Broken
Sword Hero (2017/Well Go
Blu-ray w/DVD)/Play Dirty
(1968/United Artists/MGM)/The
Quiet American
(1958/United Artists/MGM/both Twilight Time Limited Edition
Blu-rays)/Undercurrent
(1946/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
B+ & C+/B/B/C Sound: B+ & B-/C+/C+/C Extras:
C-/C+/C+/C Films: B+/B-/B-/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Play
Dirty
and Quiet
American Blu-rays
are now only available from our friends at Twilight Time, are limited
to only 3,000 copies and can be ordered while supplies last, while
the Undercurrent
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
There
is suspense to be found in these different films that try to inhabit
more than their genre and offer interesting results...
Broken
Sword Hero
All
Joi Thong Dee (Buakaw Banchamek) wanted was to become the greatest
Muay Thai warrior. He decides to goes on a journey find a master to
teach him, but on the road it isn't easy, as he meets bandits,
opponents and people who want to see him dead. He uses his skills to
protect the weak from the strong, but being a master isn't just about
being stronger, but being a master of oneself in Bin Bunluerlit's
Broken
Sword Hero
(2017).
Joi
s a tougher than average street fighter until one day he was chased
out of town by a spoiled prince and his men. Thong Dee then moves
from town to town learning from any master he can find, from Chinese
Kung-fu, Muai Thai boxing to sword fighting. On the road he uses his
new found skills protect his friends, the innocent and against social
injustice. Thong Dee soon becomes a legend, a hero to the people, an
inspiration of strength, determination, courage and freedom.
Get
ready for sweaty, glistening, scantly clad men with hard hitting Muay
Thai kickboxing. Based on a legendary hero from Thailand, Muay Thai
is considered a real life combat sport with emphasis on close quarter
fighting, toughness, conditioning and fighting tactics. The story is
about a young street fighter is able to overcome the odds and become
a better person (as well as become a champion of the people).
Play
Dirty
Harry
Saltzman was not only the co-producer of the James Bond films in the
1960s, but had his own separate solo productions and one of the most
interesting is one of the few War films that got it in how to imitate
the success of the original Dirty
Dozen.
Play
Dirty
(1968) was gritty filmmaker Andre de Toth's last feature film and
reunited Saltzman with Michael Caine, who was still playing
crook-turned-spy Harry Palmer for Saltzman in a trilogy of films that
began with the 1965 classic The
Ipcress File,
so its great he could be in a cast that included Nigel Davenport,
Harry Andrews, Nigel Green, Vivian Pickles, Jeremy Child, Aly Ben
Ayed and a solid cast set in North Africa circa WWII.
The
British Empire sends their roughest, toughest, most unethical men on
a mission to screw-up the Nazis and Axis interests as severely as
possible as that older attempt at an evil empire hell bent on world
domination has left no land unwanted in their attempt to invade and
steal it all. Of course, it will not be easy, some of these people
are undesirables for a reason and the conflicts between them get as
volatile as the war itself. Yet, this is also a great set of
character studies with an amazing amount of acting talent to match,
so it becomes not just a copy of the Hollywood hit, but a smart
flipside that is far more hard-hitting than the lame attempts to rip
off this cycle that are all talk, dumb and lame action. Its sad this
one has not been rediscovered like it deserves to, but with Dunkirk
coming to Blu-ray soon, the timing of this key limited edition form
Twilight Time could not be better. Edward Scaife actually wad the
Director of Photography on The
Dirty Dozen,
so Saltzman hired him for this and that also helped a great bit.
Joseph
L. Mankiewicz's The
Quiet American
(1958) was made by the writer/director only a few years after All
About Eve,
so the fact he wanted to take on something grittier and different is
to his credit. Based on the Graham Greene novel, Michael Redgrave is
a U.K. journalist who is reporting on the successes and failures of
France in their war in Vietnam (the one the United states would soon
take over with even more disastrous results) getting too involved
with a young local woman (Giorgia Moll) whom he should stay away
from, especially since he is married.
Things
get more twisted when an upbeat American visitor (Audie Murphy in a
solid turn here) is also interested in her, even offering to marry
her, but the reporter starts to think he is a spy or even terrorist
and starts making moves without fully investigating what is really
going on. From there, things can only get more twisted.
