We are living through a golden age of many of the classic HK films reaching us in restored versions.
I thought we should have a thread for these, for those of us dabbling in these catalogs…
I even started a Golden Princess catalog page
And reviewed a few titles:
We have a thread for Shaw Brothers
One for Kung Fu films
And one for John Woo
I have ordered all of the Arrow releases so far, excited to receive A Bullet in the Head which has just dispatched for me. This is the only one they have released so far that I haven’t already seen so I’m super excited. Desperately waiting to get the ABT trilogy from Arrow too (hoping it is the next announcement).
Also ordered The Adventurers from Eureka. I have a few of their releases, all top notch
I recently watched again one favorite from the 90’s, Dao the Blade by Tsui Hark. I really loved this film when I was around my 20’s.
Still quite good but I’m not so much into these kind of films anymore. The dvd was horrible quality but I noticed it’s been released 4k by Criterion.
Just checked my disc of The Killer, definitly not as crips a transfer as Hard Boiled and City on Fire.
From my memory, The Killer has always looked a bit softer. I feel like Woo was internationally doing it to make it look a bit dreamy, especially the bits in the end at the church.
I mean the disc presentation, it just looks a lot more pixelated, lower resolution, and scenes in motion also look lesser than I expected… but hey, i’m not copmlaining, seeing this in UHD and the long cut on an extra disc, what more can you ask for
My Bullet in the Head arrived today 
this should be interesting as well:
My The Adventurers from Eureka has arrived
Heroic Trio 1+2 announced from Plaion (Amazon)
Man, Tony’s contributions to these sets will be sorely missed 
. These sets are works of art.
I need to buy frames for his posters, also for spaghetti westerns etc… but first I need space to hang them up, which means an actual house or bigger apartment, so back to buying lottery tickets…
I got his The Killer one framed last month, think I will get that ABT trilogy one framed too when it arrives.
Just Heroes should technically be a part of the catalog Shout licensed but long story short, a company named Star Alliance Movies acquired the assets of Chang Cheh’s company Hong Kong Chang He Film Co. and somehow claimed ownership over the film.
The issue is that Chang Cheh’s company never was involved with the film though Chang is listed as an executive producer. Magnum Films (Danny Lee’s company) was the production company and since the film was made under contract with Golden Princess at the time, GP retained the rights to the film. The French DVD/VHS released in 2000 was licensed through Fortune Star who held international rights at the time and would technically own Asia rights nowadays.
Star Alliance took advantage of the whole situation of this catalog probably knowing that GP (Kowloon Dev) wouldn’t notice or care that they lost the rights to a film. This is the last of the classic Woo films to not get the fancy 4K treatment and it’s a shame.
Shout went through all this effort and money to get this catalog from GP and yet I don’t think they will go through another headache trying to get the Just Heroes rights back.
yay my The Killer replacement disc has shipped…
