Betrayal, The (1966/Daiei/Radiance*)/Flaming Brothers (1987/Eureka*)/Invasion U.S.A. (1952) + Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1960/Film Masters Blu-ray Set)/NCIS: The Twenty-Second Season (2024 - 2025/CBS DVD Set)/Proof Of The Man (1977/Arrow/*all MVD Blu-rays)/Rebel (1973, 1978/Giant Blu-ray)/Unholy Trinity (2024/Saban/Warner Blu-ray)

Picture: B/B/B-/B-/C/B-/B-/B- Sound: C+/B-/C/C/C+/C+/C+/B Extras: C+/C+/B-/B-/C/B-/C/D Main Programs: C+/C+/C+/C/C/C+/C/C

Now for a spat of genre releases...

Tokuzo Tanaka's The Betrayal (1966) has Raizo Ichikawa as a samurai student so devoted to the codes and ways that he fails to see those around him are far from it and worse in ways that also exposes him to all kinds of problems, issues and dangers. Made worse when he goes too far in his good heartedness to say the least, a sad reality for so many people with good intentions, I rings as honest and true to day and when it was made. This runs just under 90 minutes, gets to the point and has a climax that works well enough.

Even at that length, though the film takes its subject matter and audience seriously and it is from the better early wave of such films, it still has some unevenness and some predictability, though some of the latter is hard to avoid. This looks good, the cast is good, I like the compositions and it is a key film in the genre, yet it still has its limits. Still, nice to have seen it as restored as they could get it.

Extras include select-scene audio commentary by Japanese film historian Tom Mes (2025)

• Visual essay by film critic Philip Kemp, comparing The Betrayal with the original Orochi the Serpent (2025)

• Visual essay on director Tokuzo Tanaka by Tom Mes (2025)

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow

• Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing by Alain Silver

• and a Limited Edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings.

Joe Cheung's Flaming Brothers (1987) has Chow Young-Fat and Alan Tang as a loyal pair of triad heads battling to stay on top and worse, opening a new nightclub as a step towards more legitimacy, new challengers show up and threaten everything they have. The results are mixed, sometimes interesting and seeing Young-Fat as he was about to break out is also a plus.

However, the screenplay is uneven and the flow of the story keeps getting interrupted by odd little things, most of which I cannot get into because of spoilers, but they are there. Why is this happening? Because the script was written by future critic's darling filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, known for artsy arthouse hits In The Mood For Love and Chungking Express. He's a bit out of his element here, but some will find the variances welcoming. Others will be bored or even annoyed. Now you can see for yourself.

Extras include a Limited Edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Time Tomorrow for this release, limited to 2,000 copies

• Limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on Flaming Brothers by Hong Kong cinema expert Camille Zaurin

• New audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema

• Archival interview with director Joe Cheung

• and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

A new double feature of Alfred E. Green's Invasion U.S.A. (1952) and Barry Mahon's Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1960) are two examples, if unintentionally funny, of the kind of Cold War propaganda dramas that were being made at the time. The former is more popular, known and successful with Gerald Mohr, Peggy Castle, Dan O'Herlihy, Tom Kennedy, Edward G. Robertson, Jr. and Superman Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates has the USSR invading NYC and only the locals can stop them, while the latter has a U.S. secret agent trying to stop the Soviets from launching the title weapon.

As is the case with this cycle of films, some of it is interesting, sometimes it is good, some of it has a surprise or two and both are often hilariously bad. Yet, they are also time capsules of their time, a reminder of how naive people were considered to be then, though often still are now if in different ways and both are worth a look for all that does and definitely does not work.

