quite a moment. Uh Warner Brothers has held on to that library and for many, many years, almost 20 years, without without doing much with it, unfortunately. That changed um in thanks to George and the Warner Archive Collection. They released uh seven titles in 2016 um on DVD, uh very bare bones, uh but a good test run. And then the Warner Archive Collection Blu-rays had the releases of Draken Master 2 and uh Mr. Nice Guy. Now, to give my little background on myself, um, I became a Hong Kong movie fan in 1991. March 6, 1991, I saw Jammu's the killer at the New Art in West Los Angeles, right before I graduated college. Changed my life. Uh two weeks later, I went back to the New Art to see a double feature of Swordsman and a Chinese Ghost Story 2. And that cemented uh the feeling that, hey, I'm onto something here. Later that year, I discovered the Chinese language theaters in the San Gabriel Valley, um, discovered the video stores, and was basically the the 1990s was the the decade of uh Hong Kong cinema for me. And you know, until about the late late 98, we had theaters showing new releases. So it was a very special time, and probably about half of the movies in that Golden Harvest collection that Warner Brothers owns, I think it's about 170 altogether. We're very close to that. Uh, I've seen about, I think half of them, most of which, and actually of that half, probably two-thirds, three-quarters I saw at the theaters um in the San Gabriel Valley. Um because they were again, it's a lot of 1990s titles. Yeah. Um so the 90s was an amazing time. I mean, you really, really immersed yourself, and I know you were writing as well, and you were going to Hong Kong and everything. We won't get too much into that now, but I think that will come up a lot as we're talking uh in your personal memories of that stuff. But just to go back to the purchase there of that Golden Harvest Library, how many of those 170 do you think have actually been released on physical media? Oh boy. Um maybe a third, I'd say. Even even in Hong Kong, there's a lot of stuff there that that never got released. Um and well, let me put it this way. You know, by the time, you know, DVDs came in Hong Kong about 97, 98, and very few of the ones that were in this, then the Warner Golden Harvest Library made it to DVD. There are a few I can think of offhand, but not many. Probably uh the majority of them did come out on BHS, uh, and then Laserdisc, uh a little bit smaller number. But in terms of DVD, I I'd say it's maybe uh I'd be shocked if it was more than a dozen that made it on DVD. Because remember, when Warner Brothers bought the library, DVD had just come out. In Hong Kong, they they first came out in 1997, I believe it was. Um so by the time Warner bought it, the DVD hadn't really caught on, you know, yeah that much. So yeah, these are like the movie we're talking about today. I mean, it never came out on DVD in Hong Kong. Uh there was a French DVD. That might have been it. You know, not counting bootlegs. I don't count bootlegs. Right, right, right. And if if it barely came out on DVD, obviously it didn't come out on Blu-ray. So that's uh that's a big deal. Well, uh, the the title we're you're referencing is The Blade, of course, which just came out, I think it was the end of March. The Criterion released a
Why Criterion’s The Blade Matters
Tim Millard4K, you know, with a Blu-ray combo pack. I think you can also get the Blu-ray loan, but this is uh a fantastic. Maybe is based off of what you just said about the the library, this is like a real marker of 4K of a title. And it's not even the most well-known title. No, it's it's but it's it's one of the crown jewels of that, of the Warner Golden Harvest Library. I think I think it's it's a brilliant film, um trend setting film, not a success when it came out, um, considered a flop, uh, at least in Hong Kong, but its reputation has only grown. I still part of me, I want to pinch myself thinking that Criterion is actually released a 4K of the Blade, a movie I've loved for 30 years. I suppose Criterion Laser Disc buyer starting in about 1990. I remember when they released the Laserdisc, the Deluxe Laserdiscs of The Killer and Hard Boil, the two John Wu films. I remember reading that announcement, and I just couldn't believe what I was uh, you know, what I was reading that that those were going to be coming out and given such care. And those are you know milestone releases for Hong Kong films, uh getting the care and attention they deserve. Movies I used to watch in the 90s, I never dreamed would be out, you know, you know, on a quality version, much less from Criterion. Like they released the heroic trio and the execution and executioners. Again, amazing. And now with the blade, they're continuing that trend of releasing these, what used to be considered just, you know, genre films and looked down upon, now are getting the care and respect that they deserve. Well, I mean, it's it's all about genre films these days, I think. I mean, people love their genre films, and these have been kind of like locked away. Yeah, they got the laser disc, maybe they got some VHS, but we're talking a long time ago. And some people still have their copies, but to have the library, so to speak, open a little bit to have some of these films released now on this Blu-ray and fork, to have them in HD is amazing. And I'm just curious, let's go back for a minute. How did this choosing of the blade and come about? And I know a big reason we're talking about it is because you literally were one of the people at Warner Brothers that was intimately involved in working with
Inside The Archive Work On The Blade
