Just as the kung fu film seemed to be losing steam as the 1970s came to a close, a new generation of martial arts stars rose to the top of Hong Kong cinema. Amongst them were Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and the irrepressible Sammo Hung, who found fame as the director and star of The Iron Fisted Monk, The Magnificent Butcher and Encounter of the Spooky Kind. Presented here are three films spanning Hung's career, from a supporting role in The Manchu Boxer to stardom in Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai.
In Wu Ma's The Manchu Boxer, Hung (who doubles up as the film's fight choreographer) plays the villainous foil to a roaming martial artist who enters a boxing tournament to defeat a gang of bandits. Then, in the action comedy Paper Marriage, Hung stars as a down-on-his-luck Chinese boxer living in Canada who is paid to marry an immigrant from Hong Kong (Maggie Cheung). She wants to gain Canadian citizenship, but he just wants to keep the loan sharks off his back. Finally, in Shanghai, Shanghai, a young man (Yuen Biao) goes looking for his brother, a police officer, in the big city – and also finds himself embroiled with a ruthless gangster played by Hung.
From traditional kung fu to romantic comedy to a tale of cops and crooks with shades of the "heroic bloodshed" films so popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, The Manchu Boxer, Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai exhibit Sammo Hung's enormous range and chart his rise from supporting player to top-billed star.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
BRAND NEW 2K RESTORATIONS of the original Hong Kong theatrical cuts of all three films
Bonus Disc exclusive to this set only - 1080p HD presentations from brand new 2K restorations of the extended international versions of The Manchu Boxer and Shanghai, Shanghai
Original mono audio tracks
Optional English dubs
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist & filmmaker Michael Worth
New audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts Arne Venema and Domoni Ting
New audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and producer/writer F.J. DeSanto
New interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung
Perhaps best known for his iconic film noir effort Kiss Me Deadly, his unsettling psychological horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and his action-packed war movie The Dirty Dozen, the celebrated American auteur Robert Aldrich was also an accomplished director of Westerns. Amongst his best are Vera Cruz, The Last Sunset and his very first foray into the genre: the Burt Lancaster vehicle Apache.
Following the surrender of Geronimo (Monte Blue) to the United States Cavalry, Massai (Lancaster) becomes the last remaining Apache warrior. After he is captured by the American military and put on a prison train to be forcibly resettled on a reservation in Florida, all seems lost. But Massai manages to escape his captors and sets out to return home, where he hopes to settle down with Nalinle (Jean Peters) and farm the land. But as the frontier shrinks rapidly by the day, returning to his homeland will not be so easy.
One of the earliest Westerns to feature a sympathetic Native American protagonist fighting back against the white settlers who swept across the United States throughout the nineteenth century, Aldrich's first Western is a landmark film in the history of the genre. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present Apache for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
High-definition transfer
Uncompressed original mono audio
Optional English subtitles (SDH)
The Story of Massai – new interview with Austin Fisher, author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western
The Last Sunset in Vera Cruz – new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on Robert Aldrich and the Western