The Extras - Unlocking Warner Bros' Golden Harvest Vault: THE BLADE 4K & Jackie Chan's BREAKOUT HITS 4K

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Send us Fan MailWarner Bros. archivist and Hong Kong film expert Jeff Briggs, joins the podcast to discuss some recent 4K releases from the Warner Bros’ Golden Harvest Library. First up we review Criterion’s 4K of The Blade (1995), a seminal work of director Tsui Hark. Then we take a preview of the upcoming Arrow Video 4K Box Set JACKIE CHAN'S BREAKOUT HITS, a six film, 10 disc set releasing June 30th. Jeff worked directly with both Criterion and Arrow to provide them with film assets and expert review. Amazon Purchase links: Both are also available in Blu-ray.THE BLADE 4KJACKIE CHAN'S BREAKOUT HITS 4KMoviezyng Affiliate LinkThe Extras Facebook pageThe Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupJoin our new public Facebook Group for Warner Archive Animation Fans and get the latest update on all the releases.As an Amazon and Moviezyng Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links.  There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast.  Thanks in advance.Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers.  Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals.  [e-mail]

Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Laard, your host, and joining me today to talk about some recent and upcoming releases from the Warner Brothers Golden Harvest Library. It's Hong Kong film expert and current Warner Brothers archivist, Jeff Briggs. Jeff, good to have you back on the extras. Tim, it's been so long. Wonderful to see you again.

Yeah, it has been a few years. And fortunately, I get to see you at, some events and other things because you're still there at Warner Brothers. You work with George Feltenstein and you work at the Warner Archives and you specifically work in the photo I know archives a lot. And that of course is different from the Warner Archive Collection, which releases the Blu-Rays. But you and George and the team there work fairly intimately. Yes, and we have, we share the same passion. The passion that George has is the passion that I have and all my colleagues that the Warner Brothers archives have. Yeah, and it's a really unique position that you have

there. We, when I was working at Warner Brothers, of course, our primary interaction was when I needed photos for some of the extras or things of that nature, and you are always a great resource. But we have had you on to talk about the Golden Harvest Library that the Warner Brothers owns. But I think we should probably just, for those who are just tuning in now and haven't seen some of of our previous podcast or heard some of them, just let people know what is the Warner Brothers Golden Harvest Library and how many films are in there and just like a two-minute history of that. So Golden Harvest was a film production company in Hong Kong.

They came out of a couple of dissatisfied executives who worked at Shaw Brothers in the late 1960s. That's Leonard Ho and Raymond Chow. They decided to leave Shaw Brothers and create their own studio. and their first release came out in January of 1971, so 55 years ago. They slowly took over and basically after a few years, started to dominate the Hong Kong box office, and by the latter half of the 70s, they were on top of the world, basically,

with a lot of comedies and action films. The films of Michael Hoy were gigantic hits in the 1970s, and then they managed to get Jackie Chan in 1980 for his first, first to fill golden harvest film the young master which was a smash hit and then the rest is history and his relationship with golden harvest you know took them you know to unknown heights basically and they kept that relationship with uh jacky chan kept it with them until the late 90s when golden harvest essentially disbanded and what it happened was raymond chow decided in 1993 he sold uh the bulk of the library the golden harvest library to a company called fortune star still exists um and

now a lot of those films are being released on physical media, thankfully. It was at 1998, they sold a remaining chunk of their library. A lot of films which have been made post-1993, and then a lot of films that they had distributed going back into the 70s, some fairly obscure titles. They sold those to Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers picked them up in 1998. And I remember being at one of our photo warehouses, probably around 1999 and finding some boxes of opening them up and it was filled with golden harvest lobby cards and I'm like, what the hell is

this? That's like a gold mine for you. Oh, man. Yeah, it was quite a moment. Warner Brothers has held on to that library and for many, many years, almost 20 years without doing much with it, unfortunately. That changed in thanks to George and the Warner Archive Collection. They released, it was seven titles in 2016 on DVD.

Very bare bones, but a good test run. And then the Warner Archive Collection, Blu-rays, had the releases of Druckermaster 2 and Mr. Nice Guy. Now, to give my little background on myself, I became a Hong Kong movie fan in 1991. March 6, 1991, I saw John Wu's the killer at the New Art in West Los Angeles right before I graduated college. It's changed my life. Two weeks later, I went back to the new art to see a double feature of Swordsman and a Chinese Ghost Story 2. and that cemented the feeling that, hey, I'm on to something here. Later that year, I discovered the Chinese language theaters in the San Gabriel Valley,

discovered the video stores, and it was basically the 1990s was the decade of the Hong Kong cinema for me. And until about the late 98, we had theaters showing new releases. So it was a very special time. And probably about half of the movies in that Golden Harvest collection that Warner Brothers owns, I think it's about 170 altogether. They're very close to that. I've seen about, I think, half of them, most of which, and actually of that half, probably two-thirds, three-quarters I saw at the theaters in the San Gabriel Valley.