Tim MillardCriterion on this release. Well, I I've been I've been advocating for these movies. You know, I've George and I have known each other for for over 35 years now, um, even before we both started working at Warner Brothers. So uh about 10 years ago when Warner Archive was in the DVD phase, um, George came to me and said, we'd like to do some of these. So I gave him a list of some of the, you know, what I think are some of the best titles, and they ultimately choose seven, as I mentioned before. I've been advocating for these non-stop toever will listen, you know. Not if not everyone listens all the time. George always listens, which is great. And then, you know, he'll he'll spread the word there. But I think as our relationship, uh, our Warner Brothers relationship and George's, especially relationship with Criterion, you know, continues to blossom, they became more interested in some of these titles and decided to go to this library. The first time they did that was what we talked about in a previous podcast, um, the Once Upon a Time in China box set, which has six films. Two of those are Warner in that Warner Golden Harvest Library, Once Upon a Time in China, four and five are part of that. So that was the first time Criterion licensed a Hong Kong film from us. Now they're moving on to, you know, The Blade, directed by Choi Hawk, who's one of the top five Hong Kong greatest Hong Kong directors ever. To simplify it, he's kind of like the Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong, uh, master of many genres, uh still active today. Um, and uh The Blade is, you know, he he he's got a lot of masterpieces in his filmography, and this this is up there. Yeah, so that's why that's why they chose it. And then what was some of your involvement working with them on it? Well, Criterion, you know, they they know what they're doing, so they don't need much of my help. And as I mentioned on a, I think on a previous podcast, we didn't get much photography from from Golden Harvest. Uh, Warner Brothers didn't, but we got tons of lobby cards and posters. So thankfully, we scanned all of those, all of those materials. And so I was able to provide them the original lobby card images. And there's three, maybe even four original poster variants um that were used. There's a couple horizontals and there's a vertical as well. There's a wonderful essay uh by a friend of mine, Lisa Morton, that's in the booklet um that is fantastic. She wrote a she's written a book on Troy Hawkins, interviewed him many times. And I just uh you know gave them consulting, sometimes they get a few questions um about that. But The Blade is is one where there's really only one version of the film, you know, not counting the different dubs. There's no there's not really a different cut of the film. Um I did provide also the um the subtitling list, although I know this version has much improved subtitles. Now, again, I'm somewhat because I'd watched the original movie so many times with the burnt-in uh English subtitles. So the it's a you know, it's kind of close to my heart. But after watching the Criterion version, there's no comparison. I don't need the old ones anymore. Yeah, yeah. Well, I watched it on my 4K. It looks amazing. Incredible. I I you know, you're an expert in this field, but I'm a just a happy consumer, and when I put that in, not knowing a lot about yeah, not knowing a lot about the film, I loved it. I mean, because I've seen, you know, the the 1967 version of One Armed Swordsman, and I've got, you know, a number of the Shaw
The Blade’s Style And Shock Factor
Tim MillardBrothers uh box sets that have been released by uh Arrow and that style, that 60s and 70s, the the very traditional. And then you put in the blade and it's very different. Yeah, so different, of course. And the modern take and the just the kinetic style of it, it really pulls you in because you you can never get bored watching this film. And you can never know. I mean, you know the basic storyline, if you know the film, but you never get bored because the twist on the storyline, starting from the very beginning with the voiceover and the female point of view. Like, I mean, we're we're this totally different, the and tone-wise as well. Instead of being kind of uh the traditional mythology and the tropes that come with with that, all of a sudden it feels like there's a more of a kind of a you think maybe a romance, but it's a very melancholy start. And you really don't know what's coming next. I mean, other than maybe if you know some of the plot points, but you don't know what's coming. It's very it's wonderful in the fact that it keeps surprising you. Yeah, I've I've seen it often referred to as a remake of One Armed Swordsman, I would not call it. It's more of a riff on the One Armed Swordsman. And what's also interesting, the previous year there was another Hong Kong movie uh 1994 called What Price Survival. And actually, the the Chinese title of it translated as One Armed Swordsman 94. That's a good movie, um, uh not but not nearly the level of the blade. You know, there was a giant Wu-Shaw boom. You know, WuShaw is like the you know, the equivalent of the Western, the period, period, uh, you know, sword, sword play, martial arts, uh, supernatural movies have always been popular in in Chinese cinema. There was a huge revival of that in the early 90s, and that's kind of the equivalent of me. When I used to go to the theaters, the the Garfield Theater, the Kuahwa Theater, um, there were a couple others as well. I was really going, you know, started going nonstop in about 1993, and that was the height of the Wu-Shaw glut. And I mean, almost every week I'd see a new film. Now it's funny because some of them you they kind of you kind of get used to them. And after a while, I I see people talking about certain movies now. I was like, yeah, I saw that, and it was, it was okay. And some people are saying, oh my God, this is great. I wonder if I saw these now with you know 30 years past, if I'd feel differently. There's some that I didn't care for, but I read people talking about, oh, this is great, yeah, we need this on Blu-ray, blah blah blah. I'm like, oh, really? Okay. Um, so that being said, you know, there was kind of and the Hong Kong audience really got tired of the Wu-Shaw films, probably by about '94. So when The Blade came out, which came out just a few days before Christmas in 1995, the period martial arts movie was not popular at all. I won't say dead, but it was close to