Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar | Blu-ray (Criterion)
Today’s Deal on Fire is the Blu-ray collection for Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar, a six-film collection that will include 1978’s Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, 1978’s Spiritual Kung Fu, 1979’s The Fearless Hyena, 1983’s The Fearless Hyena II, 1980’s The Young Master, and 1985’s My Lucky Stars.
Official details:
Originally tapped as a potential successor to Bruce Lee, Hong Kong martial-arts phenom Jackie Chan soon established his own unique screen persona, blending goofball slapstick and bone-crunching kung fu into intricate feats of supercharged athleticism. Tracing his rise from breakout star to full-fledged auteur, these six unabashedly silly, unstoppably entertaining early-career highlights find Chan refining the lovably mischievous image that would make him a global icon, while also assuming greater creative control over his projects—first as his own martial-arts choreographer, and later as a writer-director who set a thrilling new standard for daredevil action comedy.
Features:
- 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- Alternate stereo and 5.1 surround Cantonese soundtracks
- Classic English-dubbed tracks for Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, and Fearless Hyena II, plus an English-dubbed alternate track for Fearless Hyena II, and contemporary English-dubbed tracks for The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
- New audio commentaries for The Fearless Hyena and The Young Master featuring Hong Kong cinema expert and producer Frank Djeng (Enter the Clones of Bruce)
- Interview with author Grady Hendrix (These Fists Break Bricks) about actor-director Jackie Chan
- Archival interviews with Chan, actor-director Sammo Hung, actors Michiko Nishiwaki and Hwang In-shik, and more
- The Young Master promo reel from the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and deleted scenes from the film
- Interview from 2005 with Hong Kong cinema critic Paul Fonoroff about producer-director Lo Wei
- NG shots from The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
- Trailers
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: An essay by critic Alex Pappademas
Order from Amazon.com today!
Kind of an odd mix. Get rid of My Lucky Stars and throw in Dragon Lord, and it sort of makes sense. I’d have stuck to pre-Drunken Master stuff for a set like this, though, personally.
Criterion should stick to their love letter/wangkfests to Truffaut/Goddard/Kurosawa. Ok even assuming someone enjoys Fearless Hyena 2, why is My Lucky Stars here and not something like Dragon Lord or Dragon Fist
Hey, man, there’s some good shit in their catalog. Not a big Godard fan, myself, but Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Melville…that’s good eats for a movie fan. I do wish they’d add more…mainstream fare, though, and some more Johnnie To would be fantastic.
Dragon fist is on the shout factory release of Jackie Chan volume 1
Dragon lord is apart of the shout factory Jackie chan Volume 1 Blu-ray collection.
A 2K digital restoration of ‘Fearless Hyena II’ being released by Criterion. Now I’ve seen everything.
It is strange, isn’t it? But now that they’ve started dropping more Asian content like Police Story, OUaTiC, Godzilla and Bruce Lee, I’m not surprised. They all deserve to be part of the collection, though. I think the action genre is cinema at its purest – at their best, they’re all about movement and being visually innovative. I love literature as much as the next civilized dude, but that’s something that books can’t do. Still, never thought I’d live to see not one, but multiple Jackie Chan films under the Criterion umbrella.
They might as well have a Volume 2 that includes his shitshows with Chu Yen Ping.
lol
After a quick look at everything Shout! has released in their previous JC sets, you can tell that Criterion grabbed the rights to whatever was left over in the Region A territory lol (explains its hodgepodge title list). But hey, at least Fearless Hyena 2 is finally available in Blu-ray!
Yet no region A Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow. Which is is my favorite old school Kung Fu flick he did. Also I’m just going to say it, Fearless Hyena 1,Dragon Fist and New Fists Of Fury are totally fun Kung Fu flicks.
Also with Fearless Hyena II and Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu, why doesn’t Criterion go all the way in and give us Fantasy Mission Force, Master With Cracked Fingers, Big Brawl and Killer Meteors.
I recall the label Twilight Time did a Region A Blu-ray of ‘Snake in the Eagles Shadow’ back in 2017 where it was bundled with ‘Drunken Master’. Copies are still available through eBay and the like.
The good news is UK label is planning to release ‘Master with Cracked Fingers’ at some point in the near future, details here! –
https://cityonfire.com/snake-fist-fighter-master-with-cracked-fingers-blu-ray-signal-one/
Criterion…PLEASE fix the missing night filters for SPIRITUAL KUNG FU!!!
Whoever advised Criterion to release these titles as an expensive box set should be sacked.
A few of them only deserve bargain bin releases and this will possibly stand as the worst Jackie Chan Collection ever released.
What an utter mess of a selection.
I suggest you get a multi-region BluRay player and pick up various UK imports from Arrow & 88 films instead.