"Actor: Lu Huang"

• Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £5.22   |  Saving you £16.03 (404.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Director Ang Lee’s return to Chinese cinema is an action packed and critically acclaimed epic tale of ancient China.

• The Thundering Mantis | DVD | (25/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Seriously weird as only the best, completely-barking-mad kung fu flicks can be, The Thundering Mantis is the story of Ah Chi, a martial artist who hooks up with a kid sidekick. However, an old grudge resurfaces, with the result that the boy's uncle is murdered and the boy himself kidnapped. So far so Arnie-in-Commando, but it's at this point we're reminded that indigenous martial arts movies are something else again, as Ah Chi's rescue attempt goes disastrously wrong and the boy is tortured to death before his eyes. Apparently driven to insanity by this experience, Ah Chi goes berserk, breaking free and systematically trashing everything and everyone in sight. End of movie. Devotees will absolutely want this in their collections, but those who have yet to progress beyond the Jackie Chan/Jet Li school of Americanised martial arts films will need to leave their preconceptions at the door. There's a nice touch to the dubbed English soundtrack, where the voiceover artists seem to have taken it upon themselves to imitate various British character actors: listen out for Wilfred Brambell, Kenneth Connor and so on. On the DVD: The Thundering Mantis has no extras on the widescreen DVD other than a one-screen guide to other titles in the Kung Fu Connection series. --Roger Thomas

• Origin Wars | Blu Ray | (24/07/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonisation, Sy (Kellan Lutz, The Twilight Saga, The Expendables 3), escapes a brutal prison where mysterious experiments have been taking place under the watch of a savage warden (Temuera Morrison, Star Wars Episodes 2 & 3, Once Were Warriors). After orchestrating an escape, Sy meets Kane (Daniel MacPherson, The Shannara Chronicles), a lieutenant working for an off-world military contractor - EXOR, who have set in motion a plan to wipe out all life from the face of the planet in an attempt to cover up their crimes - when their terrifying experiments escape. Now, the unlikely pair must work together to rescue Kane's young daughter, Indi (Teagan Croft, Home and Away), and reach safety before it's too late. Teaming up with a pair of rough-and-ready outlaws, Gyp (Isabel Lucas, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) and Bill (Luke Ford, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), it's a race against time for the group as they clash with EXOR in an attempt to escape while battling the savage creatures that roam the barren planet. From writer-director Shane Abbess (Infini, Gabriel), Origin Wars is a brand new science-fiction adventure set in a fantastically realised, and wholly original, universe. Featuring intense aerial dog-fights, hard-hitting action, impressive practical effects and an extraordinary cast, Origin Wars offers a thrilling experience in sci-fi adventure.

• Legendary - Tomb Of The Dragon | DVD | (18/05/2015) from £4.22   |  Saving you £10.03 (338.85%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Cryptozoologist Dr Travis Preston (Scott Adkins) wants to establish if a prehistoric beast accused of killing oil construction workers is real or a myth. However at the same time ruthless competitor and trophy hunter Harker (Dolph Lundgren) wants to prove he is the best in the business and out-do Travis in any way he can. As Harker thrives on trophy killings and shoots to kill anything - and anyone - that gets in the way Travis finds himself in a race against time to preserve the rare but deadly creature. He is funded by a mysterious wealthy benefactor and finds himself escorted by their slightly overwhelmed lawyer. The rest of his team consists of two friends seasoned field workers Katie and Brandon and Jianyu a man who first gave him video proof of the creature. As the death toll mounts can Travis’ team battle against Harker and escape the jaws of death whilst saving the species from brutal extinction?