dead, at least for that time being. But it's such a different movie than those, you know, what you would call, you know, flying swordsman movie. I can't remember if I read this or came up with my own. I might have read it somewhere, but someone said the co-star of the blade is Gravity, because there's not a lot of flying in the movie. There's very little wire work, there's only like two or three wireworks. There's actually one scene with wire work where it's supposed to be one of the characters, they said he flies, but when you see him fly towards the end of the film, you see that someone's has him on a rope. So there's a lot of stuff going on there. Um, but yeah, no, it's it's very down and dirty, it's grimy, you know, there's no shiny, you know, beautiful costumes. It looks like everything looks lived in. So it's very different from most of uh the films that have preceded it in the previous few years, the Wu-Shaw films. Yeah, yeah. I think it was in the essay that your your friend uh wrote that I read something that stuck with me. And that was that it's more like a horror film in the sense, I mean, and and I I was thinking about that, I was like, it's true. There's that foreboding, that's that that feeling of something's gonna go wrong, that even as you're hearing the voiceover, which feels like it's romantic in the in the voiceover, she has the two men that she wants to pit against each other and in her romantic uh uh ideal, thinking that they're gonna fight over her, and it just all goes to, you know, to hell. It explodes. Yeah, it goes to hell in that sense. But then it's like just uh that whole scene where the monk, and and we're not gonna give too much away for folks, but that whole scene with the monk where you expect one thing and a whole nother thing happens. Oh, yeah. I mean, that that's where it felt like that horror thing kind of came in where you're like, oh my god, this is extremely violent, unpredictable, and there's looming danger just around the corner. Yep. Yep. One one thing about the film that that's that's it that um I was just thinking about this morning and I wanted to mention is the fact that he shot uh Troy Troy Hart shot the movie in Sync Sound, um, with a couple exceptions. The lead actor, um Vincent Zhao, aka Chuman Chuk, and then Zhao Wen Zhao. I'm I'm I'm sorry, I'm Cantonese biased, so I'm gonna use the Cantonese pronunciations more often. He did not speak Cantonese, so he is dubbed in the film, and then the narrator, um Sung Li. Sun Li is the um Oh, she plays Ling. Yeah, yeah. She is then the narrator, yeah. She's dubbed as well, but everybody else is shot in Sink Sound. The antagonist, played by Hung Yanyan, whose Mandar name I always mangle, so I'm not gonna say it. Uh, he's actually from uh Guangxi province, right next to Guangdong, so he speaks Cantonese. So everybody else in the film was like that. And this was, unless I'm mistaken, Troy Hawk did another movie in uh previous in 1995 called The Chinese Feast. It was a Chinese New Year comedy, which is a wonderful movie, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can find it. There's a Blu-ray out in Hong Kong. And the two actors from The Blade are starring that film in completely different roles, playing chefs, but that was shot in Sync Sound as well. Um, so I think The Blade is Troy Hawk's second film that he shot in Sync Sound. Um, and it really makes a difference. Um, you know, it gives an immediacy to it that you don't get in the post-dubbing. Now, nothing against that because you know, 99% of the movies I love from Hong Kong are post-dubbed. But uh this this really gives it a different feel and more, I said, immediacy. Right, right. Well, I also wanted to ask you about the cinematography, the style of the filmy, because that's really, you know, you you you look at or watch some of the extras on this, and they do provide great background on on the on that. But I think we should talk about it because I think somebody said it's almost like there's mistakes in there. Yeah. Like the camera is over here and the action's on uh in a different area, but that that was all very purposeful. Well, and there's there's one instance, and I just have to say, if you like this film, and after you watch the movie the first time, don't do it for the first viewing, listen to the commentary by the great Frank Jang. Um how this man does so many commentaries uh it boggles my. I don't understand how he does it, but this is one of the best I've I've heard of his, and it's amazing because I'm watching it and there's things saying, Oh, Frank, please mention this, please mention this. And he mentions everything that I was thinking of, you know. Um so but there's one shot that he points out, and I I remember it too, but I I never thought of it, where one of the characters is sitting down and then he stands up immediately and the camera doesn't move. It was supposed to pan up, but they made a mistake, but they kept it in the film and it works great, it's fantastic. Yeah, um, and then there's one scene where the camera is like spinning on the ground, there's a lot of low shot, low angle shots. It's not like any other movie that was made in Hong Kong at that time, you know. Yeah, and I I don't know if this is accurate to say it like this, but it's almost like the camera itself is a character because it's not glorifying any of the actors. Like it's that whole kind of documentary approach that I think uh uh Choi Oc uh has talked about, you know, that he kind of wanted to approach, and that's part of his background, this documentary that the camera is there and the things are happening and it's just recording. And it's not some perfected, like, oh, let's do another take because you know we didn't get that piece of the action. And that gives it a very, you know, that very unique point of view and and storytelling style, which might be easier for I think the modern viewer than it was for the viewer there back in the 90s. I think so too. Yeah. The way that I first saw it, actually, um, it's kind of interesting. What I think Golden Harvest tried to sell