Yeah. Because, again, it's a lot of 1990s titles. Yeah. So the 90s was an amazing time. I mean, you really, really immersed yourself. And I know you were writing as well and you were going to Hong Kong and everything. We won't get too much into that now. But I think that will come up a lot as we're talking.

in your personal memories of that stuff. But just to go back to the purchase there of that Golden Harvest Library, how many of those 170 do you think have actually been released on physical media? Oh, boy. Maybe a third, I'd say. Even in Hong Kong, there's a lot of stuff there

that never got released. And let me put it this way. By the time, you know, DVDs came in Hong Kong about 97, 98, And very few of the ones that were in this, then the Warner Golden Harvest Library made it to DVD. There are a few I can think of offhand, but not many. Probably the majority of them did come out on VHS and then Laserdisc, a little bit smaller number. But in terms of DVD, I'd say it's maybe, I'd be shocked if it was more than a dozen that made it on DVD.

Because remember, when Warner Brothers brought the library, DVD had just come out. In Hong Kong, they first came out in 1997, I believe it was. So by the time Warner bought it, the DVD hadn't really caught on, you know, that much. So, yeah, these are, like the movie we're talking about today, we never came out on a DVD in Hong Kong. There was a French DVD. That might have been it. You know, not counting bootlegs. I don't count bootlegs.

Right, right, right. And if it barely came out on DVD, obviously it didn't come out on Blu-ray. So that's a big deal. They were coming. And soon everything would change. Two men dedicated to one. one woman. No!

Who's it? Hurry! Dedicated to protect her. From the hunters. She thought she was the prize, but she was wrong. Back with the hunters, they make trouble. Get them away! And now, with a broken blade and only one arm,

he challenges the hunters. But she is captured. Give me back the girl. Well, the title where you're referencing is The Blade, of course, which just came out. I think it was the end of March. The Criterion released a 4K with a Blu-ray combo pack. I think you could also get the Blu-ray loan. But this is a fantastic, maybe based off of what you just said about the library, this is like

a real marker of 4K of a title. And it's not even the most well-known title. No, but it's one of the crown jewels of the Warner or Golden Harvest Library. I think it's a brilliant film. Yeah. Trendsetting film. Not a success when it came out, considered a flop, at least in Hong Kong, but his reputation has only grown.

I still, part of me, I want to pinch myself thinking that Criterion is actually released a 4K of the Blade, a movie I've loved for 30 years. I suppose Criterion Laser Dispire started in about 1990. I remember when they released the Laser Dyspire started. disc, the deluxe laser discs of the killer and hard-boiled, the two John Wu films. I remember reading that announcement, and I just couldn't believe what I was reading, that those were going to be coming out and given such care. And those are, you know, milestone releases for Hong Kong films, getting the care and attention they deserve. Movies I used to watch in the 90s,

I never dreamed would be out, you know, on a quality version, much less from Criterion. Like, they released the Herot Trio and Executioners. again, amazing. And now with the blade, they're continuing that trend of releasing these, what used to be considered just, you know, genre films and look down upon now are getting the care and respect that they deserve. Well, I mean, it's all about genre films these days, I think. I mean, people love their genre films. And these have been kind of like locked away. Yeah, they got the laser disc, maybe they had some VHS, but we're talking a long time ago. And some people still have their copies. But to have the

library, so to speak, open a little bit to have some of these films release now on this Blu-ray and Fork to have them in HD is amazing. And I'm just curious, let's go back for a minute. How did this choosing of the blade and come about? And I know a big reason we're talking about is because you literally were one of the people at Warner Brothers that was intimately involved in working with criterion on this release. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of the extras podcast, and I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interest you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Well, I've been advocating for these movies.

George and I have known each other for over 35 years now, even before we both started working at Warner Brothers. So about 10 years ago, when Warner Archive was in the DVD phase, George came to me and said, we'd like to do some of these. So I gave them a list of some of the, you know, what I think are some of the best titles. And they ultimately choose seven, as I mentioned before. I've been advocating for these nonstop to ever listen, you know, not everyone listens all the time. George always listens, which is great. And then, you know, he'll spread the word there. But I think as our relationship, or Warner Brothers relationship in George's, especially relationship with Criterion,

you know, continues to blossom. They became more interested in some of these, in the titles and decided to go to this library. The first time they did that was what we talked about in a previous podcast, the Once Upon a Time in China box set, which has six films. Two of those are in that Warner Golden Harvest Library, Once Upon a Time in China, four and five, are part of that. So that was the first time criterion license a Hong Kong film from us. Now they're moving on to, you know, the blade directed by Choi Hark, who's one of the top five Hong Kong,

greatest Hong Kong directors ever. To simplify it, he's kind of like the Steven Spielberg of Hong Kong, a master of many genres, still active today. And the Blade is, you know, he, he's got a lot of masterpieces in his filmography and this, this is up there. Yeah, so that's why they chose it. And then what was some of your involvement working with them on it? Well, Criterion, you know, they know what they're doing.

So they don't need much of my help. And as I mentioned, I think on a previous podcast, we didn't get much photography. from Golden Harvest, Warner Brothers didn't. But we got tons of lobby cards and posters. So thankfully, we scanned all of those, all of those materials. And so I was able to provide them the original lobby card images. There's three, maybe even four original poster variants that were used. There's a couple horizontals and there's a vertical as well.

There's a wonderful essay by a friend of mine, Lisa Morton, that's in the booklet. That is fantastic. She wrote a, she's written a book on Troy Hawkins, has interviewed him many times. And I just, you know, gave consulting. Sometimes they get a few questions about that. But the blade is one where there's really only one version of the film, you know, not counting the different dubs. There's not really a different cut of the film.

