Eureka Entertainment has announced its April batch of Blu-ray releases. They are: The Adventurers (1995), The Magnificent Chang Cheng, and Laurel & Hardy: The Silent Years - 1927 (1927).
The only collaboration between action master Ringo Lam (City on Fire) and Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs), The Adventurers is an explosive story of heroic bloodshed featuring Rosamund Kwan (Once Upon a Time in China), David Chiang (Election) and Victor Wong (Big Trouble in Little China).
Wai Lok-yan (Lau) was just eight years old when his parents were killed before his eyes in Cambodia, where his father had been working for the CIA during Pol Pot's ascent to power in the latter days of the Cambodian Civil War. Taken to Thailand by his father's colleague Seung (Chiang), Yan grows up to join the Thai Air Force and comes to discover that his father's murderer Ray Liu (Paul Chun, Royal Tramp), once a double agent has now become a wealthy arms dealer based in the United States. With the help of the CIA, Yan intends to get close to Liu and have his revenge by taking on an assumed identity and gaining the trust of Liu's daughter, Crystal (Jacklyn Wu, A Moment of Romance) but first he will need to go undercover in San Francisco's criminal underworld to rescue her from the clutches of the Vietnamese Black Tiger Gang.
Made shortly before Ringo Lam departed for Hollywood to make Maximum Risk with Jean-Claude Van Damme, The Adventurers is a hidden gem amongst the many heroic bloodshed films produced in Hong Kong during the 1990s. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from a brand new 2K restoration.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
Original Cantonese mono and DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio options
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary by film critic David West
Two Adventurers new interview with Gary Bettinson, editor of Asian Cinema journal
Previously unseen archival interview with writer and producer Sandy Shaw
Theatrical trailer
A limited edition collector's booklet featuring a new essay by Hong Kong cinema scholar Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park [2000 copies]
Limited Edition [2000 copies]
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Time Tomorrow [2000 copies]
U.S. AND CANADA STREET DATE: APRIL 29.
UK STREET DATE: APRIL 28.
Titles Include : The Magnificent Trio / Magnificent Wanderersbr>
One of the Shaw Brothers Studio's most prolific directors, Chang Cheh or the "Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema" is the filmmaker behind Five Deadly Venoms, Chinatown Kid and Boxer Rebellion. Collected here are two films by this maestro of martial arts cinema that showcase his considerable talents at both ends of his career: The Magnificent Trio, produced when wuxia films ruled the Hong Kong box office in the mid-1960s, and Magnificent Wanderers, made at the height of the kung fu craze at the end of the 1970s.br>
In an early role that pre-dates his star-making turn in Chang's The One-Armed Swordsman, Jimmy Wang Yu stars in The Magnificent Trio as swordsman Lu Fang, who along with fellow warriors Yen Tzu-ching (Lo Lieh) and Huang Liang (Cheng Lui) lends his martial arts prowess to a group of oppressed farmers when they kidnap the daughter of their local magistrate. Then, in the kung fu comedy Magnificent Wanderers, the three nomads Lin Shao You (Fu Sheng), Shi Da Yong (Chi Kuan-chun), and Guan Fei (Li Yi-min) attempt to join Chinese patriots in their struggle against invading Mongol armies with the help of the wealthy Chu Tie Xia (David Chiang).br>
From straight-faced wuxia pian to farcical kung fu comedy, The Magnificent Trio and Magnificent Warriors display the full range of Chang Cheh, a filmmaker who sat in the director's chair for over three decades. Eureka Classics is proud to present both films on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.br>
Special Features and Technical Specs:
High-definition transfers supplied by Celestial Pictures
Original mono audio tracks
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary on The Magnificent Trio by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth
New audio commentary on Magnificent Wanderers by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
Chang Cheh Style new video essay by Gary Bettinson, editor-in-chief of Asian Cinema journal
A limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on Chang Cheh by writer and critic James Oliver [2000 copies]
Limited Edition [2000 copies]
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grιgory Sacrι (Gokaiju) [2000 copies]
U.S. AND CANADA STREET DATE: APRIL 29.
UK STREET DATE: APRIL 28.
Standing tall alongside Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as pioneers of cinematic comedy, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two of the most beloved comedians in the history of moving pictures. Having acted alongside each other for the first time in 1921, they officially teamed up later in the decade in a series of shorts made for producer Hal Roach launching a wildly successful partnership that would survive into the sound era and last for another quarter of a century.
This collection captures the duo's earliest (mis)adventures on screen, chronicling their journey from their first films together The Lucky Dog and the aptly titled 45 Minutes to Hollywood to the dawn of their official partnership in thirteen shorts released throughout 1927. From Duck Soup and Sailors Beware! to Do Detectives Think?, Putting Pants on Philip and The Battle of the Century (once available only in incomplete versions until its missing scenes were rediscovered in 2015), these films show the development of two independent comedians into the most influential and celebrated comedy duo of all time.
The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the early works of Laurel & Hardy painstakingly restored from the best available materials held by collectors
and archives around the globe in a special two-disc Blu-ray edition for the first time in the UK from 2K restorations.
The set contains the following shorts: Lucky Dog, 45 Minutes from Hollywood, Duck Soup, Slipping Wives, Love 'em and Weep, Why Girls Love Sailors, With Love and Hisses, Sailors, Beware!, Do Detectives Think?, Flying Elephants, Sugar Daddies, The Second 100 Years, Call of the Cuckoo, Putting Pants on Phillip, and The Battle of the Century.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATIONS
Scores by a variety of silent film composers including Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen and Donald Sosin
Alternate scores on select shorts
Audio commentary tracks on all films
New interviews with silent film experts
Image galleries
Archival recordings and interviews
A collector's booklet featuring newly written notes on each film by Paul Merton, and a new essay by Imogen Sara Smith
Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow