Customer Reviews

Martial Arts Essentials, Vol. 5: Gordon Liu and the Lau Family Collection

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Still havent seen this set but here's the titles:

"Odd Couple": Liu Chia Wing teams up with good friend and colleague Sammo Hung for weapons.
"Breakout From Oppression": Showcases the abilities of future star of "36th Chamber of Shaolin".
"His Name Is Nobody": Liu Chia Wing teams up with Liu Chia Jen. A masterpiece of the genre.
"Two Graves To Kung-Fu": Liu Chia Wing stars in an early "old school" piece. It might not be intricate but it makes up for it with brutality.
"Fury In Shaolin Temple": Gordon Liu returns to Shaolin and has to face the dreaded 'Bronzemen' of Shaolin.
"Revenge Of The Patriots": Liu Chia Liang action directed this star packed epic. His skillful hand is evident with his unique brand of detail in every action scene.

I have only one movie left to watch, "Revenge of the Patriots". I'll finish off my review when I finally watch that one.

Note: I've gone through and revised some of my earlier reviews to make them better and more informative. Please feel free to comment on how useful you found my review(s).
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1. Odd Couple

Language: original with subtitles
Format: original widescreen

Wow! This movie is *AWESOME*! I was hoping for a great movie, but this one totally blew me away.

First off, the video quality is great for a VideoAsia release. Sometimes the quality from them can make you feel like you're watching a VHS tape again. However, I found this movie to have solid, consistent quality through it's entirety. There was no warping, color wackiness, static, or other such nonsense.

Anyway, on to the movie itself...

AWESOME! This movie is great! It has some of the best fighting I've ever seen! The story centers around our two main characters who are best friends and rivals. Both are masters of their chosen weapon; for one, the one-handed sword; for the other, the spear. All of their fight scenes (and there are a LOT of fight scenes) are amazing with incredible creativity and skill. There were even a couple of times where I spoke out in amazement because I was so impressed. The fights are also very fast, though there seems to be a couple of times where they sped up the video to make it look faster. All in all, I think it's totally awesome and highly impressive. A great Kung Fu film.

5/5

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2. Breakout from Oppression

Language: dubbed
Format: cropped fullscreen

The movie itself is rather average. It has a storyline, but I couldn't entirely figure out what it was. It moves at a fast pace and leaves stuff out, so I was left wondering what was going on. All I really managed to figure out was that our main character was seeking to bring a murderer to justice.

The fight scenes are kinda cool. It's not the fancy, flashy, impossible Kung Fu I like to see in my movies, but it was still pretty cool. It was very fast and brutal. Much more 'practical' Kung Fu than is typical. Unfortunately, the cropped video along with most of the fights being shot too close to the action leave you missing some of it. But, I still enjoyed the fight scenes. The fighting very much had a brutal, no frills, no punches pulled feel to it.

3/5

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3. His Name is Nobody

Language: original with subtitles
Format: original widescreen

This is a very unique movie. It follows the life of our main character who's "name is 'Nobody'" (he just doesn't have a name) =P. It starts out with his infancy and follows him along through most of his life. The movie has a very epic feel to it because of this. You get a sense that you're not watching a small movie, but a larger movie that has impact. This is, in general, a good movie. Even if its focus was not on Kung Fu, I could probably recommend it. It requires a bit more patience to watch than most Kung Fu films. There aren't fights every two second (unfortunately) and the story is rather slow, but that's probably due to the epic feel. What fights there are are very good and the story is decent with a few interesting twists. It's a movie that made me think. Hopefully it'll do the same for you.

4/5

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4. Two Graves to Kung Fu

Language: dubbed
Format cropped fullscreen

I'm not normally a fan of this style of Kung Fu movie. I prefer ones with more, for lack of a better phrase, fantastical Kung Fu like 'Invincible Armor' or 'Iron Monkey'. However, I found myself enjoying this movie. Unlike most Kung Fu films, this one has a focus on story, and that's actually what I enjoyed most about it. The story is pretty decent and I found myself wrapped up in it. The fight scenes are decent, but not too spectacular. They suffer the same problem most movies in this subgenre have; the fights are shot too close to the camera at times and the cropping (not the fault of the film's creators) makes the screen feel crowded and cuts out a large amount of the action.

Overall, this is a pretty decent movie. The story was better than the action scenes. Though, I found myself enjoyed 'Breakout From Oppression' more despite it's incoherent storyline. The action scenes were better and the main character was more awesome. He's a walking bad-a** who knows he's awesome and just kicks everyone's butts.

2.5/5

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5. Fury in Shaolin Temple

Language: dubbed
Format: cropped fullscreen

This movie is pretty cool. I actually enjoyed the storyline somewhat and the fighting is great.

The premise of the movie is interesting. Two martial artists, one of Shaolin the other of DragonFist, trade their newborn sons so that they'll learn the other's form of martial arts. They do this with the intention, I assume, of trading them back and teaching them the other form of martial arts, thereby creating two fighters who have combined two very powerful styles to create the ultimate fist. (I'm not sure if that made any sense).

The storyline for this movie is very semi-interesting. It works to the extent that it holds the movie together in a reasonable premise for Kung Fu action. I enjoyed the storyline, but I wouldn't watch the movie again with the storyline in mind.

This movie looks very good. The word I can think of to describe it is "colorful". For some reason I find this movie to just be colorful. There's a variety of settings and most of the camera's shots look very good and have lots of color.

The fight scenes in this movie are great. There's a fair amount of training scenes in fancy locations and both of the main characters are very impressive in their skill. The fights are fast and interesting. There were times they sped up the film to make certain moves look faster (very prevalent in the final fight), but it doesn't bring the film down.

Unfortunately, I have to comment on the dubbing for this movie. In general, it could be worse, but I found it to be worse than normal at times. Especially that one monk (I don't know his name). The dubbing for him is bad, but it *really* cracks me up because the voice seems so inappropriate for the character. So, I'm at a dilemma. I can't decide if it's bad (because it sucks) or good (because it's funny).

Overall, the colorful palette and impressive skill in the fight scenes combine to make a great Kung Fu film.

4/5

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6. Revenge of the Patriots

Review coming soon!

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Overall, this movie collection is great. Much better than vol. 1 (films of Yuen Wo Ping) where there were only two movies I would consider watching again (but those two are *awesome*). Here, however, I enjoyed every movie so far and would consider watching any of them again. Especially 'Odd Couple' as that has the *most* impressive martial arts I've ever seen. So, yes, yes, yes, pick up this collection. It's great and you won't be wasting a cent.

Have any further questions? Ask them in the comments and I'll respond and update my review accordingly!