this film internationally because usually when a movie would, again, this came out Christmas 1995, uh the the theater that Golden Harvest is theater was the Kuwa Theater in San Gabriel was a twin theater, which uh will come up uh when we talk about the Jackie Chan films in the future. Normally that film, normally a Christmas release, like a Chinese New Year Christmas release, would come soon after, like in some cases on the on a day or two after the Hong Kong release. More often, maybe a few weeks later. And I remember, because I'd known about the blade um for for many months, um, and I kept asking the owners of the theater, is is it coming? And they said, Oh, we don't know, we don't know. And then, you know, January comes, February, it never showed. The Laserdisc came out, uh, I think in like May or June, and I actually rented the Laserdisc first, um, because I went to a there's a rental place in San Gabriel I used to go to, and that's the way I first saw it. And then it actually played in at a festival in Santa Monica in summer of '96, I believe. Yeah, summer of ninety six. And that's where I first saw it theatrically. The audience lost its mind, that was incredible. But then it came, it actually made it to the Koa Hua Theater in October of '96. And it played there for several weeks, and I think came back as a co-feature as well. And I did see it there again at least once, probably twice a month. More, but I don't think it opened anywhere in the Chinese theaters. And my assumption is because they were trying to sell it for uh get international sales for it. Because they had, you know, earlier that year they had sold Rumble in the Bronx to Newline and a bunch of you know future Jackie Chan films too. Yeah. And um, so unfortunate it didn't get done, but at least we have it now. Did it influence movies that came after it? Or was it kind of this one shining, like different movie that only over time we've come to appreciate the importance? There's a few. I mean, I overall no, because it was it was such a big flop in Hong Kong. I I don't think it did. I think on certain filmmakers it might have influenced them because you'd see, oh, there's a movie, there's another great movie that's in the Warner Golden Harvest collection called Too Many Ways to Be Number One, which is an early uh Milky Way production if uh Johnny Toe uh produced film. And that movie's got some camera work that is I you know, I can't say it was inspired by the play, but there's there's a whole scene that's shot upside down, we'll put it that way. Um any of you listening who know that film, and I know you do, and I know you love it, I am doing everything I can to get that out there somewhere, uh, because it's a great film and it needs to be out there. Um, so yeah, I mean there I I think on your more um daring filmmakers, there probably was some inspiration there. You know, this was the time Wonkar Wai was not, you know, was becoming an art house darling. There could have been some stuff going back there. I don't, you know, not saying Wonkar Y was influenced by Troy Hawk, but there's a lot of experimental stuff going on that wasn't commercially success successful, but down the road, yeah, definitely influenced. Yep, yeah. And then I think after this uh this movie, uh Troy Hawk came to Hollywood. Um so Hollywood didn't mind that it wasn't a a big blockbuster. We saw that. And and I'm not a giant fan of his Hollywood work. Um I I will defend, though, the Van Dam movie Knockoff, because there's some crazy camera stuff in that. That's really out there. That's a fun movie. I I do enjoy that one. I was not a fan of the Dennis Rodman um Van Damme double team, but I do I do like knockoff. There's some there's some crazy stuff in there. Yeah. Before we we we go talk uh about the Jackie Chan uh release, but I thought we'd take a minute to just to talk about the performances of uh a couple of these actors, Vincent Zhao and Moses Chan. You know, they they they inhabit the characters very well, I thought. And I thought Vincent Zhao uh especially was uh compelling. Yeah. No, this is one of his best roles, um, without question. Now he's had some pretty heavy-duty roles. Um,
Performances And Must Hear Extras
Tim Millardhe was a Chinese Wuxu champion, you know, martial arts champion. And his film debut was as the antagonist opposite Jet Li in the movie Feng Saiyuk from 1993, which anyone who hasn't seen that, go see it. It's a wonderful movie, one of Jet Li's best. And Zhao was only, I think, 21 when he made the film. And then right after that, he stepped into the Wang Fei Hong role in Once Upon a Time in China four and five, took that over from Jet Li when Jet Li had a uh temporary break with Choi Hawk and went off and made his own Wang Fei Hong film. That's one of the youngest Wang Fei Hongs, probably, you know. Well, Jackie Chan was a young Wang Fei Hong too, but um I I do like Zhao in the two Once Upon a Time in China films that he did. Yeah. Um but um this is one of his his best roles, um, without question. And he's so talented. I can't get out of my mind that scene uh where obviously he's missing an arm, but where he's got the uh the chain, the blade tied to the chain, and it's it's like a just whirling and whirling like it's just fantastic. And with the the uh the style of the uh uh the cinematography, it's got such amazing energy. It's like amped up. It's just like amped up overload to you know, most martial arts movies are amped up, but in in the fight scenes. But that fight scene, you gotta be kidding me. It's it's it blows out to top. Well, you know, what's interesting is that the movie is pretty down-to-earth. There's not that much undercranking, which is when they, you know, uh undercrank the camera to speed it up when when it's projected. There is some at the end of the film, but it works perfectly because it builds up to such a fever pitch when that moment comes, it's just it's overwhelming. Right. Um I'll say uh speaking of that, I'll mention one of the other actors. So the the antagonist in the film, Hong Yan Yan, I interviewed him in Hong Kong actually