6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
The Shaw Brothers' take on James Bond. Pursued by the murderous Skeleton Gang, three people travel from Bangkok, Thailand to the ruins of the ancient Siamese capital Ayutthaya in search of lost treasure, using three small Buddha statues.
Starring: Zaldy Zshornack, Alfonso Carvajal, Paul Chang Chung, Hsi Chang, Pei-Shan ChangForeign | 100% |
Action | 22% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Mandarin: LPCM 2.0 Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of the Super Spies and Secret Lies: Three Undercover Classics from Shaw Brothers
collection from Eureka! Entertainment.
The venerable Shaw Brothers may be best remembered for their glut of martial arts extravaganzas, a glut evidenced by the recent massive Shawscope Volume Three set among many
others, evidenced at least in part by that Volume Three, which is not to suggest the Shawscope collections have been the
only source for Shaw Brothers films on Blu-ray. But the studio was certainly not immune to various other crazes that subsumed the global
film world, including the massive
wake left by the first several James Bond
films, seemingly even a bit before the Bond phenomenon had a new burst of Asian energy courtesy of You Only Live Twice. Eureka has aggregated three of these slightly wacky exploits together in an
appealing set which if nothing else presents both regular Shaw
Brothers performers and directors in a somewhat different genre context.
The Golden Buddha is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As usual, Eureka! provides no real technical information on the transfer, but one assumes all three of the films in this set are part of the massive restoration project undertaken by Celestial Pictures of the Shaw Brothers catalog. To my eyes, The Golden Buddha fares the best of the three, though there are still a few oddities to mention. The palette is reasonably suffused throughout the presentation, though it can tend to be just a tad dowdy and brown at times. Detail levels are generally very good in midrange and close-ups, though there are once again either lens deficiencies or outright focus pulling problems where things can look positively blurry, kind of weirdly toward the center of the frame a lot of the time.
The Golden Buddha features LPCM 2.0 Mono audio in the original Mandarin. While there's nothing significant to cause worry, this track has a generally more boxy sound than The Singing Thief in particular, something that can affect both spoken material and scoring. That said, while things have a somewhat overly reverberant sound (part of that whole "boxy" presentation), there's a relatively energetic midrange. Minor background hiss can be heard in the few comparatively quiet sections. Dialgue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Eureka! Entertainment has packaged The Golden Buddha and Angel with the Iron Fists together on one disc, with The Singing
Thief on the other, with the following supplements:
Disc One
The Golden Buddha has any number of referents which may spring to mind for various viewers, but the problem is most of the films being echoed are manifestly more interesting than this one. There are some fun moments here, and of the three films in this set, I'd rate the technical merits of this presentation to be the strongest, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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