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Category:    Home > Reviews > Action > Martial Arts > Crime > Violence > Hong Kong > Mystery > Comedy > Heist > Romance > Science Fiction > The Brink (2017*)/Double Danger (1938/RKO/**DVD)/How Long Will I Love U (2018*)/Maze (2017/MVD/Lightyear Blu-ray)/Moonfleet (1955/MGM/Blu--ray/**both Warner Archive)/Shadow (2018/*all Well Go Blu-rays

The Brink (2017*)/Double Danger (1938/RKO/**DVD)/How Long Will I Love U (2018*)/Maze (2017/MVD/Lightyear Blu-ray)/Moonfleet (1955/MGM/Blu--ray/**both Warner Archive)/Shadow (2018/*all Well Go Blu-rays)



Picture: A-/C/A-/C+/B/A- Sound: B+/C/B+/C+/B-/B+ Extras: C/D/D/C/C-/D Films: B+/C/B+/C+/C+/B+



PLEASE NOTE: The Double Danger DVD and Moonfleet Blu-ray are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.



Here's the latest group of action and drama releases...



Police Inspector Sai Gau is a maverick cop on a mission to find and stop black market dealers ...by any means necessary, but when his investigation uncovers a large Triad operation in the middle of a coup d'etat with black market gold all hell breaks loose. What started out as a rogue cop with excessive force soon turns into a violent international incident in Jonathan Li's The Brink (2017).


Sai Gau is a one man army, he often goes rogue chasing down bad guys and destroying property, he usually sends his 'victims' to the hospital instead of going to jail, but because he get results, his police brutality and insubordination tends to get over looked by the commissioner and his bosses. This time however, Sai Gau faces a new enemy, Shing a ruthless mob boss who is even more brutal than him. Shing has been planning a coup d'etat and stealing his boss' (The Triad) secret underwater gold stashed in international waters. Shing black mails or kills anyone who get in his way including his own allies and his former boss. Sai Gau vows to catch and stop Shing, and ends up constantly interrupting Shing's plans and operations. In the end, Sai Gau and Shing are the last man standing and they have epic final battle at sea in a ship and expect more when you see it.


This film is full of action and violence. The main character is a cop (Max Zhang) who is able to fight bare hand against an army of bad guys. He like a Batman but without the costume. The movie basically says who ever has the strength to do something are justified and if they fail they were not justified in the first place, the means justifies the end. Extras include behind the scenes and trailers.



Lew Landers' Double Danger (1938) is a mystery comedy that RKO likely had high hopes for, but if they thought they could build some kind of series on it, they were mistaken. Trying to have fun with the classy high society jewelry heist story includes a woman (Whitney Bourne) being a thief, but she is not bad and potentially likable. Preston Foster is the other possible thief, so the robber is being dubbed 'The Gentleman' until someone reveals who it is.


Sadly, the film is too short ay 62 minutes and too silly to work, but the supporting cast is not bad (including Donald Meek, Paul Guilloyle, Cecil Kellaway, Samuel S. Hinds) is not bad, though you can see where this is lower-budget than expected. If your interested in something odd, you might want to see this and it is worth a look for mystery completists.


There are no extras.



A man and woman become roommates when their apartments merge over space and time where they are 20 years apart. Now, they stuck together in time and space until they find a way back to their 'normal' time. However, their fates are more closely linked than they know... but it seems everything in the universe (except them) says they should be together in Lun Su's How Long Will I Love U (2018).


Lu Ming is from 1999, Xiaojiao is from 2018. Lu Ming is poor but dreams of becoming a property developer. Xiaojiao is a con artist and tries to honey trap rich men for money. For some reason, their apartments become linked over space and time and they are able to step back and forth in time between 1999 and 2018. However, it seem there are 'rules', the universe will not allow them to change the future in anyway, like bringing future tech into the past or abusing future knowledge like cheating the lottery.


After a series of misadventures they being to fall in love with each other, they might be poor but they are rich when they are with each other. But then they discover the Lu Ming of the future, Lu Ming in the future becomes a millionaire. The Lu Ming of the future then tells Xiaojiao she must leave him in order for him to fulfill his destiny. However, Lu Ming of the past learns the future version of himself (and is megalomaniac) became rich because he was ultimately responsible for the death of Xiaojiao's father and took over his business. Lu Ming then decides he rather be with Xiaojiao than become a millionaire, and instead he saves Xiaojiao's father and changes both their fates and he and Xiaojiao both return to their correct timelines with alternate futures. However, both of them still remember their alternate pasts and meet each other once again in the future.


This was a romantic comedy with star-crossed lovers dreaming of their future. The two main characters started out willing to do anything to cheat and win their dreams and desires, but in the end they learn all the wealth in the world cannot buy one thing they really want ...is love. Extras include trailers.



Based on the true story of one of the largest jail brake in European history. Mild manor prisoner Larry Marley masterminds the jail break of maximum security jails in 1983 Europe. What was thought to be inescapable, the 'Maze' was prisons within prisons was build in such a way to confuse it's occupants, so that no one person had a complete idea of the whole prison layout. Larry makes friends with prison warder Gordon, winning his trust but secretly planning how to escape the prison. As his plan grows and expands, he knows he must eventually sacrifice the trust he had so painstakingly built over the years with his 'friend' Gordon in Stephen Burke's Maze (2017).