in 1998. Um I used to write for Giant Robot magazine, and I went to Hong Kong three years in a row, 97, 98, 99, went to the Hong Kong Film Awards and did as many interviews as I could, probably a couple dozen altogether. And I did some interviews in Los Angeles and um in Las Vegas, too, of Hong Kong celebrities. Um I interviewed Yan-Yan, met him at a restaurant in Hong Kong, and we talked for an hour and a half or so. Great guy. Um unfortunately, the the interview never got published, and I I don't even think I've transcribed it, so I need to go back to it at some point. But the one thing I remember from him is that he said he was really disappointed at the end of the film because they didn't have enough time to do what they wanted to do and finish it the way they wanted to do, they were under such a tight deadline. I'm thinking, I don't know how it much it could be that much better. I mean, again, for the intensity, it's it's five minutes of just sheer, you know, dread. Because you if you remember that one scene too when they start running at each other, they cut to um Austin Y, who's this you know, the owner of the sword factory, and he kind of like grimaces before that moment. That's how you feel too, you know. And again, it kind of going back to a little horror discussion that we mentioned, you just you're just expecting the blood to fly and and and everything to get out of hand. And then I I did want to mention a supporting character who I thought was very compelling to me anyway, and that's Valerie Chow. She plays a prostitute. And I think the reason why is because there's this kind of harsh realism that uh Ling has to go through to break down her kind of romantic ideals of how life is gonna play out. And Valerie Chow does this, I thought, a superb job of just so many like facial expressions and and just little things beyond dialogue that really just kind of has this hard-bitten, cynical worldview and view of men and everything that you would expect out of that character, yes. But I I thought it was uh quite compelling. Her character too does things that you don't expect her to do. Yeah, there's a couple of moments like, oh boy, I didn't see that coming. Um, yeah, she she she's terrific in that film. She had only debuted in films uh the year before. She had a supporting role in Chunking Express. I think that was her first film. Plays the stewardess girlfriend of Tony Lung in the movie and is very memorable in that as well. But yeah, she's driven. There's a lot of character actors in this movie too. Um, so again, listen to Frank Jeng's commentary. He'll fill you in on everything. One of the um the martial arts choreographers, Yun Bun, he was one of the seven fortunes that you know grew up with Jackie Chan and Sam Ohang. He has a role, and he's pretty very memorable in a small role as one of the uh horrible people that populate the world of the blade. Yeah, yeah. Well, uh there's definitely a terrific uh 4K transfer. It's got that awesome commentary that you talked about. And there's a documentary they got from the French TV. It's about an hour-long documentary, and I believe the whole thing's in English. They interview the writer, um, the director of Troy Hawk, of course. And then uh Yan Yan is interviewed in there too. And that's an incredible. I'm so happy that Criterion managed to get that. I had seen that many years ago. Um, so I'm glad they were able to license that because it's pretty essential. And there's a couple other excerts in there. Everything in the on the disc is just is excellent. And yeah, it just speaks to Criterion how they're how much they care about this stuff. My my hope is that if this does well, then you know, I'm I'm hoping and I'm always advocating that there will be more uh treasures from the Warner uh, you know, Warner Golden Harvest Library that will make it out on Criterion or elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. Well, we both highly recommend this one. So if you're a fan, pick that one up. Well, let's talk about I wanted to preview this Jackie Chan Breakout Hits box set. It's a 4K box set releasing June 30th in the US, and it's coming from Arrow. It has six films, but 10 discs, um, because some of the films have several versions. Some of them have a Hong Kong cut and then and then another disc with an international cut. So I thought
Arrow’s Jackie Chan 4K Box Set
Tim Millardwe could preview that, Jeff, because and I'll throw it to you here. You did work with Arrow on this. Tell us how you got involved and how the set kind of came together. Well, it all started with George when Arrow made the deal with Warner Brothers to to release these films and and give them the love and care that they so richly deserve. George put me in touch with them and said, you know, I mean, because for Warner Brothers at least, I'm the, you know. I don't know if anyone else has seen, you know, uh all those uh 1990s comedies and whatnot. Um but um so I I worked with them closely um over, and this is boy, it started probably at least a year ago is when then work began on it. I did go to some of the because we have the the film elements, of course. So I went down to the film inspection area and was able to identify some stuff. It's interesting. I found um there was some stuff that was mislabeled. There was, I remember there was a first strike reel where they said, we don't know what this is, can you come take a look? And actually it was uh it was a reel from another movie entirely. Um so um it was a title, it was a title, actually. It wasn't an original negative, but there was a title that had been mis mislabeled. And uh so I was able to help identify film elements, help identify the different versions. We had some opening title sequences, and I think it was four um for Rumble and the Bronx, and we had four different versions. Um, and we were able to, because the way it's cut, I was able to help tell with the difference between the the US and the original Hong Kong version. So a lot of stuff like that. And then, of course, helping with the photography. We have more photography on