Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 27, 2021

Note: This version of this film is available as part of Once Upon a Time in China: The Complete Films.

The Once Upon a Time in China franchise is regularly cited as having kickstarted the weirdly dormant martial arts film genre in the Asian market, but it’s also arguable that the series helped to foster another element of “eastern” cinema that is not necessarily relegated only to China (Korean films also come to mind in this regard): a kind of “rah rah” jingoism that seeks to exploit national identity while also perhaps hinting, none too subliminally at times, that the “natives” (Chinese or otherwise) may be just a bit smarter than some of the interlopers. Once Upon a Time in China appeared in 1991, helping to catapult Jet Li to superstar status, and continuing an even by then decades long tradition of crafting entertainments around the adventures (typically “fictionalized” if not outright fiction) of real life Chinese martial arts master and folk medicine healer Wong Fei-hung. Wong lived from around 1847 to 1925, but it didn’t take long for a rather gargantuan mythos to be built up around the character, so much so that by the late forties, Wong was an immensely popular character in Hong Kong films. Kwan Tak-hing made a veritable career out of playing Wong, appearing in some 70 films about the character, and there are several rather well remembered films about Wong that came out as Kwan was winding down from playing Wong (incredibly, the actor continued the role from the 1940s to the 1980s, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records in the process). These include the Shaw Brothers’ Challenge of the Masters, Drunken Master with Jackie Chan, and the relatively recent Rise of the Legend. The Once Upon a Time in China films offer some typical martial arts frenzies, but the films are also quite notable for how they portray a nascent nation defending itself from outside influences, and creating its own identity in the process.

Once Upon a Time in China and America received a previous release on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment in the UK. For those wanting a plot recap and my thoughts on the film, I refer you to my Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray review of that version. That review is also a good resource for screenshot comparisons and stack up how supplements between the two releases differ.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Once Upon a Time in China and America is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1, which is once again the "off by one" situation with all of the other transfers in this set when compared to the Eureka! Blu-ray aspect ratios. As of the writing of this review, Criterion has sent only check discs and so I'm not privy to any information that may be included in the insert booklet (and unfortunately there's not a ton of information on their website), though I'll mention in passing that the Eureka! release of this film mentioned only a completely generic "HD" description which Fortune Star reportedly further clarified was a 2K restoration, as opposed to the overtly stated 4K restorations for the first three films in that particular set. Also as with those other transfers, the similarities otherwise are manifest, and a cursory comparison of screenshots between the two reviews should show how alike the palette and detail levels can be. I will say that grain may be slightly less in evidence on this Criterion version, at least occasionally against some of the bright blue skies, but, again, I'd say any differences are pretty minimal. As I mentioned in my review of the Eureka! version, this does have a slightly digital, processed look at times.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While all of the Criterion discs offer different audio options than their Eureka! counterparts, the difference here may be more a situation of verbiage than actual difference. Both discs offer a Cantonese LPCM Mono track and a Mandarin LPCM 2.0 track, along with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is listed as being in English on the Eureka! disc, but which is described on this disc as being in Cantonese. That said, as I mentioned in my review of the Eureka! version, even the supposed "Chinese" tracks have a decent amount of English being spoken, and I noticed no huge differences in overall mixes in the surround tracks between the two versions. The glut of outdoor material in this film provides ample opportunity for well placed ambient environmental effects, and dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. This is another disc where Criterion has kind of oddly structured the Setup Menu, so that there are six options listed, two for each track with subtitles either on or off.

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Once Upon a Time in China and America (HD; 24:59) is an archival piece from 1997, with optional English subtitles.


• Behind the Scenes (HD; 4:19) is culled from VHS-C footage shot in 1996 by Garo Nigoghossian.


• Trailer (HD; 3:53)

Once Upon a Time in China and America Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've mentioned in some other reviews that the heirs and assigns of notable figures like Wong Fei-hung and/or Ip Man had better be receiving some substantial licensing fees for these filmmakers' often fanciful accounts of their famed ancestors' supposed adventures. Once Upon a Time in China and America is so patently silly on its (warpainted) face that it's hard to take any of it seriously, but that may at least also prevent it from seeming overly objectionable even to the so-called "PC police". Technical merits are generally solid for those who may be considering making a purchase.