• Origin Wars | DVD | (24/07/2017) from £3.39   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonisation, Sy (Kellan Lutz, The Twilight Saga, The Expendables 3), escapes a brutal prison where mysterious experiments have been taking place under the watch of a savage warden (Temuera Morrison, Star Wars Episodes 2 & 3, Once Were Warriors). After orchestrating an escape, Sy meets Kane (Daniel MacPherson, The Shannara Chronicles), a lieutenant working for an off-world military contractor - EXOR, who have set in motion a plan to wipe out all life from the face of the planet in an attempt to cover up their crimes - when their terrifying experiments escape. Now, the unlikely pair must work together to rescue Kane's young daughter, Indi (Teagan Croft, Home and Away), and reach safety before it's too late. Teaming up with a pair of rough-and-ready outlaws, Gyp (Isabel Lucas, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) and Bill (Luke Ford, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), it's a race against time for the group as they clash with EXOR in an attempt to escape while battling the savage creatures that roam the barren planet. From writer-director Shane Abbess (Infini, Gabriel), Origin Wars is a brand new science-fiction adventure set in a fantastically realised, and wholly original, universe. Featuring intense aerial dog-fights, hard-hitting action, impressive practical effects and an extraordinary cast, Origin Wars offers a thrilling experience in sci-fi adventure. Special Feature: Q&A with Director Shane Abbess

• Chinese Ghost Story | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Ning Tsai-Shen a humble tax collector arrives in a small town to carry out his work. Unsurprisingly no-one is willing to give him shelter for the night so he ends up spending the night in the haunted Lan Ro temple. There he meets Taoist Swordsman Yen Che-Hsia who warns him to stay out of trouble and the beautiful Nieh Hsiao-Tsing with whom he falls in love. Unfortunately Hsiao-Tsing is a ghost bound for all eternity by a hideous tree spirit...

• Five Kung Fu Daredevil Heroes | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The five heroes pose as gun dealers and acrobats in order to get close enough to exact a deadly revenge upon the criminals responsible for the death of one of their brothers...

• Game Of Death 2 | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £9.17   |  Saving you £13.81 (223.46%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A martial arts adventure in which a young man out to avenge the murder of his brother finds him-self opposed by dozens of armed men. When it comes to a final showdown he is forced to pit all his strength against an enormous force of evil...

• Legend Of A Fighter | DVD | (05/03/2001) from £13.73   |  Saving you £6.26 (45.59%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the historically based Kung fu drama Legend of a Fighter director Yuen Woo Ping offers his version of the early life of martial artist Fok Yuen Gap (played by Leung Kar Yan). Set at the beginning of the 20th century, Fok is considered too weak to learn the family Kung fu style. Still, as his father can break eggs by growling, he probably considers most people weak. The teenager forms a bond with his humane Japanese tutor (Kurata Yusuaki), who secretly teaches martial arts. The story builds to a moving climax as 12 years later pupil and now ageing master are forced by honour into a deadly duel. The opening and closing acts are by far the strongest, the plentiful fight scenes being balanced by gentle humour and emotions torn between friendship and duty. Both lead actors are excellent, with Yusuaki being particularly fine as the noble warrior-teacher. The middle, a series of disconnected tableaux in which Fok establishes his stature as a Kung fu expert, goes on much too long to sustain interest. Nevertheless the story of Fok Yuen Gap, a genuine Chinese hero who was also the inspiration for Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (1972), is fine and Woo Ping delivers the one-on-one Kung fu action with the touch of a master.On the DVD: The 1.77:1 image doesn't benefit at all from its anamorphic enhancement, the entire film being presented slightly out of focus so that by the end eyes are likely to be aching. The opening 4:3 Academy ratio archive footage has been distorted to 1.77:1, while the original trailer shows Legend of a Fighter was shot in an extremely wide format--possibly the Hong Kong equivalent of early 2.66:1 CinemaScope, or even 2.74:1 Techniscope--which means that large amounts of the original image are missing. This is very obvious as characters constantly vanish off the sides of the screen or are cropped in half. Additionally, and again compared to the crisp, sharp trailer, colours are washed out, while the mono sound distorts whenever the music gets loud. The film is available in Mandarin with optional English subtitles, or in an awful English dub littered with inappropriate obscene language. There is a nine-minute interview with Leung Kar Yan, and a 23-minute interview with Yuen Woo Ping, which is a slightly longer version of the conversation presented on the Magnificent Butcher DVD: it's notable how he expresses his love of science fiction and indicates he would like to make a SF Kung-fu movie, something he achieved with The Matrix (1999). There is a Hong Kong Legends' promo for the film, together with seven further new trailers. The photo gallery is pointless, simply cropping some shots even further than the main presentation. --Gary S Dalkin