something like Rumble because Newline did release it. So New Line got a lot of stuff, and the same with First Strike as well. Um providing photography, poster images. Um uh there's one rare poster for first strike that I'm happy to see they use in the packaging that that that's pretty cool. People will see that. Yeah. Um, and of course, I I I looked at the um read read their essays, I watched a lot of the the special features. Everything's terrific. I mean, it's you know, just as a fan, it's a dream come true. You know, I've been watching these movies for decades, and to finally see them get the love and care they they deserve is a treat, you know, beyond for what I do myself. I'm just I'm happy that these are out. And just for everybody, I'll go through the actual films because we haven't really said what they are, but you've got Drunken Master 2, and that was previously released as a standalone Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. Right. A number of years back. We actually talked about it, you you, myself, George, uh, when that came out. It looks terrific, but that was uh released on Blu-ray. It has uh Rumble and the Branch that you just mentioned, both the Hong Kong cut and then the international cut. Then it has Thunderbolt, which I don't know. I'm trying to think. Thunderbolt did get a one-archive DVD back in 2017. Uh well, it had been released by Newline on DVD in like mid-2000s, maybe mid to late 2000s. That was one we can probably talk about that on the dedicated Jackie podcast. That has a very interesting history because I that was his film follow-up to Rumble and the Bronx. I think Newline saw that and said, we don't know what the hell to do with this. And so it it kind of sat around for many, many years. Um I like the movie a lot. So the DVD was the original version, uncut original language and everything. So that's one of the rare, that's a rarity among this set. Right. Well, Rumble and the Bronx, of course, was released on Blu-ray by Warner Home Video back in uh 2015. But uh one thing that makes all of these unique as we go through them is Arrow has brand new 4K restorations on all these films from the original negative. So whatever you've seen in the past, this is going to just blow it out of the water. And in the case of Rumble, you know, now I I was fortunate to see the original Rumble on the Bronx when it opened in January 95 at the Quoha in San Gabriel. Um, I went to the midnight show of that and I saw it, I think, five times altogether there in that version. And that is, yeah, it's a very different movie. Again, we'll go into more detail on it later. But if you've never only seen the US version, okay, my opinion, much better movie. First of all, I mean, they cut out if you compare the runtimes, it only looks like it's 15, 16 minutes. It's actually more than that because they add new titles, they show the outtakes without titles before they do the end credits. So it's actually about 22 minutes of missing footage. Wow. Um, and more importantly, it has the original soundtrack. Then that movie was shot sync sound. That was Jackie's second movie shot sync sound after Police Story 3 Supercop. I I like the new line version too. You know, I didn't I did see that a couple times in the theater, I do admit that. But um it's it's a much, I don't want to say darker movie, but it's a lot, it's a little bit more serious, and it's got some a little couple more disturbing notes that aren't there. But you have the original performers' voices, and in the case of the great Anita Moy, um, who almost runs away at Drunken Master 2, she's got a not as media role in Rumble, but she has some incredibly memorable moments in Rumble and the Bronx, several of which are were left on the cutting room floor uh for the new line version. So again, we can get in more detail when we get it. Trust me, I'll get into more detail on this. Yeah, we will, we will. There's gonna be a lot to talk about uh on a future uh podcast where we go over this. See another one here. You mentioned Police Story 4, First Strike, that has a Hong Kong cut and then an international on different discs. Yes. And that um did get a Blu-ray back in what, 2020? I think it came out the same time as Rumble in the Bronx. Um, but again, it was only the new line version. And that one is really cut down. That is like, I think, 29 minutes of footage that we lost. And we'll go into more detail because I have a lot of thoughts on that one. Yeah, so this is again, we just want to let people know why this new box set is such a game changer for movies that people say, Oh, yeah, I've seen that. Oh, I may even own that. This is a game changer because of this new 4K restorations of these and the fact that you're going back to the original cuts, um, and then you have all of these options. And then new subtitles, too. And new subtitles, right? And then all the extras, all the extras, which we're not going to get into that that you said you've been uh able to access uh a good chunk of. And then the next movie, Mr. Nice Guy, you've got uh Japanese and Hong Kong cuts on one disc, and then an international cut on another disc for that. Now, Mr. Nice Guy was released by the Warner Archive 2019 on Blu-ray. But once again, this is 4K, and you've got all of these different cuts. Now, with the the War Archive release, do you remember what cut that was? Yeah, that was um because basically there's the one that was released in Hong Kong, but then in the Japanese market would often add scenes uh for for Jackie Chan films, um, most notably for Police Story 2, is about 15 minutes longer. And for some reason, the Japanese cut has become the official cut of Police Story 2. I don't know how that happened, but it did. Um it's just one scene basically added in uh Mr. Nice Guy. It's one additional scene, not an action scene, but it it's nice. That was the version we put out. You know, at that point we only had the choice to put out one version. That was just what was in the cards back then. And George and I talked and said, Yeah, we should put out the longest version, you know, get