I did provide also the subtitling list, although I know this version has much improved subtitles. Now, again, I'm somewhat because I've watched the original movie so many times with the burnt in English subtitles. So it's a, you know, it's kind of close to my. heart. But after watching the criterion version, there's no comparison. I don't need the old ones anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I watched it on my 4K. It looks amazing. Incredible. I, you know, you're an expert in this field. I'm just a happy consumer. And when I put that in,

not knowing a lot about yeah, not knowing a lot about the film, I loved it. I mean, because I've seen, you know, the 1967 version of one armed swordsman and I've got

a number of the Shaw brothers box sets that have been released by Arrow and you know that style that 60s and 70s the very traditional

and then you put in the blade and it very different yeah so different of course and the modern take and just the kinetic

style of it it really pulls you in because you can never get bored watching this film. And you can never know, I mean, you know the basic storyline, if you know the film, but you never get bored because the twist on the storyline, starting from the very beginning with the voiceover. Yeah. And the female point of view.

Like, I mean, this is totally different. And tone-wise as well. Instead of being kind of the traditional mythology and the tropes that come with that. All of a sudden, it feels like there's more of a kind of a, you think maybe a romance, but it's a very melancholy start. And you really don't know what's coming next. I mean, other than maybe if you know some of the plot points, but you don't know what's coming.

It's very, it's wonderful in the fact that it keeps surprising you. Yeah, I've seen it often referred to as a remake of one arm swordsman. I would not call it. It's more of a riff on the one arm swordsman. And what's also interesting, the previous year, there was another Hong Kong movie in 1994 called What Price Survival? And actually the Chinese title of it translated is One Arm Swordsman 94. That's a good movie, but not nearly the level of the blade. You know, there was a giant Wusha boom. You know, Wusha is like the, you know, the equivalent of the

Western, the period, period, you know, sword, sword play martial arts, supernatural movies have always been popular in Chinese cinema. There was a huge revival of that in the early 90s. And that's kind of the equivalent of me when I used to go to the theaters, the Garfield Theater, the Kualoa Theater. There were a couple others as well. I was really going, you know, started going nonstop in about 1993. And that was the height of the Wushaw glut. And, I mean, almost every week I'd see a new film.

Now, it's funny because some of them, they kind of, you kind of get used to them. And after a while, I see people talking about certain movies now. I was like, yeah, I saw that. And it was okay. And some people are saying, oh, my God, this is great. I wonder if I saw these now with, you know, 30 years past if I'd feel differently. There's some that I didn't care for, but I read people talking about, oh, this is great. Yeah, we need this on Blu-ray, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, oh, really? Okay. So that being said, you know, there was kind of, and the Hong Kong audience really got tired of the Wushaw films, probably by about 94. So when the Blade came out, which came out just a few days before Christmas in 1995, the period martial arts movie was not popular at all. I won't say dead, but it was close to dead, at least for that time being. But it's such a different movie than those, you know, what you would call, you know,

flying swordsman movie. I remember if I read this or came up with my own, I might have read it somewhere, but someone said the co-star of the blade is gravity because there's not a lot of flying in the movie. There's very little wirework. There's only like two or three wireworks. There's actually one scene with wirework where it's supposed to be one of the characters, they said he flies, but when you see him fly towards the end of the film, you see that.

that someone has him on a rope. So there's a lot of stuff going on there. But yeah, I know it's very down and dirty. It's grimy, you know, there's no shiny, you know, beautiful costumes. It looks like everything looks lived in. So it's very different from most of films that have preceded it in the previous few years, the Wushaw films. Yeah, yeah.

I think it was in the essay that your friend wrote that I read something that stuck with me. And that was that it's more like a horror film in the sense, I mean, and I was thinking about that. I was like, it's true. There's that foreboding. That's that feeling of something's going to go wrong. That even as you're hearing the voiceover, which feels like it's romantic in the in the voiceover, she has the two men that she wants to pit against each other and in her romantic ideal thinking that they're going to fight over her. And it just all goes to, you know, it explodes.

It goes to hell in that sense. But then it's like just that whole scene where the monk, and we're not going to give too much away for folks, but that whole scene with the monk where you expect one thing and a whole other thing happens. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's where it felt like that horror thing kind of came in where you're like, oh, my God, this is extremely violent,

unpredictable, and there's looming danger just around the corner. Yep, yeah. One thing about the film that I was just thinking about this morning and I wanted to mention is the fact that he shot, Trojah Chorak shot the movie in Sink Sound with a couple exceptions. The lead actor, Vincent Zhao, aka Chouman Chuk, and then Jiaowan Jiao. I'm sorry, I'm Cantonese biased, so I'm going to use the Cantonese pronunciations more often. He did not speak Cantonese, so he is dubbed in the film. And then the narrator, Songli? Sonli is the...

Oh, she plays slang? Yeah, she is. the narrator, she's dubbed as well, but everybody else is shot in sync sound. The antagonist played by Hongianian, whose Mandarin name I always mangled, so I'm not going to say it. He's actually from Guangxi province right next to Guangdong, so he speaks Cantonese. So everybody else in the film was like that. And this was, unless I'm mistaken, Charhawk did another movie in a previous in 1995 called The Chinese Feast. It was a Chinese New Year comedy, which is a wonderful movie, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can find it. There's a Blu-ray out in Hong Kong.

