A Man Called Tiger (1973) (Eureka Entertainment)

[MifuneFan]

Eureka will be releasing the Hong Kong Martial Arts film A Man Called Tiger (1973), which stars Jimmy Wang Yu, on August 27th.

A Man Called Tiger (Blu-ray)

https://diabolikdvd.com/product/a-ma...-ray-preorder/

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling
• Limited edition reversible poster featuring original poster artwork
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K restoration of the rarely seen uncut Hong Kong theatrical release version of the film, making its home video debut in the UK (112 mins)
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K restoration of the re-release version of the film (79 mins)
• Original Mandarin and classic English dub audio options on both cuts of the film (original mono presentations)
• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
• Brand new audio commentary on the Hong Kong version by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and Michael Worth
• Brand new audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
• Reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork
• Cutting Tiger, Hidden Subtitles – Brand new video essay by Brandon Bentley
• Do You Know What Sadness Means? + Because I Have Your Love – Music videos prepared exclusively for this release
• Textless opening
• Reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork
• Trailer
• A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by writer and critic James Oliver, and a short essay by Brandon Bentley about the versions of the film presented on this release]

A MAN CALLED TIGER (Eureka Classics) New & Exclusive Trailer - YouTube

SYNOPSIS: Starring Jimmy Wang Yu (The One-Armed Swordsman) and directed by Lo Wei, the man behind the smash-hit Bruce Lee vehicles The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, A Man Called Tiger is a martial arts extravaganza released at the height of an international kung fu craze.

Chin Fu (Wang Yu) is a formidable martial artist who suspects his father’s apparent suicide was actually a cold-blooded murder. His desire for answers – and revenge – leads him to Japan, where he becomes entangled with the yakuza. With the aid of his fellow countryman Liu Han-ming (James Tien, Hand of Death) and a nightclub hostess (Maria Yi, Fist of Fury), Chin Fu sets out to infiltrate Tokyo’s underworld, expose a criminal conspiracy and uncover his father’s true fate by any means necessary.

Long rumored to have been planned as the third collaboration between Lo Wei and Bruce Lee before Lee made his directorial debut with The Way of the Dragon, A Man Called Tiger instead became a vehicle for another martial arts superstar in Jimmy Wang Yu. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film for the first time ever on Blu-ray from a brand new 2K restoration.

[Danespina]

Export cut of Tiger is 33 minutes longer than the theatrical? Quite a difference.

[MegatronX]

Originally Posted by Danespina

Export cut of Tiger is 33 minutes longer than the theatrical? Quite a difference.

The longer version is the original theatrical version, the shorter cut is from the 1978 reissue. Fortune Star mislabled the versions.

[Danespina]

Originally Posted by MegatronX

The longer version is the original theatrical version, the shorter cut is from the 1978 reissue. Fortune Star mislabled the versions.

Ah, that clarifies things.
So it's kind of like the two New Fist of Fury cuts on Arrow's release.

[Walter Kafka]

Love Jimmy.

[DukeTogo84]

Never heard of this one, but placed a pre-order. The more HK cinema the better.

[MegatronX]

Well it was easy enough, but Eureka has the VHS cover beat!

[fred25_Ca]

Not by much, their new art is surprisingly pretty bad. I usually like their new art but this one feels a bit awkward. Anybody has seen this one? I love the Shaw brothers Jimmy Wang Yu films but not quite sure about his post-shaw films yet.

[MegatronX]

Originally Posted by fred25_Ca

Not by much, their new art is surprisingly pretty bad. I usually like their new art but this one feels a bit awkward. Anybody has seen this one? I love the Shaw brothers Jimmy Wang Yu films but not quite sure about his post-shaw films yet.

I've only seen the shorter version, and wasn't too keen - it's slow and stodgy, with surprisingly little flavour of Japan considering they shot it there (hopefully the longer version rectifies this).

[MegatronX]

Here is the kick-ass intro to the longer version

A MAN CALLED TIGER (1973) - YouTube

This scene is totally missing from the more commonly seen re-issue version, which opens with this show-stopper

A Man Called Tiger (1973) Opening Scene - YouTube

I'm a bit baffled why a film set in Japan has so many Mandarin songs, but I suspect the Japanese setting was only because Wang Yu was still contractually banned from working in Hong Kong.

[moviemaker]

Just pre-ordered this. It's nice that it's an Eureka US release to boot.

[Sommerswerd]

On the Eureka website, I noticed a few extras that aren't listed above:

• Cutting Tiger, Hidden Subtitles – Brand new video essay by Brandon Bentley

• Do You Know What Sadness Means? + Because I Have Your Love – Music videos prepared exclusively for this release

• Textless opening

[Danespina]

Good eye.

