As you know, I am a huge
Shaw Brothers… particularly their martial arts/kung fu movies. While we have exhausted all of
Arrow Videos and
88 Films (so far),
Shout Factory has stepped in to release even more Shaw Brothers titles to the American market.
Although I purchased
Shaw Brothers Classics Volume 1 on
June 13, 2023 … I just haven’t had the time to watch them all. And looking at the aggressive schedule of
Volume 2 to be released last month on
August 15, 2023, and
Volume 3 set for
October 25, 2023… it’s become a really expensive hobby for me, at $160 a boxset.
Originally, I wasn’t going to buy
Volume 2 until I fully watch enjoy all of
Volume 1, but with the sudden free $260 money from the state of Minnesota… I thought why not order
Volume 2 and be done with that.
So, the problem is that Amazon misdelivered my
Volume 2 package! This is the second time that it happened for me in the past few months. It was so upsetting that going forward, I’m having everything deliver to an Amazon Locker.
Anyway, after getting a replacement shipped to a secured locker, I’m finally watching
Volume 2.
Between
Volume 1 and
Volume 2, the first boxset focused on pre-1970 Shaw Brothers films, with the earliest titles from 1967 with
The Assassin and
The Thundering Sword.
Many of these late-1960s titles are of the wuxia / some fantasy and emphasis on martial weapons, such as darts in
Killer Darts (1968), daggers in
The Flying Dagger (1969), or swords in
The Golden Sword (1969).
The majority of these films were never officially released in America, so it’s awesome to watch them for the first time (and in HD!), but unfortunately, many of these titles did not have the English dub… which is disappointing, but understandable, since these films were never marketed to America or the UK.
I do appreciate that we got audio commentary on many of these older films, and I think Shout Factory did a great job on the boxset… but, again, I did not really love many of these early Shaw Brothers titles. I’m sorry, the Shaw Brothers haven’t perfected their Kung Fu formula yet.
To me, the golden age of Kung Fu films didn’t happen until
Five Fingers of Death in 1972, so I prefer films released after that time period.
The only film that I really enjoyed in
Volume 1 is the revenge flick called
The Bells of Death (1968). The film made the boxset worth it, as for the first time, we’re seeing this in Bluray format (at least in America).
I first saw the film on DVD when I visited the China town in Canada about 20 years ago. The plot is simple, it’s a story of a wood cutter who searches town to town for the killers of his family… wearing the bells bracelet of his family around his neck. I really like this one, mostly because, for the first time, to my ears, I’m hearing the English dub of the film.
Thankfully,
Volume 2 collects early 1970s films, with
The Dragon Missiles being the latest at 1976. This film is pretty delightful, with the Dragon Missiles clearly being inspired or ripped off from
The Flying Guillotines (1975)… which is also included in this boxset.
I’m almost certain that the early Shaw films, collected in Vol 2, such as
Lady of Steel (1970),
The Crimson Charm (1971),
The Devil’s Mirror (1972),
The Bride From Hell (1971), were never released in America.
I haven’t watched those early films (in both Vol 1 and 2), so I can’t really say they’re good or not.
I’ve already own
Brothers Five (1970),
The Shadow Whip (1971),
The Delightful Forest (1972),
Man of Iron (1972),
The Water Margin (1972), and
Heroes Two (1974), but I would like to re-visit and check out the special features in this new release. Most of these titles have audio commentaries, so it should be interesting to see what critics have to say about these films.
As for
Volume 3, it’s coming out in October… so I do have a little time to enjoy Vol 1 and 2 before
Volume 3 comes out… based on the titles, such as
The Shaolin Avengers,
The Deadly Breaking Sword,
Clan of the White Lotus, it’s going to be a mid-1970 to 1980 collection. This is my favorite era: 1972 to 1984, so I’m actually way more excited about
Volume 3.
If you’re collecting Shaw Brothers films, as I am, I should also point out that there are two Shout Factory-exclusive releases:
The Brave Archer Collection (2023-04-18), an Alexander Fu Sheng four-film set for
$70, and
The Ti Lung / David Chiang Collection (2023-09-26), a massive collection for
$170.
If you didn’t know Ti Lung, David Chiang, and director Chang Cheh, became known as “The Iron Triangle”, due to their successful films, such as
Have Sword, Will Travel (1969),
Vengeance (1970),
The Deadly Duo (1971)… and many others.
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