And the two actors from The Blade are starring that film in completely different roles playing chefs. But that was shot in Sink Sound as well. So I think The Blade is Troy Hark's second film that he shot in Sink Sound. And it really makes a difference. You know, it gives an immediacy to it that you don't get in the post-dubbing. Now, nothing against that because, you know, 99% of the movies I love from Hong Kong are post-dubbed. But this really gives it a different feel, more I said immediacy. Right, right.

Well, I also wanted to ask you about the cinematography, the style of the film, because that's really, you know, you look at or watch some of the extras on this and they do provide great background on that. But I think we should talk about it because I think somebody said it's almost like there's mistakes in there. Like the camera is over here and the actions in a different area, but that that was all very purposeful. Well, and there's one instance, and I just have to say, if you like this film, and after you watch the movie the first time, don't do it for the first viewing. Listen to the commentary by the great Frank Jang. How this man does so many commentaries, it boggles my, I don't understand how he does it. But this is one of the best I've heard of his. And it's amazing because I'm watching it and there's things saying, oh, Frank, please mention this. And he mentions everything that I was thinking of. So, but there's one shot that he points out.

I remember it too, but I never thought of it, where one of the characters is sitting down and then he stands up immediately and the camera doesn't move. It was supposed to pan up, but they made a mistake, but they kept it in the film. And it works great. It's fantastic. And then there's one scene where the camera is like spinning on the ground. There's a lot of low shot, low angle shots. It's not like any other movie that was made in Hong Kong at that time. Yeah. And I don't know if this is accurate to say it like this, but it's almost like the camera itself is a character because it's not glorifying any of actors, like, it's that whole kind of documentary approach that I think Trioch has talked about, you know, that he kind of wanted to approach and that's part of his background, this

documentary, that the camera is there and the things are happening and it's just recording. And it's not some perfected like, oh, let's do another take because, you know, we didn't get that piece of the action. And that gives it a very, you know, that very unique point of view and storytelling style. which might be easier for, I think, the modern viewer than it was for the viewer there back in the 90s. I think so, too, yeah. The way that I first saw it, actually,

it's kind of interesting. What I think Golden Harvest tried to sell this film internationally because usually when a movie, again, this came out Christmas, 1995, the theater that Golden Harvest's theater was the Kuohoa Theater in San Gabriel, was a twin theater, which will come up when we talk about the Jackie Chan films in the future.

Normally that film, normally a Christmas release, like a Chinese New York Christmas release, would come soon after, like in some cases on a day or two after the Hong Kong release, more often, maybe a few weeks later. And I remember, because I'd known about the Blade for many months,

and I kept asking the owners of the theater, is it coming? And they said, oh, we don't know, we don't know. And then, you know, January comes, February. It never showed. The Laserdisc came out, I think, in May or June, And I actually rented the laser disc first because I went to a, there was a rental place in San Gabriel I used to go to. And that's the way I first saw it. And then it actually played at a festival in Santa Monica in summer of 96, I believe. Yeah, summer of 96. And that's where I first saw it theatrically. The audience lost its mind. That was incredible. But then it actually made it to the Kualoa Theater in October of 96. And it played there for several weeks. And I think came back as a co-feature as well. And I did see it there again, at least.

at least once, probably twice more. But I don't think it opened anywhere in the Chinese theaters. And my assumption is because they were trying to sell it for, get international sales for it. Because they had, you know, earlier that year, they had sold Rumble in the Bronx to New Line and a bunch of, you know, future Jackie Chan films too. Yeah.

And so, unfortunately, it didn't get done, but at least we have it now. Did it influence movies that came after it? Or was it kind of this one shining, like, different movies? that only over time we've come to appreciate the importance. There's a few, I mean, I overall know because it was such a big flop in Hong Kong. I don't think it did. I think on certain filmmakers that might have influenced them because you'd see, oh, there's a movie. There's another great movie that's in the Warner Golden Harvest Collection called Too Many Ways to Be Number One,

which is an early Milky Way production, Johnny Toe produced film. And that movie's got some camera work that is, you know, I can't say it was inspired by the blade, there's there's a whole scene that shot upside down we'll put it that way um any of you who are listening who know that film and i know you do and i know you love it i am doing everything i can to get that out there somewhere uh because it's a great film and it needs to be out there um so yeah i mean i think on your more um daring filmmakers there probably was some inspiration there you know this was the time wonkar why was not you know was becoming an art house darling there could have been some stuff going back there i don't you know not saying

Moncar Wai was influenced by Troy Hark, but there's a lot of experimental stuff going on. That wasn't commercially successful, but down the road, yeah, definitely influenced. Yeah, yeah. And I think after this movie, Troy Hock came to Hollywood. So Hollywood didn't mind that it wasn't a big blockbuster.

Oh, no. And I'm not a giant fan of his Hollywood work. I will defend, though, the Van Dam movie Knock Off, because there's some crazy camera stuff in that that's really out there. That's a fun movie. I do enjoy that one. I was not a fan of the Dennis Rodman, Van Damme double team,

but I do like knockoff. There's some crazy stuff in there. Yeah. Before we go talk about the Jackie Chan release, or I thought we'd take a minute just to talk about the performances of a couple of these actors, Vincent Yao and Moses Chan. You know, they inhabit the characters very well, I thought. And I thought Vince Zhao especially was compelling.

