Customer Reviews

Bruce Lee - Master Collection [VHS]

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

So, here it is, the latest collection of DVD's featuring all of Bruce Lee's Hong Kong movies (Fists of Fury aka The Big Boss, The Chinese Connection aka Fists of Fury, Return of the Dragon, Game of Death, and an additional documentary Bruce Lee, the Legend) in one pretty package. Note that Enter the Dragon, made by Warner Brothers and considered by many to be Bruce's finest (and certainly his most polished) film, is not included in this boxed set. Likewise, the version of Game of Death offered is the original 1977 release, without any of the recently unearthed and restored footage featured in A Warrior's Journey. Also, these are English-dubbed, edited (for the western market) versions of the films. All in all though, this is probably the best collection of Bruce's films available in the U.S.

Of course, 30 years after Bruce's death, these movies are a bit campy now -- with Fists of Fury only a few steps up from Sunday afternoon 'action theater' crapola, and Game of Death (pieced together after Bruce's death with an actor double, clips from old movies, and even a cardboard cut-out to make up for his absence in all but the final fight scenes) an unmitigated travesty -- but the charismatic screen presence and fighting skills of Bruce will always satisfy die hard fans (which are the likely target consumer for this boxed set). After all, you don't really watch this genre of movie for plot, but for the fighting, which was innovative at the time (differing from both the usual chop-sockey shenanigans as well as today's wushu-style 'wire-fu'), and to see the man who started it all and has attained an almost Elvis-level deity status.

Okay, so here's the bad news... These U.S. Region 1 DVD's pale in comparison to the versions available in Region 2 put out by the Hong Kong Legends company (http://hongkonglegends.co.uk/ -- see for yourself). They have just released a 30th Anniversary boxed set of these movies -- their editions (which can only be viewed on DVD players that can play Region 2 movies) feature the original Cantonese language versions of the movies (as well as the English), the uncut/unedited versions (in which mild nude scenes or corny comedic sequences are left intact), with lots of additional features (critical commentaries and other extras). There simply isn't any comparison and it is a crying shame these are not available in the U.S. (though apparently some HKL titles are beginning to come to the U.S. market). Any serious Bruce Lee fan will want the HKL versions instead -- as for me, I'm off to buy a region free DVD player.

This is the most complete Bruce Lee DVD set you can ever own. This collection plus Enter the Dragon will make your Bruce Lee DVD collection complete. You will have all of his films. Collection contains remastered movies, cleaned up and sharp looking. Other DVD releases by lesser companies offer horrible image quality but not Columbia. Enter the Dragon is owned by Warner Brothers, otherwise it would have been included in this DVD kit. On the down side, the DVD collection offers just the movies and nothing else. There's no bonus materials on any of the DVDs. I guess you can consider the documentary DVD a bonus. There's five DVDs in total and in my opinion worth every penny. Summary: IMAGE QUALITY (A+) Bruce Lee's films have never looked better or so new, SOUND (B) mono only, <the movies are over 25 years old, before the days of stereo in HK>. It would have been nice if they had redubbed all the movies for this release in Dolby Digital 5.1.

This Warner Brothers set is very good-I bought it, but it's annoying that these discs are not anamorphic and you don't get the original soundtrack. However, if you are a Bruce Lee fanatic, and you have a PAL converter, and a multiregion dvd player that can play Region 2 discs, you must get the Hong Kong Legends releases. This is a UK company. They put out the four Bruce Lee films, minus Enter the Dragon, in beautiful, restored, remastered, anamorphic widescreen versions with Dolby Digital sound. This is heaven for people with widescreen TVs. They are loaded with extras(Game of Death has 2 dvds!) and also have several soundtracks so you can watch the original Chinese with English subtitles, or the English dubbed version. It's amazing, but Region 2 really outdid Region 1 in this case. You can buy them from Amazon.com.uk. Hong Kong Legends has a website that lists all their releases, including many Jackie Chan and Jet Li films, all made to the same high standards.

