88 Films

[Finch]

Scroll up a few posts; I already mentioned this yesterday afternoon.

[therewillbeblus]

Righting Wrongs has a similar feel of rushing forward at such headlong speeds that a sense of direction, any direction, stops mattering, just as long as things keep going forward.

[Spoiler]I mean, the film starts with the HK equivalent of an ADA getting into a car chase with some assassins and then killing two of them as they crawl helplessly out of their car in an act so brazen even Dirty Harry and Marion Cobretti would blanche. He then goes from pondering the need for vigilante justice to just straight up murdering a mob boss with his bare hands that same night. In spite of all that, the entire rest of the plot is devoted to a police detective doggedly hunting him for a murder he didn’t commit, while all reference to his behaviour in act one disappears. The film then transforms into a half-ass version of Witness in the third act before everyone, good or bad, just dies because…who knows. [/spoiler]

I enjoyed this but didn’t think it had more insane stunts or interesting mechanics than the other two Yuens - if anything there were more odd start-and-stop moments and underwhelming setpieces comparatively -which is all to say I still loved it (and should probably be intentionally watching subpar HK fare between these viewings of the top recs so I don’t feel even slightly let down from a high bar of spoilage). The comedy involving the father and son law enforcement pairing worked much better than I expected, and yeah, the chaos of nonsensical behavior and bandaid-ripping fates was dialed up to 11, even if I found Yes, Madam!’s closing scene much more affecting.

[Mr Sausage]

I don't know, the the narrow misses with the cars in the garage, and the being dragged across tarmac by the plane and then hanging from it hundreds of feet in the air is pretty insane. That's all Yuen Biao.

[therewillbeblus]

Oh they’re insane, but I guess the metric of what’s “more” insane is subjective. I’ll concede those were larger scale and so probably constitute a greater degree of insanity

[Mr Sausage]

I'm not even sure what I'm comparing them to anymore, so let's just say all these films partake of the same jaw-dropping disregard for human safety and are tons of fun. The top tier Hong Kong action stuff offers the same kind of madcap thrills whatever your favourites end up being (and I think we'd agree that Yes, Madame is the best of the movies we're talking about).

[therewillbeblus]

Definitely, for the record I still loved Righting Wrongs and you have yet to steer me wrong on films (or books) yet so I’ll keep taking recs if you have them (edit: looking forward to the Yeohs!) This recent binge of recs from the forum’s HK-savvy members has been a necessary high for me these past couple weeks, so kudos to feihong, Finch, et al. Much appreciated

[Finch]

Amazon UK have a pre-order up for the Tiger Cage trilogy dated July 25. Additionally, there are links for Beware My Brethren, Hitcher in the Dark, and Knife of Ice.

A Blu-Ray.com user identified Tutti defunti... tranne i morti (All Deceased...Except the Dead) as one of the blurred covers from the photo that is making the rounds on social media.

[Finch]

Brandon Bentley confirmed that the Dragons Forever UHD will be released in the UK as well.

[therewillbeblus]

Brandon Bentley confirmed that the Dragons Forever UHD will be released in the UK as well.

There's a preorder for a blu-ray version on Amazon US right now, I imagine this is different and the UHD is being sold in the UK only?

Also, what's the consensus on the other announcements above?

[Finch]

No, the UHD is for both territories as well. The US version was never in doubt, the UK edition took a long time to be confirmed. Diabolik already has a pre-order up for the 4k.

[Finch]

I sampled the first ten minutes of the original Tiger Cage and it was pure adrenaline. I haven't seen the rest of it yet but feel pretty comfortable pre-ordering from Terracotta or rarewaves as Amazon UK's shipping rates are fuck-off high.

[feihong]

At least the first two Tiger Cage films are pretty underrated. I thought they were both fabulous. I haven't seen the third one, so I can't speak on it, though.

[Finch]

It doesn't look like Kung Fu Bob's style but I like it a lot.

[swo17]

I don't get how 88 makes announcements, as none of the titles recently mentioned from Amazon UK are shown as forthcoming on their website, while some different ones are, including the Jackie Chan films Half a Loaf of Kung Fu (May 16) and The Killer Meteors (Jun 6)

[Adam X]

For some reason that remains a mystery outside of the guys that run 88 Films, they seem to prioritise getting their films up for sale at everywhere but their own site. Closer to release date they’ll slowly go up up for sale on their webstore.

This is how their LE release of Street Fighter essentially sold out prior to them ever selling it direct. I get the impression as just 2 people running the label, it’s easier to not have to deal with a heap of sales as well.

[Maltic]

According to Kim Newman's website, he's done commentaries (w/ Barry Forshaw and David McGillivray) on 5 different Pete Walker films for 88 Films, so I suppose there's a boxset coming

[Adam X]

Fingers crossed they’re new masters, and they’re not just recycling the US versions with a couple of new extras.

[What A Disgrace]

A little disappointed that its not an Indicator box for Pete Walker, but if 88 Films looks at Indicator's Norman J. Warren set and thinks "I can do that", then I'll forgive them and support their efforts.