Yeah. No, this is one of his best roles without question. Now, he's had some pretty heavy-duty roles. He was a Chinese Wushu champion, martial arts champion. And his film debut was as the antagonist opposite Jetli in the movie Fong Sai Yoke from 1993, which anyone who hasn't seen that, go see it.

It's a wonderful movie, one of Jetli's best. And Zhao was only, I think, 21 when he made the film. And then right after that, he stepped into the Wong-Fa-Hong role in Once Upon a Time in China four and five took that over from Jet Li when Jet Li had a temporary break with Troy Huck and went off and made his own Wong-Fey-Hong film. That's one of the youngest Wang-Fa-Hongs probably, you know, well, Jackie Chan was young Wong-Fey-Hong too. But I do like Zhao in the two Once-O-A-Time in China films that he did. But this is one of his best roles without question. And he's still talented. I can't get out of my mind that scene where, obviously, he's missing an arm,

but where he's got the chain, the blade tied to the chain. And it's like a just whirling and whirling and whirling, like it's just fantastic. And with the style of the cinematography, it's got such an amazing energy. It's like amped up. It's just like amped up overload to, you know, most martial arts movies are amped up. but in the fight scenes. But that fight scene, you've got to be kidding me. It's, it blows out to top.

Well, you know, what's interesting is that the movie is pretty down to earth. There's not that much undercranking, which is when they, you know, undercrank the camera to speed it up when it's projected. There is some at the end of the film, but it works perfectly because it builds up to such a fever pitch. When that moment comes, it's just, it's overwhelming. I'll say, speaking of that, I'll mention one of the other actors. So the antagonist in the film, Hong Yan, yeah. I interviewed him in Hong Kong, actually, in 1998.

I used to write for Giant Robot Magazine, and I went to Hong Kong three years in a row, 97, 98, 99, went to the Hong Kong Film Awards and did as many interviews as I could, probably a couple dozen altogether. And I did some interviews in Los Angeles and in Las Vegas, too, of Hong Kong celebrities. So I interviewed Yan, I met him at a restaurant in Hong Kong,

and we talked for an hour and a half or so. Great guy. Unfortunately, the interview never got published, and I don't even think I've transcribed it. So I need to go back to it at some point. But the one thing I remember from him is that he said he was really disappointed at the end of the film because they didn't have enough time to do what they wanted to do and finish it the way they wanted to do.

They were under such a tight deadline. I'm thinking, I don't know how much it could be that much better. I mean, again, for the intensity, it's five minutes of just sheer dread because if you remember that one scene, too, when they start running at each other, they cut to Austin Y, who's the owner of the sword factory, and he kind of like grimaces before that moment. That's how you feel, too. And again, going back to a little horror, the discussion that we mentioned is you're just expecting the blood to fly and everything to get out of hand. And then I did want to mention a supporting character who I thought was very compelling to me anyway, and that's

Valerie Chow. She played the prostitute. And I think the reason why is because there's this kind of harsh realism that Ling has to go through, to break down her kind of romantic ideals of how life is going to play out. And Valerie Chow does this, I thought, a superb job of just so many like facial expressions and just little things beyond dialogue that really just kind of has this hard-bitten, cynical worldview and view of men and everything that you would expect out of that character. but I thought it was quite compelling. Her character, too, does things that you don't expect her to do.

There's a couple moments like, oh, boy, I didn't see that coming. Yeah, she's terrific in that film. She had only debuted in films the year before. She had a supporting role in Chunking Express. I think that was her first film. She plays the stewardess girlfriend of Tony Lung in the movie, and is very memorable on that as well. But yeah, she's terrific.

There's a lot of character actors in this movie, too. So, again, listen to Frank Jennings' commentary. He'll fill you in on everything. One of the martial arts choreographer is Yun Pun. He was one of the seven fortunes that grew up with Jackie Chan and Sam O'Hung. He has a role, and he's pretty very memorable in a small role as one of the horrible people that populate the world of the blade. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's definitely a terrific 4K transfer.

It's got that awesome commentary that you talked about. And there's a documentary they got from the French TV. It's about an hour-long documentary. And I believe the whole thing's in English. They interview the writer. the director of Troy Huck, of course, and then Yan Yan is interviewed in there too. I'm so happy that criteria managed to get that.

I'd seen that many years ago. So I'm glad they were able to license that because it's pretty essential. And there's a couple of other extras in there. Everything on the disc is just excellent. And it just speaks to criteria and how much they care about this stuff. My hope is that this does well,

then I'm hoping and I'm always advocating that there will be more treasures from the Warner, you know, Warner Golden Harvest Library that will make it out on Criterion or elsewhere. Yeah, yeah. We both highly recommend this one. So if you're a fan, pick that one up. Jackie Chan returns as the drunken master.