Every couple of years we get a batch of Bruce Lee re-releases, and none of them has ever impressed me.

Thanks to the thoughtless original distributors who had handled the films on their first run in the U.S., American audiences have never been able to get official releases of Bruce Lee's films in their original language. Even modern companies like Dimension (with their disgraceful dubbing on Jackie Chan's films) have been disrespectful to kung fu films by never including the original dialogue tracks and credit sequences, meaning fans of Bruce Lee will still hear a fourth-rate voice actor on these films rather than Bruce himself.

That was to be expected. What was not expected was how bad the quality of these transfers was. I don't know how much work they did in picture restoration or colour timing; judging from the picture quality, my guess would be: None. The three Hong Kong films -- Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection and Return of the Dragon -- have too much contrast and unnatural desaturation, making the characters pasty-faced and the lighting seemingly too dark. Whether that was the original intent of the filmmakers is unknown, but I know that even the old VHS editions of these films I bought 10 years ago didn't have the number of scratches, bad sprockets and picture jumps I see here. These *are* letterboxed, (...) though it's small consolation for the number of frozen frames I see before cuts. Even the Transformers DVD collections have a better restoration job than this, to say nothing of the impressive array of Shaw Brothers films that Celestial Pictures has been releasing. This set is a disgraceful treatment of the master Bruce Lee's films.

The thoughtlessness continues into the fact that there are absolutely no bonus materials on the DVDs of the films. No commentary tracks -- it should have been easy enough to get some kung fu film experts here, even if they can't get Raymond Chow, James Tien, Nora Miao, Linda Lee Cadwell or Lee's Hong Kong contemporaries; no trailers (again, an easy dig through the archives); not even film stills or essays. You just get the film, subdivided into overlarge chapters that don't reflect the structure of the films: The *entire* Colosseum scene in Return of the Dragon, up until the graveyard scene, is one big chapter. Are you kidding me?

The documentary Bruce Lee: The Legend is a curiosity. While it has some major faults -- the horrible dubbing on Bruce Lee's very early films as a child actor, factual errors and omissions -- it also has a wealth of archival footage that is a joy to behold. If the DVD distributors had done this kind of homework! This documentary is definitely worth seeing for Lee fans, though I would tell them to just get this single DVD and skip the rest.

Compared to the Shaw Brothers re-releases and the bonus materials for the excellent DVD edition of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, these DVDs are shameful -- another quickie repackaging of Lee's films for some quick cash, with no thought. (...) (...)

I give this DVD set 3 stars solely because of "The Game of Death." The rest of the DVD set gets 5 stars or maybe 6. For those of you who have seen the wonderful documentary "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" you will be sorely disappointed in this cheap studio rip off of what Bruce Lee intended "The Game of Death" to be. They cut out a good 30 minutes of quality Bruce Lee footage, and totally changed the story. The 5 level pagoda becomes a restaurant! What a load of crap. Bruce Lee's movies always have a underlying message of truth, and "The Game of Death" was supposed to have one also (see the above mentioned documentary for details), but because the stupid movie studio decided to change the entire plot and theme of the movie after Bruce Lee's untimely death, that underlying message is missing... in short, "The Game of Death" is a disgrace to Bruce Lee.

Well, now that I have that off my chest, the rest of the DVD is unbelievable. Some don't like the cheesy dubbing (the movies were made in China for a Chinese audience), but I think that is all part of the charm of the classic Bruce Lee movies. I watched the other 4 DVDs with a huge smile on my face the entire time. In the end, I do recommend this DVD set wholeheartedly.

I bought all of the Bruce Lee films on Lasrer Disc years ago. At that time, it was the only way to get movies in widescreen and at a higher resolution. I have seen those LD movies so many times and I know what resolution something is. Fox has put a flim-flam on us. I bought mine when this set first came out about for(?) years ago. Once that CBS Fox logo came on the screen, the first thing I said was "these people got lazy and did not even want to re-master the original films. Instead the just copyed a LD to DVD because they figure that most fools would not know it." I guess they were right. Some of us do know it.

