Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 17, 2017

Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury turned out to be such an unexpectedly goofy pleasure in my review queue that I went back, alerted by that “Return” in the title, to discover that I had never received a screener for the first compliation of Kung Fu film trailers, which was released about a year ago by Severin Films. The nice folks at Severin forwarded me a copy, and so “the first shall be last”, in a manner of speaking. This initial aggregation of trailers is just as enjoyable as the sequel, and this disc actually has more supplementary content than the follow up, including a really nicely done documentary on the history of Kung Fu films.

As with Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury , there's a rather wide gamut of offerings on tap, with an equally wide array of fighting styles on display. Supernatural elements also intrude in a number of films, as they did in the sequel, and one other seemingly unavoidable issue is more than obvious in this compilation as (again) it was in the sequel: namely, what was the devastating death of Bruce Lee just at the moment Kung Fu films seemed to be taking off internationally. As with Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury, fairly desperate efforts to capture Lee's legacy are kind of smarmily on display in both titles, actor names and just general ambience of some of the films that followed in the wake of Lee's untimely passing.

Trailers included in this compilation are:

The Ways Of Kung Fu
Fists Of Bruce Lee
Kung Fu Vs. Yoga
Death Blow
Two Champions Of Shaolin
Golden Dragon Silver Snake
Daggers 8
Secret Of The Shaolin Poles
The Happenings
Snake In The Eagle's Shadow
The Story Of Drunken Master
Chinese Kung Fu Against Godfather
The Invisible Swordsman
Return Of Bruce
Bruce Le's Greatest Revenge
Shaolin Iron Claws
Fast Fingers
Enter The Fat Dragon
My Kung Fu 12 Kicks
The Brutal Boxer
Blacklist
The Damned
Bruce's Deadly Fingers
One Arm Chivalry Fight Against One Arm Chivalry
The Way Of The Dragon
Hong Kong Connection
Chinese Kung Fu
18 Shaolin Disciples
The Blazing Temple
Shaolin Wooden Men
The Magnificent Boxer

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in a variety of aspect ratios, but with most hovering around the 2.35:1 mark. As should be expected, there are fairly wide quality variances on display throughout the compilation, though none of the trailers is really pristine looking. Some have suffered noticeable fade (some to the point they almost look like hand colored black and white offerings), and many have more than noticeable damage, including tears, scratches, missing frames and even some fairly bad emulsion damage. That said, there's an almost charming ambience to seeing these often beat up old trailers, which now seem like vestiges of an archaeological dig (which isn't that far off the mark—see the special features listing for more information). Those expecting a complete restoration of these trailers are going to be in for something of a shock, but those with appropriate expectation levels will find everything perfectly watchable.

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The fact that Kung Fu Trailers of Fury opts for an LPCM 2.0 mono mix (in a variety of languages) for the main feature and a Dolby Digital 2.0 track for the commentary rather than the kind of perplexing reversal of same I detailed in our Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray review now makes me think perhaps there was an authoring error somewhere along the line with the follow up film, since it obviously makes more sense to feature uncompressed audio with the film rather than the commentary. All of that said, there's still rampant boxiness and damage to weather on these trailers, though the LPCM rendering does up the "oomph" factor in terms of the often hyperbolic sound effects and music choices.

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Brief History of Kung Fu Cinema (1080p; 28:09) is a really fun and informative piece that journeys back as far as the 1930s and 1940s before getting into more modern day icons like Bruce Lee. A number of talking heads including Ric Meyers provide insight.


• Audio Commentary with Ric Meyers and Friends also features Greg Schiller, Michael Worth and Rick Stelow. This is a chatty but really interesting commentary by some obviously very well informed folks. All sorts of production data is detailed, including sidebar issues like stars shared between productions and the like.


• The Way of the Cube (1080p; 11:19) is a fascinating piece of almost archaeological history documenting how the 35mm trailers utilized for the film were discovered.

Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As might be expected, especially if you don't go about seeing this film and its sequel "bass ackwards" like a certain reviewer has (ahem), Kung Fu Trailers of Fury is as goofily enjoyable as Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury, with a nice array of films that provide a competent overview of the genre circa 1970s and 1980s. As with the second compilation, there's widely variant video quality, though this disc has properly offered an uncompressed audio track for the main feature. Supplementary material on this release is also very well done. Recommended.