The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie Review

Well, king might be overstating it a bit. . .

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 4, 2013

Years ago, a producer friend of mine and I were watching an old movie together, one of the corny south seas epics that were so popular in the 1930s and 1940s. At the climax, the hero faced off against a horde of bad guys, at which point the producer turned to me and asked, “Why do they always line up to fight the good guy one at a time?” It may have been a rhetorical question, for after all, had the bad guys actually prevailed by ganging up on the hero, what kind of message would that have relayed to the audience? And so let’s give a few props to The King of the Streets, for in its opening fight scene, the horde, after trying to take on their lone adversary one at a time, finally figures out that grouping together and pounding the living crap out of him is the best way to achieve their questionable goal. Unfortunately, The King of Streets never really makes it clear who the good guy(s) and the bad guy(s) are in an admittedly viscerally exciting opening sequence, leading to at least a bit of confusion once the film finally settles on Yue Feng (Yue Song) as our hero, a basically well intentioned young man who unfortunately ends up killing one of his opponents and is sent to prison for eight years. Finally freed, he’s resolute about beginning life anew, but circumstances of course keep sucking him back into the fighting world. He finds employment hard to attain since he’s an ex-convict, and once he does find work, he’s up against some cartoonish bad guys who are out to disenfranchise a bunch of orphans. It’s all so patently silly that few will probably care, but Song, who also co-directed, does display some impressive martial arts moves and the film has a few exciting fight sequences.

The King of the Streets might be thought of as a kind of counterpart to The Big Boss, Bruce Lee’s less than spectacular feature film debut (as an adult). The Big Boss had some okay fighting sequences, but it also showed that Lee wasn’t quite ready for prime time yet. Song has a somewhat similar uneasiness, with a tendency to either sleepwalk through scenes or, conversely, over emote (especially with regard to facial expressions—something he may in fact be aping in an homage to Lee, who became famous for his weird grimaces), leading to a pretty amateurish feel throughout much of the film. Song, however, has figuratively leapt forward to Lee’s The Way of the Dragon by pretty much doing everything himself here, including writing, producing and choreographing the fight sequences. In these other roles, he actually acquits himself relatively well, though the film still indulges in far too many martial arts clichés for its own good (we even get shots of Song working out—shirtless of course —on a high rise roof, with attendant zooms in for kicks and punches, replete with booming sound effects). That said, whle Song seems to have at least an adequate sense of how to stage a fight sequence, some of his other stagings are hopelessly inept, including a badly shot and edited scene where Feng saves a tot from a falling couch (don't ask).

The King of the Streets evidently marketed itself as a chance to see “real life” martial artist Yue Song fight more than ten of the world’s top contenders in MMA, Jiu-jitsu, Jeet Kune Do, Sanda and Muay Thai, but my hunch is few Western fans are going to recognize many of the participants here. What’s especially strange is that the film kind of ambles along with next to no fight action for quite a while (something it also shares with The Big Boss). Instead, we get the middling story of Yue trying to save an orphanage while also falling in love with a co-worker (Becki Li), a young woman he had previously met while saving her from some street thugs.

As with Lee’s character in The Big Boss, Yue undergoes a series of trials and tribulations which ultimately pushes him to the breaking point, leading to the big climax of the film, where Yue takes on, yes, a horde of attackers who evidently didn’t watch the first sequence in this film as they do line up to take him on in succession. Not a smart strategy. Needless to say, Yue comes down to one final antagonist, who has a personal connection to him. It’s all be done to death a million times before, and The King of the Streets breaks no new ground here, but at least this final sequence has some spectacular moves, including work with a huge (seemingly ten foot) pole and, later, swords.

Considering the quantum leap(s) Bruce Lee himself was able to make in his post-The Big Boss outings, it’s probably unwise to judge Yue Song too harshly on this first effort. A lot of the film, while cliché ridden and completely predictable, has a certain snap, crackle and pop, at least in the fighting sequences. Song would probably do better to work with a more established screenwriter in order to be able to bring more to character development and a slightly less hackneyed plot. There is one rather unexpected moment in The King of Streets, right at the end of the film. Those expecting a typical happy ending might do well to remember another Bruce Lee outing, namely Fist of Fury.

The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The King of the Streets is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. There is precious little information about this release available online (I frankly couldn't even find an IMDb listing for it, despite searching for numerous stars as well as the English language title), but this appears to have been shot digitally and then tweaked rather aggressively in post, with a lot of color grading and other effects added, some of which frankly do not help the film's appearance. While clarity is rather good in some of the close-ups, Song and co-director Zhong Lei favor a lot of whip pans, zooms and other techniques (including the ever popular "jiggly cam") that actually ends up hurting the visual presentation here. The color grading works against any analysis of an "accurate" looking palette. Some of the backlit scenes reveal noticeable banding, and shadow detail is lacking in some of the darker moments, but otherwise this is a solid if unspectacular video presentation.

The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The King of the Streets' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in Mandarin is surprisingly effective most of the time, with typically goofy sound effects populating the surrounds during the action sequences, and a good sense of ambient environmental noise in some the urban sequences. There's consistent immersion at hand even in quieter dialogue scenes, with good ambient reverb establishing different levels of space. Dialogue is very cleanly presented with excellent fidelity. Dynamic range is very wide.

The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:40)

The King of the Streets Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Having just watched four Bruce Lee films in Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection, I feel it's unwise to dismiss this first effort from Yue Song with too cavalier of an attitude. There's no denying this has an amateurish quality to it, and since Song is responsible for so much in the film, it smacks of being merely a vanity project, perhaps an audition reel of sorts for something grander planned in the future. Song would do well to surround himself with more experienced filmmakers, especially directors, editors and especially screenwriters. His martial arts expertise is well developed, but as an action star, he pretty much falls flat. This Blu-ray offers decent if unspectacular video and very good audio.