Here's another one. Keep drinking. In the hazy world of the art of the drunken fist, there is a fine line you can never cross. Jackie Chan, Drunken Master 2. Well, let's talk about, I wanted to preview this Jackie Chan Breakout Hits box set. It's a 4K box set, releasing Jim

30th in the U.S. And it's coming from Arrow. It has six films, but 10 discs because some of the films have several versions. Some of them have a Hong Kong cut and then another disc with an international cut. So I thought we could preview that, Jeff, because, and I'll throw it to you here, you did work with Arrow on this. Tell us how you got involved and how this set kind of came together. Well, it all started with George when Arrow made the deal with Warner Brothers.

to release these films and give them the love and care that they so richly deserve, George put me in touch with them and said, you know, I mean, because for Warner Brothers, at least I'm the, you know, I don't know if anyone else has seen, you know, all those 1990s comedies and whatnot. But so I worked with them closely over and this is, boy, it started probably at least a year ago was when then work began on it. I did go to some of the, because we have the film elements, of course. So I went down to the film inspection area and was able to identify some stuff.

It's interesting. I found there was some stuff that was mislabeled. There was, I remember there was a first strike reel where they said, we don't know what this is. You come take a look. And actually, it was a reel from another movie entirely. So it was a title, actually. It wasn't the original negative, but there was a title that had been mislabeled.

And so I was able to help identify film elements, help identify the different versions. We had some opening title sequences. And I think it was for a Rumble in the Bronx, and we had four different versions. And we were able to, because the way it's cut, I was able to help tell the difference between the U.S. and the original Hong Kong version.

So a lot of stuff like that. And then, of course, helping with the photography. We have more photography on something like Rumble because New Line did release it. So New Line got a lot of stuff. And the same with First Strike as well. Right. So providing photography, poster images. There's one rare poster for First Strike that I'm happy to see.

using the packaging that that's pretty cool people will see that yeah um and of course i i looked at the um read read their essays i watched a lot of the the special features everything's terrific i mean it's you know just as a fan it's a dream come true you know i've been watching these movies for decades and to finally see them get the loving care they they deserve is a treat you know beyond for what i do myself i'm just i'm happy that these are out and just for everybody i'll go through the actual films because we haven't really said what they are, but you've got Drunken Master 2. And that was previously released as a standalone Blu-ray from the Warner Archive. Right.

A number of years back, we actually talked about it. You, you, myself, George, when that came out, it looks terrific, but that was released on Blu-ray. It has Rumble in the Bronx that you just mentioned, both the Hong Kong cut and then the international cut. Then it has Thunderbolt, which I don't know. I'm trying to think, Thunderbolt did get a one-archive DVD back in 2017? Well, it had been released by New Line on DVD in like mid-2000s, maybe mid to late 2000s.

That was one. We can probably talk about that on the dedicated Jackie podcast. That has a very interesting history because that was his follow-up to Rumble in the Bronx. I think New Line saw that and said, we don't know what the hell to do with this. And so it kind of sat around for many, many years. Right. I like the movie a lot. So the DVD was the original version, uncut, the original language and everything.

So that's one of the rare, that's a rarity among this set. Right. Well, Rumble in the Bronx, of course, was released on Blu-ray by Warner Home Video back in 2015. But one thing that makes all of these unique as we go through them is Aero has brand new 4K restorations at all these films from the original negative. So whatever you've seen in the past, this is going to just blow it out of the water. And in the case of Rumble, you know, now I was fortunate to see the original Rumble in the Bronx when it opened in January 95 at the Kuohoa in San Gabriel. I went to the midnight show of that and I saw it, I think, five times altogether there in that version.

And that is, yeah, it's a very different movie. Again, we'll go into more detail on it later. But if you've only seen the U.S. version, my opinion, much better movie. First of all, I mean, they cut out. If you compare the runtimes, it only looks like it's 15, 16 minutes. It's actually more than that because they add new titles. They show the outtakes without titles before they do the end credits. So it's actually about 22 minutes of missing footage.

Wow. And more importantly, it has the original soundtrack. Then that movie was shot Sink Sound. That was Jackie's second movie shot Sink Sound after Police Story 3, Supercop. I like the new line version two. I did see that a couple times in the theater. I do admit that. But it's a much, I don't want to.

to say darker movie, but it's a lot, it's a little bit more serious and it's got some, a little, a couple more disturbing notes that aren't there. But you have the original performers voices. And in the case of the great Anita Moy, who almost runs away of Drunkenmaster 2, she's got a not as media role in Rumble, but she has some incredibly memorable moments in Rumble in the Bronx, several of which are, we're left on the cutting room floor for the new line version. So again, we can get in more detail when we got, trust me, I'll get into more detail on this. Yeah, we will. We will. There's going to be a lot to talk about on a future podcast where we go over this. See, another one here. You mentioned police story four

of first strike. That has a Hong Kong cut and then an international on different discs. Yes. And that did get a Blu-ray back in what, 2020? I think it came out the same time as Rumble in the Bronx. But again, only the new line version. And that one is really cut down. That is like, I think, 29 minutes of footage. that we'll go into more detail because I have a lot of thoughts on that one. Yeah, so this is, again, we just want to let people know

why this new box set is such a game changer for movies that people say, oh, yeah, I've seen that. Oh, I may even own that. This is a game changer because of this new 4K restorations of these and the fact that you're going back to the original cuts

and then you have all these options. And new subtitles too. And new subtitles, right? And then all the extras, which we're not going to get into that you said you've been able to access a good chunk of. And then the next movie, Mr. Nice Guy, you've got Japanese and Hong Kong cuts on one disc, and then an international cut on another disc for that. Now, Mr. Nice Guy was released by the Warner Archive, 2019 on Blu-ray. But once again, this is 4K, and you've got all of these different cuts.