[Finch]

Amazon pre-orders for September:

All the Souls... Except the Dead
Violence in a Women's Prison
The Seven Per-Cent Solution
On the Run (Deluxe Collector's Edition)
Righting Wrongs (Deluxe Collector's Edition)

[beamish14]

I adore The Seven Per-Cent Solution. Previous Blu-Rays have been thin with extras, so I hope this one goes all-out

Speaking of Niccol Williamson, it’s a shame that Tony Richardson’s Hamlet (1969) doesn’t have a good HD release. I saw a gorgeous 35mm print some years back. It’s a really underrated work.

[Finch]

Perhaps fei hong and/or Dandy Fop know more but apparently the Mandarin and Cantonese versions of Righting Wrongs are different films with alternate scenes? Did that happen with other films too? Rothrock confirmed (and Old Pang Yau aka Brendan Bentley heavily implied) that both cuts will be present on the 88 disc and two commentaries.

Between this, Tiger Cage 1-3 & On the Run, 88 Films are on my short list for boutique label of the year.

[therewillbeblus]

Are there alternative placed to pre-order these new releases aside from Amazon UK?

[Finch]

Terracotta Distribution are good (Asian London-based seller, very sweet guy) and rarewaves. Zavvi as a last option. HMV unfortunately don't ship abroad.

[feihong]

Perhaps fei hong and/or Dandy Fop know more but apparently the Mandarin and Cantonese versions of Righting Wrongs are different films with alternate scenes? Did that happen with other films too? Rothrock confirmed (and Old Pang Yau aka Brendan Bentley heavily implied) that both cuts will be present on the 88 disc and two commentaries.

I just heard about this myself, and I've only seen the Cantonese version of Righting Wrongs. Apparently there are tons of differences between the Mandarin and Cantonese cuts of the movie:

https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=654168


Extended shots, added shots, added scenes, and a completely different ending.

This actually happened all the time with Hong Kong movies, where they would film alternate scenes and do completely different edits for different markets. The fight scene between Zhao wen Zhuo and Xin Xin Xiong in The Chinese Feast is a famous example of a scene kept in for certain markets, cut for others, but you would frequently see different cuts for Mandarin and Cantonese audiences. My favorite HK comedy, It's Now or Never, has different cuts on VHS and VCD, where scenes run longer or shorter, and where the scenes appear in a different order. Full Contact famously has different soundtracks depending on the version. I got in a big fight back in the day with some guy from Columbia/Tristar over the version of Full Contact they released on DVD. That version used what seemed like a lot of temp tracks for music, and didn't have Teddy Robin Kwan's wailing guitar solos––which kind of make the movie for me. The Columbia/Tristar guy wanted my head for complaining and blamed me for apparently tanking sales on the disc? I doubt my comments on the AsianDVDGuide forum had that level of impact. The last big discrepancy between different versions of a HK film I recall before WKW's far more annoyingly revisionist project was Infernal Affairs, where Andy Lau gets arrested or not, depending on whether you saw the film in Hong Kong or on the Mainland. And I believe On the Run actually has two different endings, as well, depending on what territory it played in. A lot of this had to do with cutting the film for local tastes. In some territories, there was more insistence that the villains get their just deserts, or that the heroes live through the final reel. In Southeast Asia it was apparently common for the projectionists to turn on the house lights once the villain in the movie was defeated––and people would often just up and leave the theater, skipping any wrap-up or concluding scenes that might follow––which explains a lot of the extremely abrupt endings in a lot of Shaw Bros. movies (my favorite is The Daredevils, which ends with a freeze-frame as the heroes writhe in agony after being shot full of holes).

Others I recall would include Ringo Lam's Victim, where the producers added a special effect to the end of the film which––I think––makes the movie about 100 times better. But apparently Ringo hated it, and both cuts of the film have been available on home video at different times. As far as I know, the disappointingly DNR'ed CN Entertainment blu ray does have the producer's cut on it. There's a more thorough Taiwanese cut of The Killer. On the page I linked up there they mention slightly different cuts of Millionaire's Express. Police Story I has several more scenes of comedy in its Japanese release (the film actually starts in the Japanese cut with pie-in-the-face gags and japes around the squad room, before cutting abruptly to the briefing scene which starts the movie in the HK version). And School on Fire had a lot of different edits for different markets. There's also purportedly a director's cut of Patrick Tam's Nomad which screened at Udine once. That would be great to see; apparently there are more sexually explicit scenes, and a different ending (Tam did not shoot the HK theatrical ending bloodbath, and has disowned the film because the studio insisted on it).

[therewillbeblus]

Terracotta Distribution are good (Asian London-based seller, very sweet guy) and rarewaves. Zavvi as a last option. HMV unfortunately don't ship abroad.

Ive never bought from rare waves direct only through third parties- good call, thanks! I noticed they don’t have these releases up yet for preorder, hopefully soon