Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits (1971-1978)

[Akijama]

BRUCE LEE: HIS GREATEST HITS Trailer - YouTube

[siulung1270]

Originally Posted by OldPangYau

This is probably the one blu-ray project I was most excited to help with in a small way! I'm definitely having a "pinch me" moment that my Big Boss commentary is on there... "High school me" wouldn't believe me if I told him, lol. The one thing I was trying not to blow was that it not only had ETD, but the theatrical cut as well!

Also, I know most people aren't a fan of this track, but the Cantonese mono for The Big Boss is from a new and clearer sounding source.

And yes, a new HD master of Game of Death 2, lol.

Congrats! Will the common Eng dub of The Big Boss with Peter Thomas score be the same sound source as Shout’s 4K individual release? Also will the picture have the slight cropping that one had? Thanks

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The previous attempt at a new transfer (to replace that bizarrely aliased original one, probably the result of a poor upconversion back to 1920x1080 from a 1440x1080 source) was okay but it had some rather shoddy remastering of its own.

Perhaps the original one was sourced from an HDCAM tape? There's two different types of HDCAM tapes- HDCAM (which is 1440x1080 but you squeeze out to 1920x1080), and HDCAM-SR (SR is full 1920x1080). It's rare to see any form of HDCAM content being used on BD now unless it's anime from the mid-2000s to around 2013 for production reasons caused by the tsunami.

Comparing the special edition DVD to the first BD shows they share the same transfer, so it's possible the compressionist was given an HDCAM tape for the BD.

[jtu128]

I know the stunts and fighting are the main attraction here but are these movies actually “good”?

[Killer Meteor]

Any chance the Japanese audio tracks for Big Boss and Fist of Fury could be included, as they were for Way and Game on the SF releases?

[professorwho]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

Any chance the Japanese audio tracks for Big Boss and Fist of Fury could be included, as they were for Way and Game on the SF releases?

What's special about the Japanese audio tracks? Are they just dubs or different cuts?

I don't think they'll be included for licensing issues (because Japan is also Region A, it may not be allowed because of reverse importation tactics).

[Drunksnake]

Shame they couldn’t include the complete behind the scenes footage shot by Ahna Capri. Will by this set though yet another Bruce collection!

[Killer Meteor]

I guess by its title that "Game of Death II" will be the longer English version, and not the Cantonese version "Tower of Death"?

[Hatfield Peverel]

The trailer shows the improved Shout colour scheme, but the grabs on the website seem to show quite another. It may be worth members emailing mulvaney@criterion.com to double-check if Criterion are aware that Shout Factory retimed the 4K Fortune Star masters to a much more satisfying colour scheme. I'm now concerned that the trailer may have been created from Shout Blu-ray rips, while the technical and QC team may not be aware of the difference between the two presentations, and we'll get the crappy blue-ish presentation. It would be a huge shame if, after getting the colours much more accurate on The Great Escape, they left the Bruce Lees with the clumsy original grade through ignorance.

[Shingster]

Originally Posted by jtu128

I know the stunts and fighting are the main attraction here but are these movies actually “good”?

Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon are pretty solid genre pics, the rest are very "meh".

[Nailwraps]

Originally Posted by Chorake

Any word on if The Big Boss will have both of its dubs included?

^ Better ask Mulvaney while you're at it.


Speaking of, the original Mono versions of the dubs were lossy on the Shout! Blus too so there's no loss no gain with that. Even so, they (and every English dub for Criterion titles) should be lossless (and have the 5.1 remixes too).

I'm not being picky, I'm glad we're getting them! Better that than nothing. What's also cool is that one of extras explored the English dubbing of these movies (including with one of the voice actors) so that'll be cool to check out.

[Surge92]

Originally Posted by jtu128

I know the stunts and fighting are the main attraction here but are these movies actually “good”?

Of course, if entertaining action flicks are what you're looking for. They're not widely considered classics for no reason (well, maybe not Game of Death).

[Surge92]

Originally Posted by Shingster

Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon are pretty solid genre pics, the rest are very "meh".