• Encounters Of The Spooky Kind | DVD | (12/11/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Sammo Hung plays Courageous Cheung a cuckolded husband who faces a series of supernatural challenges from his wife's wealthy lover. First Cheung must survive a night in a house haunted by a bloodthirsty vampire. From there things just get worse and more comical. For those unfamiliar with the Chinese horror genre the film is a wild ride through the supernatural mythology and folklore of China: hopping corpses supernatural possession by a monkey god the gratuitous sacrifice of a

• Guy With Secret Kung Fu | DVD | (24/01/2005) from £7.98   |  Saving you £2.01 (20.10%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Evil vs. Good as the outlaw bandits try to destroy the only people able to protect a small village. However the young challengers use their abilities to fight bravely and keep their town from these brutal thieves.

• She, A Chinese | DVD | (21/06/2010) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-4.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A young woman escapes her life in a provincial Chinese village and heads to London to marry an older man only to find her entrapment begins anew.

• The Killer Meteors | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Jackie Chan portrays one of two men worldwide proficient with a special secret weapon earning him the name Killer Meteor. He is on a mission to find the thief of some palace treasures and in the process is hired by the Immortal Wa to kill Wa's wife as he believes she has poisoned him. However she is guarded by a small army which means the Meteor may have a bit of trouble.

• Method Man | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £16.25   |  Saving you £-10.26 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Fast and furious marial arts action. The undisputed king of kicks Casanova Wong stars in this kung fu flick watch in amazement as he takes on the acrobatic genius of Peter Chen in one of the best screen end fights of all time.

• Game Of Death 2 | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £14.58   |  Saving you £-7.59 (-108.60%)   |  RRP £6.99

  A martial arts adventure in which a young man out to avenge the murder of his brother finds him-self opposed by dozens of armed men. When it comes to a final showdown he is forced to pit all his strength against an enormous force of evil...

• 2000 AD | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £8.94   |  Saving you £11.05 (123.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  2000 AD reunites Aaron Kwok and Andrew Lin from the ferociously pyrotechnic Black Sheep Affair (1998) for a slick but muddled Hong Kong/Singapore co-production conspiracy thriller about computer espionage. Kwok and Lin make fine adversaries, and have one excellent martial arts battle on a vertigo-inducing rooftop. Otherwise the action involves powerfully staged Heat-style gun play rather than martial arts, one set-piece car chase/shoot-out being strongly influenced by the Riviera pursuit in Ronin (1997). Beginning as a serious thriller, Kwok's nerdish computer games designer transforms into an invulnerable action hero, and any sense of plausibility is sacrificed for regulation mayhem. Cluttered with more characters than it knows what to do with, 2000 AD combines aspects of The Net (1995) and Entrapment (1999) into a largely nonsensical plot. Lin's villain is given vital information which later he is completely ignorant of. We never find out exactly what he is planning, or who he is really working for, and in one mystifying sequence he crashes the Singapore stock exchange, yet the event has absolutely no effect on anything. Though the cast is engaging and the direction polished the finale is an anti-climax, symptomatic of a highly entertaining movie which promises more than it delivers. On the DVD: The 1.77:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer is clean and generally free from grain; the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is as powerful as any heard on a Hong Kong movie, although listen though headphones and a fair degree of background hiss is clearly audible in the quiet scenes. The film can be viewed with the original Cantonese dialogue and English subtitles, or dubbed into English. Either way, a surprisingly large amount of the original dialogue is in English. There is a 19-minute "making of" documentary, though this is bland made-for-television promotional fare. Much better is the 14-minute interview with director Gordon Chan and a 17-minute interview with Andrew Lin who reveals how once shooting had begun his originally heroic part was re-written to make him the villain, thus explaining why the plot makes so little sense. Best of all is the commentary by Chan and Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan, which is packed with information about the movie, Hong Kong cinema and filmmaking in general. By itself it makes the DVD a worthwhile purchase. --Gary S Dalkin

