100 Yards Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

100 Yards Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 15, 2025

It may actually surprise some familiar with the ubiquitous streaming services offered by various studios and/or labels that 100 Yards is evidently not an offering from Well Go USA's Hi Yah! streamer, since the film, while probably more fulsomely budgeted than many other Hi Yah! straight to video (and/or streaming) productions have been, still has the same "made for TV" feeling, with a cliché ridden plot and some less than compelling characters. The film does benefit from some surprisingly stylish flourishes, and it does have one thing that even less than spectacular Hi Yah! outings frequently do, namely some exciting and well choreographed fight sequences.

100 Yards almost seems to be setting up some kind of generally historically accurate portrayal of martial arts academies in the 1920s, with an emphasis on what was evidently a standard operating procedure of maintaining order within a 100 yard radius of any given academy's front door. That potentially interesting plot point is more or less jettisoned almost immediately, however, in favor of a much more familiar rivalry angle, as a dying master insists his son Shen An (Jacky Heung) and former top student Qi Quan (Andy On) to duel to determine who will take over the school. Quan wins, leaving An to pick up the pieces and take a job in a bank that his father had already arranged for him, but of course that's not the end of the rivalry. The "100 yards" aspect is at least present in a subtext that starts to delve into the labyrinthine "rules" that were required for An and Quan to have a "rematch", but there's curiously little interest in either of these characters, which may make the whole premise less than exciting.

The film does much better both in terms of a fairly luxe production design, which recreates its era at least somewhat convincingly, and especially with some peripatetic camera moves that help to invest the property with some energy that the screenplay itself may be somewhat lacking. The cast offers some invested if occasionally hammy performances, and there are a couple of perhaps unexpectedly strong parts for women.

100 Yards Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

100 Yards is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Probably unsurprisingly there's not a glut of information online about this shoot that I've been able to find, but this is a nice looking digital capture that I wouldn't be surprised to find out had a 4K DI based on some generally excellent fine detail levels on display throughout the presentation. As mentioned above, the film has a relatively expensive looking production design, and detail levels on costuming and props / sets tends to be excellent throughout, despite some rather aggressive grading choices. As can perhaps be gleaned from some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, there are almost John Wick-ian levels of blues, purples and teals scattered throughout, which help to support suitably moody emotional underpinning. Some of these choices can admittedly tweak things like flesh tones to slightly unreal hues, but otherwise detail levels remain surprisingly intact.

100 Yards Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

100 Yards features a nicely boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Mandarin. The film's many fight scenes offer some nicely immersive moments, as various thwacks, socks and LFE bursts help to establish the force of various punches and/or kicks. There's also quite a bit of outdoor material throughout the story, and ambient environmental sounds regularly dot the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout (and it looks like at least one or two of the Anglo actors are actually speaking Mandarin, based on their lip movements). Optional English and French (!) subtitles are available.

100 Yards Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (HD; 30:04) is an unusually long featurette for a Well Go USA release supplement, and it has a glut of candid footage and some fun interviews. Subtitled in English.


• Trailer (HD; 1:28)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically, so that clicking on Behind the Scenes is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Packaging features a slipcover.

100 Yards Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

When writer and co-director Haofeng Xu specifically cites Ip Man 2 as a kind of "model" for this film, "discerning cineastes" may be able to figure out that historical accuracy is probably not going to be at the top of the film's dance (and/or fight) card. There are some excellently choregraphed and shot fight sequences here, but it's hard to care much about any of the characters. Technical merits are solid and this is the rare Well Go USA release with a relatively lengthy supplement, for anyone who may be considering making purchase.