Green
Ice
(1981/Via Vision/Imprint Region Free Import Blu-ray)/Mask
Of Fu Manchu
(1932/MGM/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Night
Of The Blood Monster 4K
(1970/Blue Underground 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray*)/Shinobi
(Trilogy: Ninja,
A Band Of Assassins
(1962,) Shinobi
No Mono 2: Vengeance,
Shinobi
No Mono 3: Resurrection
(1963)/Radiance/*both MVD)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B/B/B+/B Sound: B-/B-/A-/B-
Extras: B-/B-/B/C+ Films: C+/B/B/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Green
Ice
Import Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Imprint/Via
Vision Entertainment in Australia and can play on all 4K and Blu-ray
players, while The
Mask Of Fu Manchu
is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Now
for a new group of thrillers you should really know about...
Ernest
Day's Green
Ice
(1981) is a heist/mystery film with Bondian leanings, a British
production with many people who worked on those films at the time,
produced by Lord Lew Grade, his desire to have a huge hit film with a
big Hollywood movie star brought the late Ryan O'Neal (when he was
still a top box office star, but not the first choice for this film)
as Joseph Wiley. He's an electronics expert and one with a tendency
for smart comments and getting involved unwisely with various
situations.
He
also instantly becomes interested in a mysterious woman (Anne Archer,
continuing her long line of leading lady roles even then) who seems
to have money and influence, then gets the wrong hotel room that
happens to have some pricey emeralds in a night stand at the hotel he
is at. He makes the mistake of impersonating the seller and all hell
breaks loose. She also finds out her younger sister is dead and
suspects the man (Omar Sharif) she was about to marry.
The
film becomes a mix of fight scenes (some work better than others,)
comic moments, plot twists, banter between the leads and a few
surprises, yet the film has a few moments that just do not work as
well and the main version here is slightly shorter than the earlier
version also included in an upscale from a low def source. That
includes a scene where the leads are driving a car and Grade's
dreaded process shooting for car driving returns. You'd think after
abandoning that tired, bad-looking, dated thing for his underrated TV
series Return
Of The Saint
with Ian Ogilvy, that would be the end of it. Bringing it back was a
bad idea.
Cheers
to Ernest Day for finally getting to helm a feature film, for which
he does a decent job. An assistant director and assistant cameraman
on so many other films for years, including several Bond films,
Lawrence
Of Arabia,
Ryan's
Daughter,
The
Pink Panther Strikes Again,
Juggernaut,
the first Tom Cruise Mission:
Impossible,
plus actual Director of Photography work on Led Zeppelin's The
Song Remains The Same,
Revenge
Of The Pink Panther,
Superman
IV,
Rambo
III
and The
Long Day's Dying.
That's quiet a filmography, sop it is surprising he did not get to
direct more.
So
why did the film not do well in the U.S.? While it did make theaters
overseas, Universal picked it up here and actually sat on it until
they used it to help promote cable TV and then it hit home video.
No, it is not a great film, but it has enough good moments everyone
should catch this one for all the things that do work. Archer was on
her way up, while O'Neal would only have one more big hit (So
Fine
the same year) before his lead actor days ended and he started to
make bad script choices that ruined his career.
Also
not helping was a movie poster (you can see it on the cover at the
link below) that tried to make a heist film look like Star
Wars
with shooting a gun-like device hooked up to some kind of tube. We
never see this in the film and it made the promotion look too
desperate. I remember people mocking it at the time.
John
Larroquette and Philip Stone (Kubrick's The
Shining
& Barry
Lyndon,
Thunderball,
Fragment
Of Fear)
also star.
Extras
include a slipcase, while the disc adds an extended cut of the film,
upscaled to high-definition
NEW
Feature Length Audio Commentary by author David J. Moore on the
extended cut (2024)
NEW
Gravity
Artist: Stunt Coordinator Vic Armstrong on ''Green
Ice''
(2024)
Isolated
Music and Effects Track featuring score by Bill Wyman
Textless
titles featuring Maurice Binder designed sequences
and
an Original Theatrical Trailer.
Charles
Brabin's The
Mask Of Fu Manchu
(1932) finally arrives on Blu-ray after having a successful run on
DVD. Warner Archive is issuing it and it is a favorite of ours, even
with a little political incorrectness. As featured on the Hollywood
Legends Of Horror Collection
box set, we covered it when Warner originally issued it:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4451/Hollywood's+Legends+of+Horror+Collection+(Docto
Then
when Warner Archive reissued it:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14608/Hollywood+Legends+Of+Horror+Collection+(1932
In
my coverage, I noted...