• Kung Fu Hustle | Blu Ray | (12/12/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Game Of Death 2 | DVD | (08/07/2013) from £8.08   |  Saving you £1.91 (23.64%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The Ultimate Fighting Tribute to Martial Arts Legend Bruce Lee. From Ng See Yuen the legendary producer of Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master this non-stop martial arts showcase is a dynamic tribute to Bruce Lee and the Game of Death phenomenon. Travelling to Japan to investigate the mysterious murder of his brother Bobby Lo (Tong Lung) discovers a secret trail which leads to the mysterious Tower of Death. A forbidden fortress buried hundreds of feet under the earth its deadly secret is guarded by elite warriors each championing a different style of combat. To bring his brother's killer to justice and discover the Tower's secret Lo must first run the gauntlet of death from which no-one has ever returned alive! Taking over three years to complete Game of Death 2 is choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping action-director of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and features the formidable kicking skills of legendary Korean Tae-kwon-do master Hwang Jang Lee (Drunken Master). Special Features: Feature-length Audio-commentary with Bey Logan and co-star Roy Horan Trailer Gallery (including original theatrical trailer with rare deleted footage from Enter the Dragon) Biography Showcase Production Photo Gallery Deleted Footage Archive Interview Gallery with Roy Horan and Korean kicking expert Casanova Wongallery

• Ten Tigers Of Shaolin | DVD | (19/01/2004) from £12.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Kung Fu stars Bruce Liang and Jason Pai Piao lead a group of highly skilled fighters known as the Ten Tigers - real life heroes who roamed China during the last century.

• Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon -- Superbit | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £5.96   |  Saving you £7.03 (117.95%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is so many things: an historical epic on a grand scale, an Asian martial-arts flick with both great effects and fantastic fighting (choreographed by The Matrix's guru Yuen Wo Ping), a story of magic, revenge and power played with a posse of star-crossed lovers thrown in for good measure. Set during the Qing dynasty (the late 19th century), the film follows the fortunes of righteous warriors Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien (Asian superstars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, respectively) whose love for one another has lain too long unspoken. When Li Mu Bai's legendary sword Green Destiny is stolen by wilful aristocrat's daughter Jen (exquisite newcomer Zhang Ziyi), who has been trained in the way of the gangster by Li Mu Bai's arch-rival Jade Fox, the warriors must fight to recover the mystical blade. The plot takes us all across China, from dens of iniquity and sumptuous palaces to the stark plains of the Western desert. Characters chase each other up walls and across roof and treetops to breathtaking effect, and Tan Dun's haunting, Oscar-winning East-West inflected score. Directed by Taiwanese-born Ang Lee and co-written by his longtime collaborator American James Schamus, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon joins the ranks of the team's slate of high-quality, genre-spanning literary adaptations. Although it superficially seems like a return to Ang's Asian roots, there's a clear throughline connecting this with their earlier, Western films given the thematic focus on propriety and family honour (Sense and Sensibility), repressed emotions (The Ice Storm) and divided loyalties in a time of war (Ride with the Devil). Nonetheless, a film this good needs no prior acquaintance with the director's oeuvre; it stands on its own. The only people who might be dismissive of it are jaded chop-socky fans who will probably feel bored with all the romance. Everyone else will love it. --Leslie Felperin On the DVD: As might be expected this superb anamorphic widescreen version of the original 2.35:1 theatrical ratio presents Peter Pau's spellbinding cinematography in its full glory; the same goes for the Dolby 5.1 audio track that showcases Tan Dun's haunting score. Annoyingly, however, the default language option is the dubbed English soundtrack, which means you have to select the original Mandarin version before playing. The extra features are good but not exceptional, with an obligatory "making-of" documentary and commentary from Ang Lee and James Schamus being the best options: the director and producer/cowriter chat amiably and in some detail about their martial arts version of Sense and Sensibility. But it's the breathtaking delight of the seeing the movie in such quality that really counts, and this disc does not disappoint. --Mark Walker