"Actor: Yuen Chor"

• TWO TAOIST TALES (Eureka Classics) Special Edition Two-disc Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (23/09/2024) from £27.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Eureka Entertainment to release TWO TAOIST TALES (TAOISM DRUNKARD and THE YOUNG TAOISM FIGHTER), a couple of crazy kung-fu extravaganzas from the first family of Hong Kong martial arts, the Yuen Clan. Presented in their worldwide debuts on Blu-ray from a brand new 2K restorations. Available from 23 September 2024 as part of the Eureka Classics range, the first print run of 2000 copies only will exclusively feature a limited edition O-card slipcase, and a collector's booklet. In the wake of Encounter of the Spooky Kind, the Hong Kong film industry launched headlong into a prolific genre cycle that drew upon Taoist folklore. Popular throughout the 1980s and into the next decade, these films combined elements of horror, fantasy, comedy, and martial arts as they pit their protagonists against hopping vampires, vengeful ghosts, and evil sorcerers. Here, Eureka Classics is proud to present two of the most mind-bending tales of Taoist magic ever committed to film: Taoism Drunkard and The Young Taoism Fighter! Directed by and starring Yuen Cheung-yan (The Miracle Fighters), Taoism Drunkard follows a man with a love for wine who accidentally damages a sacred statue. To atone for this blunder, he is asked by an enraged Taoist priest (Hsiao Hou-tao) to find a virginal boy (Yuen Yat-chor) to aid in defending his temple from a demonic sorcerer (Yuen Shun-yi). Then, in The Young Taoism Fighter (directed by Police Story's Chen Chi-hwa), a practitioner of Taoist kung fu (Yuen Yat-chor) manages to separate his soul from his body before teaming up with a vengeful young woman (Hilda Liu Hao-yi) to take on a sinister sorcerer (Kwan Chung) and the evil leader of a rival kung fu school (Yen Shi-kwan). Filled with imagery both fantastical and thrilling - not least Taoism Drunkard's banana monster - and featuring some of the most jaw-droppingly inventive fight sequences in the history of martial arts cinema, Taoism Drunkard and The Young Taoism Fighter are cult classics from the celebrated Yuen Clan that need to be seen to be believed. Both films are presented on Blu-ray for the first time ever from brand new 2K restorations.Limited edition O-card slipcase (First print run of 2000 copies only) featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling | Both films presented in 1080p HD from brand new 2K restorations | Original Cantonese audio and optional English dub tracks (original mono presentations) | Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release | Brand new audio commentaries on both films by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) | Brand new audio commentaries on both films by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema | Brand new interview with director and actor Yuen Cheung-yan | Brand new interview with critic Andrew Heskins (easternKicks) | Trailers | PLUS: A limited edition collector's booklet (First print run of 2000 copies only) featuring new writing on the film by Southeast Asian horror expert Dr. Katarzyna Ancuta, and Spooky Encounters author Daniel O'Brien | * All extras subject to change

• Police Story | DVD | (24/09/2001) from £9.75   |  Saving you £10.24 (105.03%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Jackie Chan has become a genre unto himself, and watching Police Story, you'll understand why. The plot is minimal: Chan is a hero cop involved in a raid that goes wrong. He's assigned to guard a witness, the kingpin's attractive female secretary (Brigitte Lin). For the rest of the film, Chan's protecting himself from the secretary, from the gangsters out to silence her and from his own jealous girlfriend (Maggie Cheung). But watching Chan for plot is like watching porno for existential themes. While most modern action films steal cues from Westerns, Chan condenses those open mesas into the dense throngs of modern Hong Kong--and tosses in Buster Keaton slapstick. For example, when the opening raid goes haywire, there's an unbelievable car chase through the steep huddle of a hillside shantytown. That's through. No roads, just shacks. Flimsy shacks. As the film progresses, Chan scales a speeding bus using an umbrella, uses cow dung as an excuse to break into some Shaolin moonwalking and transforms an urban shopping mall into a demented gymnasium (think clothes racks, escalators, and lots of plate glass displays). Chan is amazingly versatile both physically and emotionally--and he's a secure enough star-director to let his co-stars shine, too. --Grant Balfour

• THE MIRACLE FIGHTERS | Blu Ray | (24/06/2024) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The Miracle Fighters is a comedic tale of taoist magic directed by the martial arts maestro behind Drunken Master, The Magnificent Butcher and Iron Monkey - the legendary Yuen Woo-ping! During the Quing dynasty, marriage between Manchu and Han people is outlawed. When it is discovered that high-ranking official Kao Hsiung (Eddy Ko) has taken a Han wife, the Emperor informs him that he will be forgiven - but only if he kills his beloved before the court. When he refuses, Kao Hsiung is marked for death by the powerful Sorcerer Bat (Yuen Shun-yee) and forced to watch as his wife is slain before his eyes. Kao Hsiung flees, kidnapping the Crown Prince during his escape - but soon the prince is dead, and Kao Hsiung is forced to silently replace him with another young boy. In adulthood, that innocent child - Shu Gut (Yuen Yat-chor) - finds himself relentlessly pursued by Sorcerer Bat, and turns to two quarrelling taoist priests in the hope of protecting himself with their magic. Made in the same mould as its contemporaries Encounter of the Spooky Kind and The Dead and the Deadly, this riotous kung fu fantasy was followed by two equally entertaining thematic sequels in Shaolin Drunkard and Taoism Drunkard. Eureka Classics is proud to present The Miracle Fighters on Blu-ray from a brand new 2K restoration. Extras: Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling [First print run of 2000 copies only] | 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray of the original Hong Kong theatrical cut from a brand new 2K restoration | Original Cantonese mono audio and optional classic English dub | Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release | Brand new audio commentary on the Hong Kong theatrical version by Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) | Brand new audio commentary on the export version by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema | Action Master: An Interview with Yuen Woo-ping - archival interview by Frédéric Ambroisine | John Kreng on Yuen Woo-ping - brand new documentary featurette by Michael Worth | Reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork | Trailer | PLUS: A limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver [First print run of 2000 copies only]

