Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 8, 2017

Are you the sort of home video enthusiast who balks at having to sit through the “coming attractions” that many Blu-ray discs are authored to make more or less unavoidable? If you are, you might shy away from a “feature” that is comprised entirely of coming attraction marketing efforts, but perhaps unexpectedly that might deprive you of a weird sort of entertainment, at least when it comes to the wide array of often flat out goofy offerings that make up Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury. Asian cinema, especially Asian cinema from “days of yore” and that centered on various martial arts entries, is not exactly known for its restraint, and that hyperbolic ambience is more than evident in most, maybe even all, of the trailers assembled for this follow up to Kung Fu Trailers of Fury.

There are a number of patently bizarre trailers on tap in this second offering, and those who aren’t afraid to flaunt their geek flag at seeing one of the early Golden Harvest logos will have a field day making their way through this assortment. While you’d be hard pressed to call any of the films featured in this collection outright classics, there are a number of interesting entries, including a bunch of so-called “Brucesploitation” films (with or without Bruce Li), and even an early animated feature which the commentary states is culled from the same source material as the recent Jet Li feature League of Gods.

There's a certain delirious quality to many of these trailers that those with a certain skewed sense of humor will almost certainly appreciate. Aside from the completely over the top action elements (and, these being trailers, the fight scenes of any given film are of course emphasized), there's some really funny other material at hand as well, not the least of which is the burned in English translation (as opposed to the optional English subtitles). It's hard not to love a trailer that features phrases like "Insidious Plotting", and some of the subs for dialogue are equally enjoyable.

Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury features the following trailers:

Thunderbolt
Yellow Faced Tiger (AKA Slaughter in San Francisco)
Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat
The Invincible Super Guy
The Invisible Terrorist
Shaolin Invincible Sticks
Bruce And The Iron Finger
Snuff Bottle Connection
The Story Of Chinese Gods
Along Comes The Tiger
The Owl
Two In Black Belt
The Young Avenger
White Haired Devil Lady
The Super Kung Fu Fighter
Killer from Above
Two Assassins Of The Darkness (AKA Kung Fu Killers)
Bloody Mission
Revenge Of The Shaolin Kid (AKA Master of Death)
The Thundering Mantis
Shaolin Hero Chang San Feng
The Bomb Shell
Black Guide
One Way Only
The Old Master
Big Leap Forward
Gambling For Head
Silent Romance
Itchy Fingers
Crazy Horse And Intelligent Monkey
The Legendary Strike
The Instant Kung Fu Man
The Dragon and The Tiger Kids (AKA Hell's Windstaff)
The Avenging Boxer

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

Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer hovering around 2.35:1 (though there are a couple at 1.78:1, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review). Anyone who has experienced collections of trailers like this will probably know what to expect, but newcomers to compilations like this one need to brace themselves for quite a bit of damage, including everything from scratches and tears to missing frames to both horizontal and vertical wobble and in a number of these offerings, noticeable fade. That may sound like a laundry list of reasons not to enjoy this video presentation, but in fact quite the opposite is true: the "aged" look of these trailers seems to only add to their quaintness. As might be expected, there is a pretty wide variance in quality, perhaps due to how popular the original films were. Some of the trailers make it through the gauntlet of time relatively intact, while others are pretty ragged looking. There's nothing unwatchable here in any case, and there are no problematic signs of digital tweaking of the source elements.

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

Return of Kung Fu Trailers features a perhaps perplexing Dolby Digital 2.0 mono mix in various languages (perplexing since the commentary is granted an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 rendering). That said, while this probably could have benefited from a lossless version, especially with regard to the overblown music and sound effects, what's here is pretty much in line with much of the video presentation, meaning it shows its age, with occasional damage including pops and crackling (and occasional brief missing moments, often understandably where frames are absent), along with an overall "vintage" boxy sound, but there's nothing horribly problematic or unlistenable on tap despite its lossy presentation.

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

Audio Commentary features most of the same team that provided this service on the first Kung Fu Trailers of Fury, including host Ric Meyers (author of Fists of Fury, aided and abetted by Frank Djeng from the New York Asian Film Festival, Greg Schiller, and Drunken Master Video's Rick Stelow. Previous participant Michael Worth is given a pass by his collaborators due to his documentary producing schedule. This is a surprisingly fun commentary filled with little tidbits about the various films which most Asian film fans will find informative.

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

Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury is obviously a niche product catering to a certain clientele, and those folks are going to know pretty much what to expect in this second compilation of often outré trailers. I'd actually advise the more adventurous readers of this review to throw caution to the wind and check this out, since it's kind of bizarrely entertaining on its own merits. Video and audio quality are about what should be expected, and the commentary track is quite enjoyable. For genre fans if for no one else, Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury comes Recommended.