''Charles
Brabin (as well as an uncredited Charles Vidor) directed The
Mask Of Fu Manchu.
Long before Christopher Lee immortalized the role and political
correctness pushed Sax Rohmer's legendary madman underground, Boris
Karloff played the sadistic title character, out to rule the world
and stop ''the white man'' at any cost. The film is a hoot in its
strange sense of racism, with a pre-stardom Myrna Loy as his exotic
assistant and Jean Hersholt in a solid supporting role. Karloff is
amazing as the villain and the torture sequences are ahead of their
time considering how graphic the genre has become, particularly of
late. The chase is on for a valued item that will make Fu Manchu
even more powerful unless he is stopped.
Well,
MGM got Cedric Gibbons to do the Art Direction and when you add the
clothes, you get something that shows its age a bit, yet really has
the money up on screen. The film was a hit, but pre-WWII pressure
from China convinced MGM not to do any sequels, though the character
would rise again in a 1940 serial from Republic Pictures (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and had already surfaced in early sound films
with future Charlie Chan Warner Oland. This is a strong, underrated
film that all true Horror fans will enjoy.''
Despite
its age, even years later after those DVD editions, the film holds up
in interesting ways and has some fine work in it. I like the look,
now more vivid than ever. Of course, Karloff is impressive enough
and every serious horror fan should see this one at least once.
Extras
repeat the great feature length audio commentary by writer Greg Mank,
then adds the animated shorts Freddie
The Freshman
and The
Queen Was In The Parlor.
Too bad they could not find a trailer or do a featurette on the Fu
Manchu character, but Warner still has the rights to later Christoper
Lee films in the later series, so we'll see what they come up with as
those films hit Blu-ray and maybe 4K. Speaking of which...
Christopher
Lee stars as a sadistic judge in Jess Franco's Night
of the Blood Monster 4K
aka The
Bloody Judge
(1970). In the 17th century, a ferocious Judge sentences several
women to torture and death for acts of supposed witchcraft. The film
is loosely based on Judge Jeffries, who likes to condemn women for
his own sadistic and sexual enticement. The film makes you question
who is the true evil culprit, and most signs point to the court
system. Sadly this sort of thing really happened which is ghastly to
think about when watching the film.
Night
of the Blood Monster
has been restored and uncensored with newly discovered film elements
on 4K UHD from Blue Underground.
This
is a more commercial film from Jess Franco, a quite interesting
filmmaker who made over 100 films and of whom ventured into the
surrealistic adult genre more with films like Vampyros
Lesbos,
She
Killed In Ecstasy,
Macumba
Sexual,
Sinfonia
Erotica
and many others (most of which are available from Severin Films).
Not to say that Night of the Blood Monster doesn't have it fair share
of sexual content and violence, but comparing it to other Franco's
work where things really get explicit, this one seems a bit more mild
akin to his version of Count
Dracula,
which also starred Christopher Lee.
The
film also stars Maria Rohm, Diana Lorys, Maria Schell, and Howard
Vernon.
Special
Features:
Audio
Commentary #1 with Film Historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel
Thompson
Audio
Commentary #2 with Film Historians Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw
Audio
Commentary #3 with Film Historians David Flint and Adrian Smith
Bloody
Jess: Interviews with Director Jess Franco and Star Christopher
Lee
Judgement
Day:
Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of "Murderous
Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco"
In
The Shadows: Interviews with Filmmaker Alan Birkinshaw and Author
Stephen Thrower on Harry Alan Towers
Deleted
and Alternate Scenes
Trailers
and TV Spot
and
a Stills Galleries.
And
that leaves us with the most important ninja trilogy of all time.
Shinobi
is a solid new box set with three key films that brought back the
ninja and established them into what we know them as today, all the
way to the most commercial iterations: Ninja,
A Band Of Assassins
(1962,) Shinobi
No Mono 2: Vengeance
and Shinobi
No Mono 3: Resurrection
(1963). Naturalistic, realistic, raw, sometimes brutal and with some
of the best fighting sequences you will ever see in any
film involving ninja, taking place in the 16th
Century.