Prisoner Larry Marley believes himself to be a revolutionary along with the other Irish prisoners, while the rest of the world considers them to be terrorists/extremists locked up in maximum security for life. After ten prisoners die from a hunger strike, Larry vows to make a statement by organizing the largest prison break ever. He begins by 'volunteering' to do labored and menial tasks within the prison clean floors, emptying garbage cans, etc... but secretly he is mapping out the prison, learning the guard's schedules and looking for blind spots within the prison. He discovers the prison's weakness is the warders, to make friends with them, to use, abuse and appeal to prison guard's trust. Working with other prisoners they eventually get the entire prison's layout and how to get past all the guards and gates. They capture selected guards, take their uniforms and ride out on the scheduled daily food trucks.


This was base on a story of the IRA political prison break in which the prisoner's ultimate goal was not truly escape, but to embarrass the government and the system in which they were imprison for. While Larry Marley was condemned to be radical and terrorist by the government, he was admired in other quarters for his determination, intelligence and patience in how he beat the prison system. Extras include director's commentary and bonus short film by Stephen Burke.



Fritz Lang's Moonfleet (1955) is an odd film for several reasons, starting with the fact that it is Lang's only CinemaScope (if not only widescreen) film, it is in the older, wider version of CinemaScope, it is one of the first films MGM ever issued shot and issued in Eastman Color and was a film Lang did not get final cut and and that footage is either lost or current owner of the older MGM films (Warner Bros.) could not find it. However, they have finally restored the shorter 87 minutes version and it has been issued as the latest Warner Archive Blu-ray/


We reviewed the now out-of-print limited edition CD a long time ago (which included bonus tracks not here) and explained at the time that the film itself is not another Lang trip into the future, but a more complex attempt at the swashbuckler cycle, and considering he had proved he could handle huge-budgeted films in the past at Ufa Studios, MGM's gamble made sense. The twist here is that the legendary actor/producer John Houseman was involved, having well-established his producing capacities as far back as Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, so having Rozsa on board made sense.


The story involves how a very young boy (Jon Whiteley) keeps happening upon strange happenings involving criminals smuggling what they should not be by sea, et al. He is in danger at times and sees things no child should have to see, withy the film teetering on 'child in jeopardy' issues, but the wallowing (in this shorter cut, at least) never gets too bad. That leaves actors sometimes playing ethnicities they obviously are not, still typical of the time, which also hurts the film.


However, we get some fine scenes, grand scenes, a few interesting action sequences, great use of color and a cast that includes Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Viveca Lindfords, Joan Greenwood, Melville Cooper, Alan Napier, Jack Elam, John Hoyt, Ian Wolfe and John Alderson among them makes for a film that was obviously meant to be longer and have more impact, but it is worth a look to see where Lang was going with this. Rozsa's scorer is a big plus in this case too.


An Original theatrical Trailer on the dark side, but still widescreen and in color, is the only extra.



The Kingdom of Pei has been at war with the Kingdom of Yang and after years of conflict they have a cease fire and uneasy truce, but the Pei Commander Ziyu has longed to reclaim his honor and reclaim the city of Jingzhou, which now lies under Yang control. His secret weapon is his young protege 'Shadow', a young man who has trained as his body double and together they will defeat the Undefeated Yang Commander in Yimou Zhang's Shadow (2018).


The Kingdom of Pei is a small country and is lead by a weak king who is a coward and only cares about himself and nothing about the fate of the Pei kingdom, but the King is enraged when he finds out his commander, Ziyu has challenged the Commander of Yang in a one-on-one battle to the death. However, the real Ziyu has been mortally wounded since his last battle and is slowly dying, and he has been trained his body double 'Shadow' to take his place. To defeat the Yang Commander, Ziyu teaches his double to fight with a weaponized metal umbrella along with his wife, who is also secretly falling in love with her husband's 'Shadow'. While 'Shadow' fights the Yang commander, an army of ruffians launch a surprise attack on Jingzhou, but after heavy losses on both sides Pei emerges as the victor. The 'Shadow' returns to Pei, only to find out the King has known all along who he is and wishes him to replace the real commander ...as long as he does whatever he says. Then it gets more fascinating.


This was a highly stylized fight in a fictional China with fantasy martial arts and weapons. There was not much of a story and the plot was thin about a mad king and his mad warlord. The whole movie focus more on the costumes, special effects and was just one fight scene after another. Extras include trailers, but the 4K release, Well Go's first, has more and we hope to cover it at some point.



The three 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the HD-shot Well Go Blu-ray releases look as good as they can for the format (Shadow was also issued in 4K) and arte the best performers here, in part because they are so recent.


However, the 1080p 2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Moonfleet may show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film on home video (more than a few nighttime scenes are day-for-night/studio bound segments that don't work as well as other sequences in the film) and we get a few demo moments that show off how good even then the Eastman Color 35mm negative was.


The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Maze is newer and show the age of the materials used, but it also is a mix of some shots being better than others, though more so. We still have to give it credit for its sometimes gritty look, so some of that look is intentional.


That leaves the 1.33 X 1 black & white image on Danger looking like ti was well shot when it did not look too studio-bound, but this material is often in rough shape despite trying to look expensive, so it needs some restoration work.


The Dolby Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) on Shadow is the best sound on the list as expected, though the Cantonese DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Brink and Mandarin DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Love are a very close second. Moonfleet follows with a decent DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix from its original 4-track magnetic sound with traveling dialogue and sound effects, but the actual soundmaster seems misplaced (for now we hope). Maze has a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix, but this is an upgrade from a stereo-at-best theatrical release, so is just not that well recorded or mixed to take full advantage of the multi-channel possibilities/.


The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Danger is the oldest soundtrack here, is down at least a generation and be careful of loud playback or volume switching. A few minor bits of noise can be heard on the soundtrack too.



To order either the Double Danger DVD and/or Moonfleet Blu-ray, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:


http://www.wbshop.com/



- Nicholas Sheffo (Warner Archive) and Ricky Chiang


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