Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 16, 2013

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Jackie Chan is one of the biggest international superstars of his generation, a performer who not only performs his own stunts, but has become synonymous with a certain subgenre of martial arts fare where comedy is often king. But it may surprise some to know that Chan actually not only had a fairly hard time matriculating into the American market, even his early Hong Kong efforts were met with less than resounding success. Though Chan had actually been appearing in films since his early childhood, it took him several tries as an adult to finally break through into mainstream prominence in Hong Kong, ultimately really breaking into the big time with 1978’s blockbuster Drunken Master, a film which perfectly typified what would become the almost patented Chan blend of action and comedy. A couple of years later Chan made his first starring attempt for the American market, Battle Creek Brawl, which bombed pretty spectacularly. He stuck around long enough to play a fairly minor role in The Cannonball Run, before striking out again in The Protector Chan retreated to his more familiar geographical turf for the next several years, increasing his star power and box office appeal in that neck of the woods. It would be close to a decade until Chan finally attempted to reestablish himself once again stateside, and even then it took a little while before he finally had his first true blockbuster, 1998’s Rush Hour. The rest, as they say, is history, and it’s perhaps indicative of how popular Chan has become that few seem to remember his long struggle to achieve that level of stardom. This new double feature from Shout! Factory collects that first American bomb Battle Creek Brawl with a fondly remembered 1993 Hong Kong offering from Chan, City Hunter.

For complete wrap ups of each film, please see the following reviews:

Battle Creek Brawl Blu-ray review

City Hunter Blu-ray review

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Please see the above links for detailed comments on each film's video quality.

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Please see the above links for detailed comments on each film's audio quality.

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Battle Creek Brawl contains the following supplements:

• Jackie Chan's American Adventure with Producer Fred Weintraub (1080p; 11:50) is a surprisingly sweet sit down with Weintraub, who obviously has very warm memories of working with Chan.


• Interview with Actress Kristine DeBell (1080p; 5:10). DeBell gives some of the history of how she got the role and then the shoot.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080i; 5:09)

City Hunter contains the following supplements:

• Interview with Jackie Chan (1080i; 10:07) is a vintage featurette with Chan. He recognizes how cartoon- like the film is, talking about some of the stunts and action sequences.


• Interview with Wong Jing (1080i; 7:14). The writer-director is a little hard to understand (he speaks in halting English), but he gives some background on the project.


• Interview with Stuntman Rocky Lai (1080i; 10:58). Lai discusses some of the film's outlandish stunt set pieces.


• Theatrical Trailers (1080i; 7:52)

Jackie Chan: Battle Creek Brawl / City Hunter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is kind of an odd double feature that would seem to have less connective tissue than the previous Chan two-fers that Shout! Factory has released. Once again iffy video quality is the biggest hang up most consumers are going to have with this release, though the most ardent Chan fans may be willing to overlook this problem for the fitful pleasures each of these films provides.