get everything out there for the fans. Yeah. And then the last film is Who Am I? And you've got uh the Hong Kong cut on one disc and then the international cut on the other disc. So that's the 10 discs, that's the six films. And like I said, a lot of people are gonna recognize the films, but you're not going to have seen those films the way you're gonna see them in this release. And that's why we wanted to let everybody know about it. And we're not getting into it specifically, as Jeff said. We're gonna actually have a review of this because you've got six films, of course. We have to talk about it. And I'm not gonna get into all of the extras, it'll take us too long. I'm gonna just list that so that people can read through it and see it. But I tell you what, it's gonna blow you out of the water when you see how much they are putting into extras. I did want to ask you, though, about all of the lobby card reproductions and things, you know, and the poster talk about that. I'm sure you were involved with some of that. Yeah, I believe everything came from our the Warner Archive, you know, every things we got from Golden Harvest, which we scanned several years back. There's lobby card reproductions. It's not every lobby card. I think, I think each lobby card said it's 12. It says 24 lobby card reproductions. Okay, so four images from each film. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah. So it's not every single lobby card that was made, but it's uh they they they picked good ones. In the booklet, um, they have some of the reproductions of the posters, including that that rare uh first strike one that people will get a kick out of. Um and and we're not talking about just like a 20-page booklet, a hundred and sixty-page perfect bound book. That's not a booklet, it's a book, folks. Excellent essays in there too. Yeah, yeah. So there's uh, and of course, it's you know it's gonna cost more because it has so many discs and it has so many films, but uh you can get it on Amazon right now for like 35% off. So it's it's really uh a great deal. I've got my pre-order in. If if this interests you, I recommend people get their pre-order in because uh that way you kind of get on the list to get it as as soon as possible. But if you break that down, I mean, uh for what it's currently on sale on Amazon for $143, we're really talking about $14 per disc for a 10-disc set. And you get all the supplementals, you get the booklet, you get the post-date, like you know, it's a terrific uh deal in my mind. So basically, you have three of these films that have never been released. I mean, I'm not counting again, not counting bootlegs, Rumble in the Bronx, First Strike, and Who Am I, the original versions have never been released in the US. Um that's you know, and then the the one exception is Thunderbolt, and then Thanks to Warner Archive, Drunkenmaster 2, and Mr. Nice Guy had been released before. But these are 4K again, new subtitles. Arrow did a phenomenal job, you know. Um, yeah, I mean, if you're fans of these movies, this is a must-have. This is great. And it's funny, watching them, I I did watch um you know bits of them before, and some of them I hadn't seen in a long time. Um, like First Strike, I hadn't seen in many years. And uh, you know, they're just great. Yeah. And if you haven't seen any of these, you know, you're in for a treat. This is this is this is Jackie Chan just before he hit big with rush hour. I mean, Who Am I is the latest film on here that opened the same year as Rush Hour before Rush Hour. And these were big budget films, you know. I mean, for Hong Kong, they were very large budget. Um so they are they are a perfect snapshot of of what his career was like at the time. You know, even the weakest one is still wonderful. They're they're just and and the best are masterpieces. Right. Well, I was just thinking back, I mean, you you obviously you you timed it perfectly. That 90s interest that you had in in in the Hong Kong films and the industry, and then the importation of those films to America, to the rest of the world. You know, that era of the 90s kind of look back now with uh you know a little nostalgia, maybe, but but uh that was a great era. A lot of nostalgia, a lot of nostalgia, Tim. Yeah. And the impact that these films had on all of the movies that came out. And now the young people are loving, yeah, and I love it too, the John Wicks and everything. Or or let's go back to The Matrix, even before the John Wicks. Um, it's great to see, you know, like uh the the influence of Hong Kong cinema martial arts, Jackie Chan, like all of Jetley's over film on Hollywood, on some of our favorites of mainstream uh Hollywood movies. And now the movies that come out, action movies, many of them just incorporate martial arts. They're not martial arts movies, they just incorporate the style and the the action. I mean, you gotta that's what the matrix brought. I mean, honestly, the matrix is what made that type of choreography palatable to Western audiences, and I'm yeah, incredibly, you know, it's great that they did they did that. It's funny. Looking back, um, I recently did a personal research project where I've been going back to um looking at microfilm of a a couple old and actually physical copies of old Chinese newspapers from the Los Angeles area. Jeff, Jeff, what's microfilm? Shocking, huh? Um, and I've been getting capturing images of the old ads for these Chinese theaters in Los Angeles, and I have stuff going back to 1980, um, and a few things before that. But I always wish that I had discovered these theaters earlier, you know, because I'm looking at what was playing in the 80s, like, oh my god, why didn't I see that? But, you know, I did get there at a time, you know, when that period martial arts movie was huge. Jackie Chan was at you know at the top of his game. You know, um, the first Jackie movie, I knew Jackie movie I saw in the Chinese theaters was Please Story 3, Supercom. And then I saw, I think with the exception of one, I saw every single Jet Li movie, Hong Kong Jet Lee movie from the 90s