Customer Reviews

Opium and Kung Fu Master

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

 

 

This film has been difficult to find in the past. Not exactly a lost classic, certainly not obscure -given the cast, but I am certainly grateful to Celestial and Jade Tiger for making this fine print available. I have been waiting for someone to transfer some of these classics on to Blu Ray. Celestial bought the rights to DVD release the entire Shaw filmography and the have done a great job. Films that have been available only as awful VHS prints were digitally remastered lovingly, way beyond what I thoght possible.
That said- this has not been mastered from an original film print but instead is an upscaled DVD, mastered as a Blu Ray disc. Anime fans have been getting this shaft for a while, now it looks like martial arts movie fans are the latest victims.
Don't get me wrong, this is a beautiful print, like most Celestial prints, it is not however true HD.
The sound on this disc is poor, I have Celestial DVD's with far better sound quality, I am not sure what the issue was with the audio.
Shaw Brothers fans will have to wait with their fingers crossed hoping someone will be willing to put the effort Celestial did with DVD for true HD Shaw titles.
This disc comes included with a beautiful liner notes booklet, filled with great photos and information.

Movie- 5 Stars
Print- 4 Stars
Audio- 2 Stars
Extras- 4 Stars (beautifl liner notes, interviews etc.)

If you are looking for a lot of martial arts action that is well choreographed, it's worth spending the money to get this relatively inexpensive blu ray. I'd never heard of this movie until I read the review on bluray.com and since the price was so reasonable on Amazon, I decided to buy it.

The plot is predictable and laughingly melodramatic - my wife and I sat there cracking up at the cheesy acting - but the fight scenes are very well executed. And there are plenty of fight scenes, starting up at the slightest provocation.

The picture quality in blu ray is excellent, especially considering the age of the movie. Sound quality is okay, about as good as you can expect. The sound effects of things like swords clinking against each other are pretty repetitive, just the same effect used over and over no matter what part of the swords hit each other.

If you want a good martial arts action flick and aren't looking for something deep, plus you want good picture quality, this movie would be a good choice.

Excellent film from Shaw Brother.
Fantastic quality on Blu-ray,it looks better than many top Hollywood films.

Ti Lung is magnificent as the hero, great fight sequences.

The standard DVD also is top quality.

Beautifully coloured and in 2.35 CinemaScope(ShawScope)

Recommended Highly

Anti-drug martial arts movie with a bit more plot and a bit less action than average (but not a lot less action). Nice change from the usual Hong Kong Cinema fare.

I bought the Bluray version and it is superb quality in 2.35 Widescreen.

Great story,very well Produced
Highly Recommended.

I understand the DVD is from the same superb master.

A true Shaw Brother's Classic. Great fighting Sceens and a real drama too. The film shows the ugly truth of drug addition. The Kung Fu Master who thinks his casual use of Opium is harmless. Soon learns the folly of his actions. As he first looses some of his student to the drug and then himself. In the end he tries to redeem himself, fight off the druglords that control it, and honor his fallen students.

For a Ti Lung Shaw brother movie that I have never seen before it was pretty good. The transfer does have a few grain issues but overall it looks really good.

To me this was just not one of the better of the Shaw Brothers movies.

It deals with the Opium issues that China went thru during the western invasion. However, I just did not feel for the characters. I also thought there was not enough KF action.

Ti Lung always gives a good performance, however, this is not one of his better movies.

Great movie that captures the evils of drug addiction and how it almost destroyed a great martial arts master, the fight scene between Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai is a classic you can watch over and over again. Highly recommended.

I just recently purchased Opium and the Kung-Fu Master, I have read a lot of reviews about it and it turned out to be an excellent movie!

However..
I included a screen shot along with this just an alt+print screen cropped to the player window for your reference.
http://s5.tinypic.com/qs9y5g.jpg

When I capture a picture with my software dvd player (VideoLan aka VLC, and power dvd, and windvd) it does not capture the white frame it appears normal. (as in the whole frame not just the films frame)
Of course the white frame happens still in my hardware "set top" dvd player plays the frame white too.


Also, I noticed that the framerates play differently in set tops and software players (set top plays at 30fps and software a 23.97? aka 24fps) which gives different run times.
On VLC it is at 37:40 or on power dvd it is 36:47 (Same scene though)
This is not a hardware or software problem as you can see from the picture included, but rather a possible bad pressed disc, or a bad flag, a bad transfer, or bad Authoring.