Another two differences I noticed are that:

• the audio commentary with Frank Djeng now also includes Michael Worth

• the booklet now contains a short essay by Brandon Bentley about the versions of the film presented on this release

[MifuneFan]

Thanks guys, I've updated the post with the updated extras.

[apollo828]

Very cool. Glad to see that the original cut was able to be fully reconstructed. IIRC, there are at least three four different cuts:

- 1978 re-release cut. 79 min.
- Unknown Mandarin cut, released on VCD in Hong Kong. 104 min. when adjusted for PAL speed-up, and starting with the nightclub song scene.
- The Taiwanese tape, which seems to be close to the full theatrical cut (or maybe it is the theatrical cut?) but is missing some footage. 105 min., and it seems to be a proper NTSC transfer.
- 2024 restoration, stitching together an uncut version, complete with some bits of footage that don't appear to have been shown in public in decades, if ever. Unknown runtime at the moment but presumably 112-113 min.

EDIT: Looks like there are at least four edits! OldPangYau pointed out that there's yet another edit! Hard to say precise which release has which edit but the Blu sounds like it'll have an uncut version, which is good enough for me.

[OldPangYau]

Originally Posted by apollo828

Very cool. Glad to see that the original cut was able to be fully reconstructed. IIRC, there are at least three different cuts:

- 1978 re-release cut (79 min.)
- Unknown Mandarin cut, released on VCD in Hong Kong (104 min. when adjusted for PAL speed-up, and starting with the nightclub song scene)
- Original theatrical cut, in English and Mandarin (112 min., with only the Taiwanese tape having the complete Mandarin dub)

Funny enough, that Taiwanese tape wasn't complete either, lol. It actually COMPLETELY misses Han Ying Chieh's final fight, plus the cable car fight after. Oh, and all previous releases miss a bit of nudity only in the new restoration... totally important to the plot, I know, lol.

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by OldPangYau

Funny enough, that Taiwanese tape wasn't complete either, lol. It actually COMPLETELY misses Han Ying Chieh's final fight, plus the cable car fight after. Oh, and all previous releases miss a bit of nudity only in the new restoration... totally important to the plot, I know, lol.

Gotta love all these different cuts, and restorations that have new footage nobody appeared to know about. Carry On Pickpocket went from Didi Pang's body double giving the audience a bit of light-hearted skin to almost poking out the cameraman's eyes!

Anyway, it's unfortunate that, once again, the labels had to stitch together a complete (?) original language track from less-than-ideal sources. (As I understand things, Vidi, the label that put out the Mandarin tape in Taiwan, always had tapes that were a bit rough.) I can't help but wonder if the original audio would've been found in the archives had enough searching been done. Oh well. Until some deep-pocketed benefactor comes along, this is about as good as it's going to get. Better something than nothing. Can't wait to see/hear the final results!

[OldPangYau]

Originally Posted by apollo828

Gotta love all these different cuts, and restorations that have new footage nobody appeared to know about. Carry On Pickpocket went from Didi Pang's body double giving the audience a bit of light-hearted skin to almost poking out the cameraman's eyes!

Anyway, it's unfortunate that, once again, the labels had to stitch together a complete (?) original language track from less-than-ideal sources. I can't help but wonder if the original audio would've been found in the archives had enough searching been done. Oh well. Until some deep-pocketed benefactor comes along, this is about as good as it's going to get. Better something than nothing. Can't wait to see/hear the final results!

It was honestly shocking that it was an English dub that was found to match this cut and NOT the Mandarin track, hence our search to grab whatever elements we could find to compile it all without having to revert to English at any point, lol. Especially since any incarnation of the English dub previously only conformed to the shorter cut of the film.

[JHUJG789]

Originally Posted by OldPangYau

It was honestly shocking that it was an English dub that was found to match this cut and NOT the Mandarin track, hence our search to grab whatever elements we could find to compile it all without having to revert to English at any point, lol. Especially since any incarnation of the English dub previously only conformed to the shorter cut of the film.

I never expected to be able to watch this movie, especially its long version, in high quality. I thought that even if a Blu-ray were released, it would only include the shortened 79-minute version. I want to express my gratitude to everyone involved in the production of this Blu-ray.
By the way, the narrow alley where Jimmy was fighting in the long version's opening scene has remained almost unchanged, even after more than 50 years.

[Danespina]

I've been waiting to preorder this one for a while now, but Unobstructedview haven't listed it. I emailed them because they've already got later Eureka titles up like The Champions in September, but they responded "We haven't received any materials from MVD on this title yet".