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