Ninjas
are at war with each other and spying for warlords who want to defeat
all the other samurai groups, but Goeman (Raizo Ichikawa) has his
entire village wiped out and that sets him on a road to revenge that
will lead to bringing down the warlord responsible for the massacre,
Oda (Katsuhiko Kobayashi) and much more.
After
suffering through the formulaic and often reactionary ninja B-movies
of the 1980s, these are much more realistic, though some liberties
are taken with history and it is fictional, though still reflective
of events of the time. Character development is a plus and the
actors are very good here, something we cannot say for their 1980s
counterparts. It may not be for everyone, but if you liked the ninja
sequence in the 1967 Bond film You
Only Live Twice,
you'll likely enjoy these. Hope Radiance gets to issue more of these
films.
Extras
include:
Interview
with Shozo Ichiyama, artistic director of the Tokyo International
Film Festival, about director Satsuo Yamamoto
A
brilliant visual essay on the ninja in Japanese cinema by film
scholar Mance Thompson
Interview
with film critic Toshiaki Sato on star Raizo Ichikawa
Trailers
New
and improved optional English subtitles
Six
postcards of promotional material from the films
Reversible
sleeves featuring artwork based on original promotional materials
Limited
edition booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements on the
Shinobi no mono series and Diane Wei Lewis on writer Tomoyoshi
Murayama
and
Limited
Edition
of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo
cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates
and markings.
Now
for playback performance. Night
of the Blood Monster 4K
is presented in 2160p on 4K Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD
Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image UHD disc with HDR10, an
HEVC / H.265 codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and lossless
audio tracks in Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) Mono. The
film is nicely shot and there isn't too much noise or degraded
elements in this 4K transfer. There is also a Blu-ray version with
similar specs presenting the film in a lesser resolution of 1080p.
Both
look strong on the 4K UHD format and is no doubt the best this film
has looked on home video. The film features a great score by Bruno
Nicolai (Count
Dracula)
that is captured well on this release. While you can see the budget
wasn't super high on the film it captures the era it tries to portray
well with period accurate props and costumes.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Green
Ice
looks pretty good from its new 2K scan, lensed by the legendary
Gilbert Taylor, B.S.C., whose great work includes A
Hard Day's Night,
Polanski's Repulsion,
Cul-De-Sac
& Macbeth,
Kubrick's Dr.
Strangelove,
Theatre
Of Death,
Hitchcock's Frenzy,
Badham's Dracula,
Hodges' Flash
Gordon
and the original versions of The
Omen
and Star
Wars.
He never lensed a Bond film, but this gives you some idea what he
would have done and in addition, he lensed no less than eight
episodes of the classic British spy series The
Avengers,
so he knew what to do with the genre. As a side note, he lensed the
black and white Diana Rigg/Emma Peel episode A
Sense Of History
and some of the darkest episodes of the final series with Linda
Thorson as Tara King.
The
original theatrical mono sound is presented in a decent PCM 2.0 Mono
sound mix that does justice to the film, with dialogue clear enough,
the surprisingly good music score by rock music legend Bill Wyman
(The Rolling Stones, Willie & The Poor Boys) makes the narrative
and action better, plus the ever-underrated Maria Muldaur (best known
for "I'm
A Woman"
and the classic "Midnight
At The Oasis")
delivers two songs for this film: "Tenderness"
and "Floating"
and they are both decent and show another side of her vocals. A few
years later, the Bond series would try double songs for a few years
with interesting results.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfer on Fu
Manchu
rarely shows the age of the materials used and easily succeeds the
good-for-its-time DVDs we reviewed years ago. Detail, depth and
clarity are great, even stunning in some shots as MGM was determined
to compete in the genre. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix of the original
theatrical monophonic sound is definitely a step above the old DVDs
and is as good as this film will likely ever sound. Very impressive.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image
transfers on the three Shinobi
films can show the age of the materials used and the anamorphic
lenses are definitely not as good as the best we have now, but still
look better than old CinemaScope lenses and the filmmakers give all
three films a consistent look, feel and atmosphere that makes them
very watchable. The PCM
2.0 Mono on all three films can show the budget limits of the films,
but are as good as these films will ever sound. Fans of the films
and the genre will be very pleased.
To
order the
Imprint Green
Ice
import Blu-ray, go to to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive
releases at:
https://viavision.com.au/shop/green-ice-1981-imprint-collection-295/
...and
to order The
Mask Of Fu Manchu
Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