Just because these were Kong Kong films and considered "B" movies, you should still give them some decent treatment. Even Game of Death II was re-mastered and even given some type of surround sound. The sound on these is about as horrible as you remeber it from TV. The picture, I cannot really get happy about it since it is not DVD qulaity. Many people did not get into LD's or S-VHS for one reason of another(cost being the main factor), so they may be impressed and think that this is Lee on DVD in it's finest quality. I wonder if we will ever see such quality. I am hunting down the Asian verison which says that they were indeed re-mastered, you hear Lee's origianl voice AND it is in DTS surround sound. They give their master the royal treatment, and we give him the "B" movie treatment.

I say hunt down the Asian ones.

There have been some absolutely awful transfers of Bruce Lee movies in the past. This is NOT one of them! The video and audio quality are absolutely fantastic, with only the smallest artifacts!

There's no extras on the movie discs, which is too bad (audio commentary would have been a nice touch), but since there's a whole documentary disc included, there's no reason to complain.

And the movies ... well, it's Bruce Lee! What else is there to say?

In short, this is the quality of video Bruce Lee fans have been waiting for! No more second rate tenth generation copies from seedy no-name companies -- this is the real deal!

At long last, a definitive, remastered version of Bruce's old movies on DVD. I'm probably one of the few who starved to have Bruce's movies on DVD that I bought those dubious copies from other companies and have long since regretted it. This new collection though is THE one to get. Like others said, sound is in mono, some artifacting, and no extras on the discs, but that's understandable considering the age of these films. The Chuck Norris/Bruce Lee fight looks great on screen and draws more attention if you play it on a Panasonic DVDL50 in public. I made alot of people want the movies and system that way. All you need is the Enter The Dragon DVD, and you're collection will be complete and final. Well, at least till another format comes along.

I have to strongly agree with the previous review...and in fact because these are sooo scratch filled, poorly dubbed , missing footage junk...I investigated and found that in the UK they have a great set with original language and subtitles , made from original film without edits and poor saturation and other contrast anomolies that mar this crappy set. The only problem is you need a PAL converter to play the UK sets....BUT ....I found on eBay the 30th anniversary collection from Korea and just received it....at about twice this price...but oh my the package is amazing... a beautiful book....bound like a wedding album...and the movies? The transfers are STUNNING....plus they have bonus interviews , trailers etc....
After watching the Korean edition ....I put this set back in and it really made me sick...really poor quality....and for an Icon like Bruce Lee? If he were alive he would kick the butts of the profiteers at the company issueing this garbage!

In this DVD collection from 20th Century Fox you get the letterboxed versions of FIST OF FURY , CHINESE CONNECTION , RETURN OF THE DRAGON , and GAME OF DEATH along with the documentary BRUCE LEE : THE LEGEND which is presented in full screen format.

Essentially you just get fine copies of Bruce's classic kung fu movies along with the documentary except ENTER THE DRAGON which is owned by Warner Brothers. The DVDs do not come with the original chinese audio , and it comes with no DVD extras. All you get are the films and nothing but the films. Picture quality has been enhanced and the movies come with subtitles but the sound remains mono. The discs come in a terrific looking 5 disc jewel case that is chocked with pictures from the films in a slip cover case.

The films are nicely divided up into chapters from 14 to 24 chapters.

Personally , I wished that Fox could have added some DVD extras to these disc like the original chinese audio. DVD extras are the only things that these discs are really missing. Outside of that it is a nice collection of Bruce Lee's classic Hong Kong kung fu films. Buy the special edition of "Enter The Dragon" from Warner Brothers (which has some DVD extras that are terrific) and add it to this collection and you'll TRUELY own a master collection.