yoloswegmaster wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:14 pm
Looks like they've started to hit the bottom of the barrel of the Fortune Star titles with the release of Slaughter in San Francisco.
Finally! A potential light at the end of the tunnel for their seemingly endless campaign to churn out literally every single kung-fu/Asian action movie ever made. Although 88 doubtless have several hundred more on tap.
yoloswegmaster wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2023 10:14 pm
Eureka have posted hints for February releases, which are Paths of Glory 4K, Yakuza Wolf I and II, and Slaughter in San Francisco.
Looks like they've started to hit the bottom of the barrel of the Fortune Star titles with the release of Slaughter in San Francisco.
I still have Slaughter in San Francisco on UK VHS. It's very poor, not helped by the lack of sync-sound (typical of HK cinema) so all the American actors speak with weird Australianish accents, and Chuck Norris looks absurd with a pork-pie hat, cigar and shades as a mob boss. Don Wang is a very good leading man, it must be said.
Ammusingly, the credits on the English prints try and fool you into thinking it's a real American film, so Lo Wei is creditied as William Lowe!
reaky wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:36 pm
[sigh] “We’ve no more kung-fu movies to release! No way around it - we’ll just have to put out Lang’s Scarlet Street.”
You do joke but KL are releasing this in 4K in January, so if Eureka continue copying them for 4K choices, they could certainly do worse...
Bodyguard Kiba 1 + 2 and The Swordsman of all Swordsmen have appeared on Amazon. There don't appear to have been further tweets so that seems to be everything for March.
Oh my god yes please, Abashiri Prison has been of massive interest since discovering the Japanese Blu-Ray release. I do hope that even if this is just the first film, the rest will be released at some point.
I assume this means they have acquired enough dual-territory titles to justify such a venture. Most of their releases tend to have alternate US and UK rights. Those that don't, of course, aren't anything to sneeze at necessarily. That big ol' Joseph Kuo box, for instance, would not be too difficult to generate excitement for among region-locked US buyers.
I see this more as Eureka throwing their hat in the ring, seeing as other UK labels have expended to the US and seemingly done some good business off the back of it (Arrow and Indicator especially, but Radiance and 88 Films must have seen some benefits to it).
I reckon it'll mostly be like 88 Films' and Radiance's overseas operations, where they will mostly release whatever they can in both territories, maybe with the occasional US exclusive (rather than Arrow's lean towards pleasing both markets with various exclusives, a practice that often alienates/frustrates audiences in the opposite territory).
Of course this is all a little late to the party when you consider some of the HK titles Criterion, Arrow, 88 Films and Vinegar Syndrome have been putting out in the US, as I assume this will be a mostly Eureka Classics oriented exercise. As others have speculated, maybe they figured they're debuting a majority of the Fortune Star titles, and have reportedly set up an expansive Toei deal too (though a few clashes there too with Discotek, Film Movement, Radiance, Arrow also having Toei deals), so I guess both of those factors were at play in this decision.
Getting a bit off topic, but I see that Jeff Nelson also left Shout Factory last year. So the main two people behind the Scream Factory line are gone. I can't imagine that that line has much life left in it.
A potential light at the end of the tunnel for their seemingly endless campaign to churn out literally every single kung-fu/Asian action movie ever made. Although 88 doubtless have several hundred more on tap.