The Big Boss is great, too, in my opinion. Way of the Dragon has a little more comedy than I'd like, but is still really good. Hell, even Game of Death is enjoyable, although I definitely liked it more as a kid, before I realized how hokey some of it was.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by professorwho

Perhaps the original one was sourced from an HDCAM tape? There's two different types of HDCAM tapes- HDCAM (which is 1440x1080 but you squeeze out to 1920x1080), and HDCAM-SR (SR is full 1920x1080). It's rare to see any form of HDCAM content being used on BD now unless it's anime from the mid-2000s to around 2013 for production reasons caused by the tsunami.

Comparing the special edition DVD to the first BD shows they share the same transfer, so it's possible the compressionist was given an HDCAM tape for the BD.

HDCAM was sometimes used as the mastering source for HD consumer deliverables at that time, yeah, and there were several early Warners discs that were affected by this issue including Full Metal Jacket, Caddyshack, Perfect Storm, Enter the Dragon, The Fugitive, Lethal Weapon 2 and probably a few more that I'm forgetting. Not that this aliasing was inherent to stuff delivered on HDCAM, it's just that Warners' mastering house ****ed it up.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Had no idea Criterion was gonna go all out with the Bruce Lees, exciting! So we're gonna get Enter The Dragon in both cuts and possibly a new 2k master for Game of Death II which never had a US BD release before (though "HD presentation" kinda worries me as it implies they'll be using whatever master Fortune Star supplies them).

The reason why both cuts of EOD are 2k restorations is probably because Warner did those scans from IPs (they only do 2k for IPs and 4k for OCNs if usable). It's possible the OCN for Enter is ether lost, too heavily damaged to restore under a restrained budget, or with another party (Bruce Lee's estate or possibly Fortune Star) who weren't willing to work directly with Warner for reasons.

Hopefully they'll attempt to correct the opening for GOD which is missing the Raymond Chow/GH opening card with the beginning flourish of the GOD theme (Media Asia deleted and probably discarded the OCN footage for this when they had the rights and FS only did a half effort restoration by restoring GH, but used the one with the Chinese characters which was only used on the Mandarin version). Since they're using the masters Shout made for their Selects BDs, I doubt they'd be aware of it or FS would even allow them to make visual changes, but it's an idea.

Unlike Toho for certain franchises, FS isn't as strict with audio correction and changes with other labels as long as their supplied remixes are included. I'm sure Criterion were able to source better mono audio some of the other BL titles with problematic audio and maybe corrected the pitch on GOD's 5.1 mix (which was improperly back converted from a 25fps master and was carried on to all FS supplied releases)

Criterion can't have made their trailers from the Shout BD files, as last years Police Story trailers weren't from their BDs and used the 4k remasters from Fortune Star. It's possible Criterion bargained with FS to use the Shout's corrected masters, or those color corrected masters were approved by the surviving DOPs or Bruce Lee's estate and that's what they use but for the US only?

[UniSol GR77]

I'm here for:

Getting MORE footage from the original "Game of Death", as seen on various documentaries, finally preserved on HD.

[NeoNical]

Haven't seen the Game of Death footage nor have I ever seen a Bruce Lee film for a while. I hope they do release some information about the deleted Big Boss cuts. That stuff is really interesting to hear about in my opinion

[UniSol GR77]

About "Enter the Dragon", a 4K transfer/restoration exists:

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2...ter-the-dragon

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by SpaceBlackKnight

Hopefully they'll attempt to correct the opening for GOD which is missing the Raymond Chow/GH opening card with the beginning flourish of the GOD theme (Media Asia deleted and probably discarded the OCN footage for this when they had the rights and FS only did a half effort restoration by restoring GH, but used the one with the Chinese characters which was only used on the Mandarin version).

It is on the Japanese print Shout included as an extra so they could use that.

I hope they have access to better Mandarin mono tracks for Fist and Way - the ones on the various Fortune Star releases are very muffled. The English track for GOD was the same, as supplied by Fortune Star, but fortunatly Shout was able to use track from the old 1999 Fox DVD as an alternative.

[Worship.my.wreck]

pre-ordered. Now just waiting for the Wong Kar-Wai set.