7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
After his revered master is murdered by a rival dojo of Japanese imperialists, a marital arts student sets out to defend the honor of both his school and of the Chinese people.
Starring: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, James Tien, Maria Yi, Robert Baker (I)Foreign | 100% |
Martial arts | 50% |
Drama | 36% |
Crime | 29% |
Action | 14% |
Thriller | 7% |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Cantonese: Dolby Digital 2.0
Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is currently only available as part of Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection.
For hordes of baby boomers, Bruce Lee will probably forever be Kato. In the wake of the insanely popular Adam West
Batman series, ABC greenlit another superhero in the hopes of lightning striking twice, but The Green
Hornet had neither Batman’s campy sense of humor nor, ultimately, its popularity (though truth be told, by
the time The Green Hornet aired, Batman was probably already at its all time peak in popularity and was
soon to begin losing its audience, ultimately
following its sibling into the purgatory of cancellation and endless reruns via syndication). Bruce Lee made such an
impression as Van Williams’ sidekick in The Green Hornet that the series was actually known colloquially in many
international markets as The Kato Show. Many Westerners at least were unaware that Lee had toiled in film for
years as a child actor before his breakout role in American television. Though The Green Hornet was not in itself
a success, it raised Lee’s profile to the point where he at least could find occasional work as a guest star in other
American television series, but perhaps surprisingly it took a few more years until Lee’s tragically brief adult film career
finally took hold. Over the course of a mere two or so years, Lee made only five films, but he established himself as the
leading martial arts star of his generation and due perhaps at least somewhat to his untimely death at the age of 32 in
1973, Lee rather quickly became even more legendary, part of that cadre of stars who, rather like James Dean,
experienced a post-mortem reassessment of their contributions that only grew with the passing years. The
international market has seen several Blu-ray releases of Lee’s first films over the years, both singly and in deluxe
boxed sets, but fans were overjoyed to hear of this new Shout! Factory set, which includes four of Lee’s five films (Enter the Dragon is a Warner
property and has been released on Blu-ray by that studio). Joy turned to shock, however, when early recipients of this
extravagantly packaged set started complaining that Fortune Star, who had provided the masters to Shout! for this
release, had “cheated” viewers by supplying upscaled standard definition transfers rather than native high definition
properties.
. . .and now, for the rest of the story. Paul Harvey used to tease his radio audiences with that famous
introductory phrase,
and it’s more or less perfect for “what happened next”. After comments from consumers who received early versions of
the first release, and
(if I might be less than perfectly humble for a moment) the original Blu-ray.com review, Shout! realized there was
something wrong with the
release.
While they remained a bit circumspect on what was happening, with original reports seeming to focus only on the
mislabeled discs I had
identified in my original review, Shout! ultimately evidently uncovered newer high definition masters for three of the films
and went back to
the drawing board to recreate and reissue the set. There have been a lot of accusations flying around the internet
(what else is new?)
alleging all kinds of nefarious behavior, but I for one find this neither helpful nor ultimately of much importance. What
matters is that Shout!
has tried to address concerns and has probably gone to considerable expense to recall the first set and reissue this
“new, improved” one.
Their official statement detailing the differences in this new set reads:
Some fans have thrown brickbats at Shout! for supposedly not “coming clean” about whether the first set contained upscales or not, and to them I’d simply ask two questions, the first of which is: what difference does it make, now that Shout! has corrected the problem? The second, perhaps tangential, question is whether this is simply a matter of terminology. As lovers of FUNimation anime releases are well aware, that label regularly lists releases as HD native when what they really mean is that they have been provided (pre-existing) upscaled HD masters of native SD content. That may in fact be what has happened here, but again, I find the brouhaha a relatively moot point, now that corrected masters have been provided.Correct pairing of disc label art and media for discs 10 and 11, which had inadvertently been swapped on the original release.
New Blu-rays for The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon. Contrary to speculation circulating on the internet, the original set did contain hi-def masters of the first three feature films. However, after comments from fans who had received early copies of our set, we discovered that our sources were not the recently restored transfers used for the Blu-rays in Hong Kong and Japan, but rather the original masters done a few years ago in Canada. We therefore acquired the improved masters (the master for Game of Death was no appreciably different), and have included them on this new set, for a truly definitive Bruce Lee collection.
Note: Screencaps 1-10 are taken from this new release. Screencaps 11-20 are from the original recalled
release. I have included at
least a couple of "similar" frames for comparison as well as other moments from the film for a general overview of the
changes.
Fist of Fury is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1 (the
original release was
framed in 2.39:1). The first thing that will probably be noticed in this new release is that it's slightly darker and more
brown appearing than the
original release was. Whether this is the more accurate presentation or not I'm not able to state definitively, though I will
say that generally
speaking, the darkness didn't bother me as much as the slightly brown tint to much of this presentation. The high
definition presentation here is
certainly less problematic than the first, though the uptick is probably more marginal than might be expected. Midrange
shots still have the
tendency to look pretty soft and fuzzy, and indeed even close-ups have a slightly gauzy appearance. There is abundant
and natural looking
grain in this presentation.
Shout! Factory has included several different audio options, but their menu listings either don't always match what's actually present or fail to disclose whether the tracks are lossless or not. The following list offers the menu listings followed by actual audio specs in parentheses, if those differ from the menu listing or if further clarification is needed:
Fist of Fury may be predictable and a little silly at times, but it's a huge step up from The Big Boss. There are a number of spectacular set pieces in this film, all of which benefit from everything Lee and some of the holdover crew from The Big Boss learned on the first film. This Blu-ray offers surprisingly a somewhat darker and more brown looking video presentation (when compared to the first releaes), while the many audio options offer a glut of choices (with one notable error), even if some of them are lossy. The special features here are generally well done, but a bit less impressive than on some of the other films in this set.
Fist of Fury | 精武門 | Collector's Edition
1972
精武門 / Jing wu men / The Chinese Connection
1972
(Still not reliable for this title)
The Big Boss | 唐山大兄 | Collector's Edition
1971
The Way of the Dragon | 猛龍過江 | Collector's Edition
1972
死亡遊戲 | Collector's Edition
1978
死亡塔 / Si wang ta / Tower of Death
1981
精武英雄
1994
東邪西毒 / Dung che sai duk / Ashes of Time Redux
1994
Sun King Chaat Gu Si
2004
新精武門 / Xīn jīng wǔ mén
1976
その男、凶暴につき
1989
殺破狼 | SPL: Kill Zone | Saat po long | Ultimate Edition
2005
Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken / 激突!殺人拳
1974
Du bi dao / Duk bei do / 獨臂刀
1967
Dou fo sin
2007
給爸爸的信 / The Enforcer
1995
用心棒 / Yôjinbô
1961
龍爭虎鬥
1973
椿三十郎 / Tsubaki Sanjûrô
1962
殺破狼2 / SPL II: A Time for Consequence / Saat Po Long 2
2015
Gyakushû! Satsujin ken / 逆襲!殺人拳 / Street Fighter Counterattacks! / Revenge! The Killing Fist
1974
Ging chaat goo si
1985