Eureka Entertainment has announced its January batch of releases. They are: King of Beggars (1992), Cloud and Charisma: Two Films by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1999-2024), and Full Moon High (1981).
Description: At the dawn of the 1990s, following a decade in which Hong Kong martial arts cinema was dominated by Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, a new superstar emerged: Stephen Chow. Chow rose to fame as the star of both the Fight Back to School and Royal Tramp series and King of Beggars – a comedic take on the story of famed martial artist and folk hero So Chan.
So Chan (Chow) is a naturally gifted martial artist – but lazy, unmotivated and spoiled by his wealthy parents. He is forced to make something of himself when he falls in love with Yu Shang (Sharla Cheung), a prostitute who agrees to marry him on one condition: that he enters and wins the upcoming imperial martial arts tournament. So Chan only hopes to win Yu Shang's hand in marriage, but entering the competition soon leads him to become embroiled in a bitter feud between the famed Beggar Clan and a corrupt government official, Chiu Mo-kei (Norman Chiu).
A beloved character previously played by the likes of Yuen Siu-tien, Lau Kar-leung, Philip Kwok, Chow Yun-fat and Gordon Liu, So Chan – popularly known as Beggar So – was a legendary master of drunken boxing who lived during the late Qing dynasty, vividly brought to life in King of Beggars by a star on the rise in Stephen Chow. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time outside of Asia.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
Audio:
Cantonese audio (original stereo presentation)
Optional English dub
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
Beggars and Tramps – new interview with director Gordon Chan
So Chan and Stephen Chow – new video essay by East Asian cinema scholar Gary Bettinson, co-editor of The Cinema of Stephen Chow
Original theatrical trailer
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey [2000 copies]
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on King of Beggars and director Gordon Chan by Andy Willis [2000 copies]
U.S. AND CANADA STREET DATE: JANUARY 27.
UK STREET DATE: JANUARY 26.
Description: A revered auteur noted for his deliberate pacing and haunting, methodical style, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is the celebrated filmmaker behind a string of modern classics, including Cure, Pulse, Tokyo Sonata and Creepy. Collected here are two more great works by this master of psychological cinema: Charisma and Cloud.
Charisma follows Goro Yabuike (Koji Yakusho, Cure), an overworked police officer who leaves his job behind after he fails to resolve a hostage situation, resulting in the deaths of both a high-profile politician and his captor. Reeling from this incident, he seeks solitude in a mountain forest, where he finds himself at the centre of a conflict over an enigmatic tree that the locals have named "Charisma." In Cloud, factory worker Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda, Wilderness) quits his job to pursue a new career as an unscrupulous online reseller, becoming increasingly ruthless as he turns a profit from desperate customers. Eventually, though, those customers have had enough of being ripped off by Yoshii – and go looking for him to exact their revenge.
Made 25 years apart, Charisma and Cloud illustrate the singular vision of one of Japan's most talented working filmmakers. Following previous releases of Tokyo Sonata, Journey to the Shore, Cure and Creepy, the Masters of Cinema series is proud to present two more of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films on Blu-ray, both making their debuts on UK home video.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC SET
High-definition presentations of both films
Audio:
Japanese LPCM 2.0 for Charisma
Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 for Cloud
Optional English subtitles, revised for this release
New audio commentaries on both Charisma and Cloud by Japanese cinema expert Jonathan Wroot
A Cerebral Cinema – new video essay exploring the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa by Japanese cinema expert Joe Hickinbottom
Original theatrical trailers
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju) [2000 copies]
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on Charisma and Cloud by East Asian film expert and Midnight Eye co-founder Tom Mes [2000 copies]
Description: Four years before the release of Teen Wolf (and in the same year that saw the release of An American Werewolf in London and The Howling), Larry Cohen – the maverick independent filmmaker behind the cult classics It's Alive, The Stuff and The Ambulance – took a werewolf to high school in Full Moon High, a high-energy, horror-comedy homage to the teen-orientated genre pictures of the 1950s.
The year is 1960, and high-school football star Tony (Adam Arkin) is living with his conservative CIA agent father, Colonel William Walker (Ed McMahon). Their relationship takes a turn for the worse when Tony accompanies the Colonel on a diplomatic trip to Romania – where he is promptly bitten by a werewolf, transforming the teenager into a monster. Upon returning to America, Tony's newfound curse causes his behaviour to spiral out of control and he is forced to leave his small town behind. He eventually returns twenty years later in 1980 – but a marked side effect of his curse is that he doesn't look a day older than when he left. No matter how much the world has changed, Tony is forever a teenage werewolf…
All at once a loving tribute to "teenage monster" movies of the 1950s, a genre parody in Mel Brooks style and a political commentary on the rise and fall of the American counterculture, Full Moon High is one of Larry Cohen's most madcap and idiosyncratic movies. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.
New audio commentary by Steve Mitchell, director of the 2017 documentary King Cohen
Archival audio commentary with director Larry Cohen, moderated by Steve Mitchell
Growing Pains – a new video essay on the history and evolution of the teenage werewolf on film by werewolf expert Kaja Franck, author of The Ecogothic Werewolf in Literature
Today's Teenage Werewolf – a new interview with film writer Michael Doyle, author of Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters
Original theatrical trailer
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Mute [2000 copies]
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on Full Moon High by film historian and disc producer Craig Ian Mann, author of Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film [2000 copies]