Now, the one archive released, do you remember what cut that was? Yeah, that was because basically there's the one that was released in Hong Kong, but then in the Japanese market would often add scenes for Jackie Chan films. Most notably for Police Story 2 is about 15 minutes longer. And for some reason, the Japanese cut has become the official cut of Please Story 2. I don't know how that happened, but it did. It's just one scene basically added in Mr. Nice Guy. It's one additional scene, not an action scene, but it's nice.

That was the version we put out. At that point, we only had the choice to put out one version that was just what was in the car back then. And George and I talked and said, yeah, we should put out the longest version, you know, get everything out there for the fans. Yeah. And then the last film is Who Am I? And you've got the Hong Kong cut on one disc and then the international cut on the other disc. So that's a 10 disc. That's the six films.

And like I said, a lot of people are going to recognize the films. but you're not going to have seen those films the way you're going to see them in this release. And that's why we wanted to let everybody know about it. And we're not getting into it specifically, as Jeff said, we're going to actually have a review of this because you've got six films. Of course, we have to talk about it.

And I'm not going to get into all of the extras. It'll take us too long. I'm going to just list that so that people can read through it and see it. But I tell you what, it's going to blow you out of the water when you see how much they're putting. into extras. I didn't want to ask you, though, about all of the lobby card reproductions and things and the poster. Talk about that. I'm sure you were involved with some of that. Yeah. I believe everything came from the Warner Archive, you know, the things we got from

Golden Harvest, which we scanned several years back. There was lobby card reproductions. It's not every lobby card. I think each lobby card set is 12. It says 24 lobby card reproductions. Okay, so four images from each film. That's what I mean. So it's not every single lobby card that was made, but it's, they picked good ones. In the booklet, they have some of the reproductions of the posters, including that rare first strike one that people will get a kick out of. And when I'm talking about just like a 20-page booklet, 160 page perfect bound book. That's not a booklet. It's a book, folks. Excellent essays in there too. Yeah, yeah. So there's, and of course, it's, you know, it's going to cost more because it has

so many disc and it has so many films. But you can get it. it on Amazon right now for like 35% off. So it's really a great deal. I've got my pre-order in. If this interest you, I recommend people get their pre-order in because that way you kind of get on the list to get it as soon as possible. But if you break that down, I mean, for what it's currently on sale on Amazon for $143, we're really talking about $14 per disc for a 10-disc set and you get all the supplementals. You get the book that you get the poster. It's a terrific deal in my mind. Basically, you have three of these films that have never been

released. I mean, I'm not counting, not counting bootlegs. Rumble in the Bronx, first strike, and who am I? The original versions have never been released in the U.S. Wow. That's, you know, and then the one exception is Thunderbolt, and then thanks to Warner Archive Druck and Master 2 and Mr. Nice

Guy had been released before. But these are 4K, again, new subtitles. Arrow did a phenomenal job. You know, yeah, I mean, if you're fans of these movies, this is a must have. Yeah. And it's funny, watching them, I did watch, you know, bits of them before.

And some of them I hadn't seen in a long time. Like First Strike, I hadn't seen in many years. And, you know, they're just great. Yeah. And if you haven't seen any of these, you know, you're in for a treat. This is Jackie Chan just before he hit big with Rush Hour. I mean, who am I is the latest film on here? That opened the same year as Rush Hour, before.

four rush hour. And these were big budget films. You know, for Hong Kong, they were very large budget. Yeah. So they are, they are a perfect snapshot of, of what his career was like at the time. You know, even the weakest one is still wonderful. They're just, and the best are masterpieces. Right. Well, I was just thinking back.

I mean, you obviously, you, you timed it perfectly. That 90s interest that you had in, in the Hong Kong films and the industry. and then the importation of those films to America, to the rest of the world. You know, that era of the 90s kind of look back now with a little nostalgia maybe, but that was a great era. A lot of nostalgia, Jim. Yeah. And the impact that these films had on all of the movies that came out, and now the young people

are loving, and I love it too, the John Wicks and everything, or let's go back to the Matrix, even before the John Wicks. It's great to see, you know, like the influence of Hong Kong cinema, martial arts, Jackie Chan, like all of Jetli's over film on Hollywood, on some of our favorites of mainstream Hollywood movies. And now the movies that come out, action movies, many of them just incorporate martial arts. They're not martial arts movies. They just incorporate the style and the, the action.

I mean, that's what the Matrix brought. I mean, honestly, the Matrix is what made that type of choreography palatable to Western audiences. And I'm incredibly, you know, it's great that they did that. It's funny. Looking back, I recently did a personal research project where I've been going back to looking at microfilm of a couple old and actual physical copies of old Chinese newspapers from the Los Angeles area. Jeff, what's microphone? Shocking, huh?

and I've been getting capturing images of the old ads for these Chinese theaters in Los Angeles. And I have stuff going back to, oh, 1980, and then a few things before that. But I always wish that I had discovered these theaters earlier, you know, because I'm looking at what was playing in the 80s. Like, oh, my God, why didn't I see that? But, you know, I did get there at a time, you know, when that period martial arts movie was huge. Jackie Chan was at, you know, the top of his game, you know, the first Jackie movie. I knew Jackie movie I saw in the Chinese theaters was Please Story 3, Supercom. And then I saw, I think with the exception of one,

I saw every single Jet Li movie, Hong Kong Jet Li movie from the 90s in the Chinese theaters. Now Jackie, I was somewhat known. I thought Jackie is going to make it big sometime. I kept thinking that. Did I think Jet Li was going to make it big? No way. Did I think Stephen Chow? I used to watch all the Stephen Chow films.