The
film is a mix of things that work, casting that works, some moments
that do not, a few additional things that might seem to run on and a
few items that may border on racism for some people, yet it is a
fascinating film to watch as nearly 60 years later, we are STILL
dealing with the fallout of Vietnam no matter what your opinion. The
film is certainly literate enough and has some interesting visual
moments as well.
It
may not be for everyone, but for the curious, they should consider
this a must-see film.
Finally
we have Vincente Minnelli, best know for his musicals and romances,
doing one of his darker tales (ala Some
Came Running)
with Undercurrent
(1946), a film that starts out as a comedy of sorts as Katharine
Hepburn falls for wealthy Robert Taylor, but soon finds him turning
on her and being angry, while they are all haunted by the strange
disappearance of his brother who may be dead and possibly even killed
because he knew something he should not have.
Soon,
the comedy and romance is over as she starts to suspect her newly wed
'love' and starts to investigate on her own. We are as much in the
dark as she is, so the suspense comes from that and when a young
Robert Mitchum shows up (solidifying its semi-Noir side) you know
something is amiss. We also hear about her husband's first wife and
then she's stuck in a big house of wealth she cannot get out of, so
the film is haunted by Hitchcock's own haunted classic Rebecca
(reviewed elsewhere on this site).
The
film is not that good and though the money is here and the actors are
great to watch, the film is a bit long at 116 minutes and is not as
memorable or impactful as it could have been. Still, it is a curio
worth a look and shows how glamorous Hepburn was early in her career.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Sword
is the only HD shoot here and look really good for the format
throughout with some fine footage and consistent at that, while the
anamorphically enhanced DVD is much softer than expected.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Dirty
was shot on 35mm film with anamorphic Panavision lenses and can
compete at times, but is also grittier and grainer as intended and
expected. The film was also issued in three-strip, dye-transfer
Technicolor prints and though the War genre does not usually lend
itself to that kind of advanced color, you can see how that could
work here to make the middle of nowhere all the more palpable.
The
1080p 1.66 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Quiet
can show the age of the materials used with some shots looking better
than others, including some parts that look a little more worn than
expected, but this looks fine others.
The
1.33 X 1 black
& white image
on Undercurrent
is the poorest performer here as from an older transfer and sometimes
problematic print (despite the money MGM even put out for their black
and white films) so it is even poorer than the Sword
DVD and needs a new HD transfer. It deserves it too.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Sword
is easily the sonic winner here, a brand new recording that is well
mixed and presented, so the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mixes on Dirty
and Quiet
can barely compete. However, they disappoint a bit because they are
more aged than expected and have mild distortion at times, made more
clear as compared to their DTS-MA isolated music scores (especially
Dirty,
whose music by Michel LeGrand is in fine, clear stereo throughout) so
they just happened to be recorded with limited fidelity. They likely
won't sound much better than they do here, but if the dialogue on
Dirty
existed in better form a nice stereo upgrade might have been
possible.
Thus,
the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the Sword
DVD can sort of compete with those older film's mono sound, though it
is still weak in its own way. Like the image, the lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono on Undercurrent
sounds second-generation, so be careful of high playback levels and
volume switching.
Extras
include Original Theatrical Trailers in all cases, Quiet
and
Dirty
add illustrated booklets on each respective film including
informative text and yet another set of excellent, underrated essays
by the great film scholar Julie Kirgo, while each Blu-ray itself also
adds Isolated Music Score with select Sound Effects, leaving
Undercurrent
adding the Technicolor MGM cartoon Lonesome
Lenny
that may be a bit too violent for children and Academy Award-winning
live-action short Traffic
With The Devil,
a comic look at driving and getting into trouble driving in L.A. with
comedy that is still relevant today.
To
order
the Play
Dirty
and/or Quiet
American limited
edition Blu-rays, buy them while supplies last at these links:
www.screenarchives.com
and
http://www.twilighttimemovies.com/
...and
to order the Undercurrent
Warner
Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive
releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Ricky Chiang (Hero)
& Nicholas Sheffo