in the Chinese theaters. Now, Jackie, I you know, was somewhat known. I thought Jackie's gonna make it big sometime. I kept thinking that. Did I think Jet Li was gonna make it big? No way. Did I think Steven Chow? I used to watch all the Stephen Chow films. Did I think Stephen Chow was gonna become a billion dollar director one day? No, never dreamed that. When I saw the Wong Car Wai films, Chunking Express and Nashes of Time at the Garfield Theater, and half the audience walked out um after about 30 minutes. Did I think that he would become the the icon that he is? Not really, no. You couldn't see it coming. No. But I'm happy to Yeah, yeah. And of course, we've talked before about, you know, you go all the way back to Bruce Lee and you go back to the 70s, of course, but the nineties is this other just amazing period. These films in this set. Look, if people are just starting a collection and they have just Blu-rays and they're building 4K, maybe they don't have, you know, DVDs and VHS and laser. If they're just starting, this is a great set. The Blade of Course is a great one to uh start uh adding. I've got some for those seeing me on video, some of mine on display behind me here. But uh uh the Once Upon a Time in China, the Shaw Brothers sets. Uh we have been we we could do a whole piece on the the the opening up of the Golden Princess Library, which has let you know films like The Killer and Hardboiled and uh and the Chinese Ghost Story films, the swordsman's films, uh tons of stuff that had been locked up for ages is coming out now and it's coming out fast and furious. Yeah. I mean, you know, stuff that I you know, stuff that I used to, you know, squint to watch the subtitles on Laserdisc, you know, now is just is pristine and 4K. You know, it it's a golden age for for Hong Kong classics on physical media. It really is. You know, we'll just kind of branch off here talking a little bit about the future of physical media. I think this is the future of physical media. Very targeted genre, uh collector focused. These are the types of things that I think are going to continue. People obviously have to support it, but it's amazing how great these films, and the 90s is not that long ago, but the fact that when you get
The Future Of Collector Physical Media
Tim Millarda 4K restoration, and and hopefully, you know, because it is the 90s, you do have access to good assets, you know, to the Cameron eggs and things. So when you bump it up and and do that 4K restoration, and the other great thing about that too is that people like yourself remember seeing it for the first time. And we still have the directors and the actors. Many are still live. So when we go to put extras on things, we can get access to them. And then we have access, even in the 90s, maybe a little bit later, people were starting to keep keep extras and lead scenes. Like some of that stuff is still around, whereas it's just really not for many of the films, much older than that. So these sets now can come with just robust extras and people like yourself who can speak to personal experience and the knowledge and and and expertise of these films. I mean, you went to Hong Kong, you talked to many of these people, uh, many of the directors and actors, and you wrote about it, and that gives you a really unique perspective. So it's really fun. And it's funny back then, because that was just on the cusp of the internet, you know, uh getting big. So it was cool with the film awards. They always give you a hardcover program, which is great for getting autographs. So I've got my three hardbound programs with dozens of autographs in them, which is pretty cool. But I remember specifically probably two or at least two or three people, I'd ask for their signatures, and they say, How do you know me? I would dig deep, you know, with like the character actors and stuff like that. Um, but you know, all the people I interviewed in Hong Kong um and all the experiences I had there, I have nothing bad to say. I had just, it was an incredible time. Everyone was wonderful, was was nice, friendly, accommodating. Um, it was a good, good time. Um, if anyone has old issues of giant robot, you can see some of my interviews in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this was a lot of fun. I hope people enjoyed it. Um, it's great news that some of these titles from the Warner Brothers uh Golden Harvest Library are starting to see the light of day. And then also to uh to have these partners who really do focus on getting a lot of great extras out with the releases, something that Criterion and Arrow are excellent at. Yeah. And uh, as I
Final Recommendations And Farewell
Tim Millardas I said, they care. You know, Warner Brothers cares about our library and our partners, such as Criterion and Arrow and other partners as well, they care about the library too, and they're willing to go the extra mile. Both of these releases we've been talking about are are phenomenal. Yeah. That's why we were like, we got to talk about this again because it's relevant and we want people to know about what's coming. Because if you don't pay attention to this genre, you might miss uh some of the great things that are happening here. It's amazing the amount of titles. And I look back uh at some of the criterion uh previous releases. I mean, they've done a lot of of Kirosawa. They've done a lot of Japanese and international films, not all in martial arts or not all Hong Kong, but they've been a great supporter of independent and genre films over the years, along with Arrow and others. And uh I think it's their time to really shine on some of these because of yeah, because of of the technology and the ability to make them look so good. So just as we talked about. So Jeff, great to have you on. Thank you again. I look forward to talking more about Jackie in the near future. Yes, I do too. I I can't wait till the end of uh June for that set to arrive or early July or whatever when we can get around to uh to watching and talking about that. So thanks, Jeff. Thank you, and thanks everyone for listening.