Did I think Stephen Chow was going to become a billion-dollar director one day? No, never dreamed that. When I saw the Wong-Car-Wi films, Chunking Express, the nashes of time at the Garfield Theater and half the audience walked out after about 30 minutes. Did I think that he would become the icon that he is? Not really, no. You couldn't see it coming. I'm happy it did.

Yeah, yeah. And of course, we've talked before about, you know, you go all the way back to Bruce Lee and you go back to the 70s, of course. But the 90s is this other just amazing period. These films in this set, look, if people are just starting a collection and they have just Blu-rays and they're building 4K, maybe they don't have, you know, DVDs and VHS and laser. If they're just starting, this is a great set. The Blade, of course, is a great one to start adding.

I've got some for those seeing on video, some of mine on display behind me here, but the one spot on climate China, the Shaw Brothers sets. We can do a whole piece on the opening up with the Golden Princess Library, which has let, you know, films like The Killer and Hard Boiled, and the Chinese ghost story films, the swordsman's films, tons of stuff that had been locked up for ages

is coming out now, and it's coming out fast and furious. Yeah. I mean, you know, stuff that I used to, squint to watch the subtitles on Laserdisc, you know, now is just pristine in 4K. You know, it's a golden age for Hong Kong classics on physical media, it really is.

You know, we'll just kind of branch off. You're talking a little bit about the future of physical media. I think this is the future of physical media. media, very targeted genre, collector focused. These are the types of things that I think are going to continue. People obviously have to support it. But it's amazing how great these films. And the 90s is not that long ago. But the fact that when you get a 4K restoration and hopefully, you know, because it is the 90s, you do have access to good assets, you know, to the camera eggs and things. So when you bump it up and do that 4K restoration, and the other great thing about

that too is that people like yourself remember seeing it for the first time. And we still have the directors and the actors. Many are still live. So when we go to put extras on things, we can get access to them. And then we have access. Even in the 90s, maybe a little bit later, people were starting to keep extras and delete scenes. Some of that stuff is still around, whereas it's just really not for many of the films much older than that.

So these sets now can come with just robust extras and people like yourself who can speak to personal experience and the knowledge and expertise of these films. I mean, you went to Hong Kong. You talked to many of these people, many of the directors and actors, and you wrote about it,

And that gives you a really unique perspective. So it's really fun. It's funny back then because that was just on the cusp of the internet, you know, getting big. So it was cool at the Film Awards. They always give you a hardcover program, which is great for getting autographs. So I've got my three hardbound programs with dozens of autographs in them, which is pretty cool. But I remember specifically probably at least two or three people, I'd asked for their signatures. And they say, how do you know me?

I would dig deep, you know, like the character. character actors and stuff like that. But, you know, all the people I interviewed in Hong Kong and all the experiences I had there, I have nothing bad to say. I had just, it was incredible time. Everyone was wonderful, was nice, friendly, accommodating. It was a good, good time. If anyone has old issues of Giant Robot, you can see some of my interviews in there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this was a lot of fun. I hope people enjoyed it. It's great news that some of these titles from the Warner Brothers, the Golden Harvest Library, are starting to see the light a day, and then also to have these partners who really do focus on getting a lot of great extras out with the release, is something that Criterion and Arrow are excellent at. Yeah.

And as I said, they care, you know, Warner Brothers cares about our library and our partners, such as Criterion and Arrow and other partners as well. They care about the library too, and they're willing to go the extra mile. both of these releases we've been talking about are phenomenal. Yeah, that's why we're like, we've got to talk about this again because it's relevant and we want people to know about what's coming. Because if you don't pay attention to this genre, you might miss some of the great things that are happening here.

It's amazing the amount of titles. And I look back at some of the criterion previous releases. I mean, they've done a lot of Kirasawa. They've done a lot of Japanese and international films. It's not all in martial arts and not all Hong Kong, but they've been a great supporter of independent and genre films over the years, along with Arrow and others. And I think it's their time to really shine on some of these.

Oh, they are? Yeah, because of the technology and the ability to make them look so good. So just as we talked about. Jeff, great to have you on. Thank you again. I look forward to talking more about Jackie in the near future. Yes, I do too. I can't wait till the end of June 4th.

That's set to arrive or early July or whatever when we can get around to watching and talking about that. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening. Well, that was great fun talking with Jeff about these titles. If you are an enthusiast of Hong Kong films, of Hong Kong cinema, martial arts films, I hope you enjoyed the conversation. And I will have in these show notes here links to purchase both the blade and to pre-order the upcoming

breakout hits box set from Arrow. And as mentioned in our conversation, we'll get Jeff back on to talk about each of those films in this box set later on, but I'm really looking for getting those. If this is the first time you've listened to the podcast, you may want to subscribe. We're going to have more on this subject

so that we'll mix those in with our other discussions on owner archive releases. We always want to bring in these partner releases as well because they are a direct tie-in to the Warner Brothers Library. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Malar. Stay slightly obsessed about Hong Kong cinema.