• In the Line of Duty | DVD | (24/12/2012) from £24.28   |  Saving you £-6.29 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £17.99

  From the acclaimed action director of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the Line of Duty is literally a non-stop roller-coaster ride of explosive fight action, starring Iron Monkey's Donnie Yen and fan favourites Cynthia Khan, Sunny Yuen and Michael Wong. When an immigrant Chinese dockworker comes into brief contact with secret evidence implicating American intelligence operatives and the Green Dragon Crime Syndicate in a major drug trafficking operation, he is marked for death. Now on the run and running out of time, his only hope for survival is two cops with nothing to hide and nothing to lose! In a number of incredible action-set-pieces leading man Donnie Yen shows off his fluid high-speed kicking and punching with an eclectic fighting style, which clearly owes much to the influences of Bruce Lee and legendary boxing champion, Sugar Ray Leonard. Fans of Yuen Woo-ping's recent ground-breaking work in the Ang Lee-directed box-office smash-hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon can now enjoy one of the most hi-impact and stunning action-adventures ever made on this unique feature-packed DVD presentation. Special Features: Audio Commentary with Hong Kong Cinema Expert Stefan Hammond and Co-star Michael Wong Animated Biography Showcase Original Theatrical Trailer UK Promotional Trailer Interview Gallery with Leading Man Donnie Yen Fully Animated Menus Production Photo Gallery

• Police Story 2 | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £16.02   |  Saving you £6.96 (53.42%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Police Story 2 (1989) is one of those rare sequels that's more fun than its predecessor. Jackie Chan plays his usual rule-breaking cop, loyal to superiors that carp at the destruction he leaves in his wake but are prepared to take credit for every success he has. Here he finds himself up against vengeful gangsters whose plans he frustrated in the first of the series; but he also has to combat a ruthless team of extortionists with a taste for explosions both large and small--blowing up large buildings, turning people into human bombs and torturing people with firecrackers are all part of their repertoire. He has girlfriend trouble, too, since his fiancée is worried that he always puts the job first. Like its predecessor and the quasi-sequel First Strike (1996), Police Story 2 is transitional between Chan's early more fight-orientated Hong Kong movies and his later, blander Hollywood films. The fights and stunts here are most of the point of what is essentially a very good generic Jackie Chan vehicle; he takes on progressively larger groups of opponents, coping, for example, with a dozen gangsters armed with swords in a terraced garden by leaping from level to level and paying each opponent individual attention. The final fight in a fireworks factory is a Chan classic, depending as it does as much on the comedy of frustrating repetition as on daring stunts. --Roz Kaveney

• Twin Dragons | DVD | (29/04/2002) from £6.73   |  Saving you £8.26 (55.10%)   |  RRP £14.99

  For 1992's Twin Dragons Jackie Chan resurrects the old Corsican Brothers chestnut of identical twin brothers separated at birth who meet up as adults and discover that they share more than blood ties. Poor boy Chan is a mechanic and race-car driver whose black-market activities have made him the target of some nasty mobsters, while jet-setting Chan is a world-famous conductor back in Hong Kong for a concert. In the same vicinity for the first time in years, they can suddenly feel each other's pain, and more. As one Chan jumps a jet boat for a wild escape, the other becomes a victim of the furious ride, thrown around a posh restaurant while drenching his date with drinking water. The whole thing is overloaded with silly slapstick, Chan's incessant mugging and cartoonish mistaken-identity gags as the boys swap girlfriends and dance. But wade through the crude comedy and you're rewarded with a gymnastic free-for-all climax in a car-testing workshop, where Chan leaps over, under and through cars while taking on an army of gangsters before split-screen brothers team up for a bit of marionette martial arts. Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam co-direct, Tsui taking the comedy and Lam handling the action, and John Woo makes a cameo as a priest in the wedding finale. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Drunken Tai Chi | DVD | (23/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Action master Yuen Wo-Ping and his family bring you their Hong Kong masterpieces! Drunken Tai Chi stars Yuen Family favorite Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey Once Upon A Time in China 2) in his very first starring role. See authentic training and Tai Chi action the way the Yuen's know best!

• Drunken Tai Chi (1995) | DVD | (27/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

• Thunderbolt | DVD | (01/01/1995) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A