Extras include full length audio commentaries for both films are provided by Jason A. Ney (Invasion, U.S.A.) and C. Courtney Joyner and Mark Jordan Legan (Rocket Attack, U.S.A.). Ballyhoo Motion Pictures presents a new documentary, ''Better Dead Than Red: Hollywood vs. Communism in the 1950s,'' and a new exclusive interview with Anthony Mohr, son of film star Gerald Mohr (Invasion, U.S.A.). Full length MST3K episode of Rocket Attack, U.S.A., re-cut trailers for both films using restored film elements, a gallery of stills courtesy of Tom Weaver, the short ''And A Voice Shall Be Heard,'' that originally aired with theatrical showings of Invasion, U.S.A. with thanks to the Library of Congress and the National Film Preservation Foundation, as well as 8 Atomic Era film shorts. A nice full color booklet with new essays by Toby Roan and Don Stradley is also included.

NCIS: The Twenty-Second Season (2024 - 2025) is most shocking in that it is even on the air and still being produced at all, more of a twist or turn any episode could offer here. Like MidSomer Murders, the show is well past its prime and without David McCallum, it plays as too repetitive, too serious and to boring, with nothing new to say, show or offer in its 20 'sort of' hour long shows (more TV ads than ever helps none of these shows) seems more than what many shows are making these days.

Too bad time and TV grind has definitely made this a show on auto pilot, despite the best efforts of the actors. The look is repetitive and poor, the teleplays too predictable. Finally, unless you have been watching the show and its spin-offs for a long, long time, it will be even more flat. Start with the first seasons before tackling this fans-only affair.

Extras include the making of featurettes Behind The Scenes Of A Legacy, Undercover ''I Do'' and The Expert Behind The Screen. For more on our entire set of coverage on the NCIS franchise to date, start with our recent coverage of the debut season of the new Origins series, which is a little better than this:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16672/NCIS+Origins:+Season+One+(2024/DVD+Set/*all+Par

Junya Sato's Proof Of The Man (1977) is an almost experimental action thriller where a young man in Harlem (who is partly Japanese, not that long after the events of WWII) goes to that country, something so bizarre happens that police in two countries start to investigate and that includes a popular fashion designer who comes form the school of clothing ala Diana Ross' Tracy in Mahogany (1976) coincidentally?

Mixing up the old (and now very robotic and tired, esp. on TV) police procedural set-ups by offering slightly different versions at the same time, George Kennedy is an ace choice to play the lead detective in the NYC investigation and fans of this kind of filmmaking, murder mysteries and more should all see this film just to see how they were more successful than not in juggling it all.

The kind of film Arrow has been great at finding, getting restored and re-issued, its still one of a kind and when you get people speaking English, you get Japanese subtitled vertically on the right side of the screen throughout. This actually makes it even more interesting and even a little more intense when it works. Glad to see this one getting saved and is definitely worth the effort. Go out of your way for this one if you like these kinds of films.

Extras include a brand new audio commentary with Asian American film scholar Rob Buscher and DJ Skeme Richards

• Taking the Big Apple, a brand new video introduction by Asian film scholar Earl Jackson

• A Japanese Blockbuster, a brand new filmed discussion with critics and Junya Sato biographers Tatsuya Masuto and Masaaki Nomura

• Original Theatrical Trailers

• Image Gallery

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella

• an an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by film critic Michelle Kisner and scholar Alexander Zahlten.

Robert Schnitzer's Rebel was originally issued in 1973, but its then unknown lead became the lead in the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1976, so it was recut for 1978 release and this counterculture film with Sylvester Stallone as an anti-war activist who is not aware an undercover fed is watching him and his friends got a rerelease by MGM of all studios.

However, this 'director's cut' is the only version that exists, the 1973 version apparently lost and as I watched, as interesting as a few scenes and sequences were, this cut seems off and a little disjointed. I suspect some of the politics were rolled back or changed because the Vietnam fiasco was over (the reissue comes out the same year as The Deer Hunter and Coming Home) and the owner(s) thought they needed to 'update' or streamline it to make it more commercial post-Rocky.

As it stands, it is a curio that does not work or hold together, despite even being an interesting time capsule in this version. Stallone was definitely game to be in a movie and as a movie lead, so the energy and interest shows. Even in this cuts, non-fans would consider this one of his best films, albeit by default and there are arguments for that, but that's for a separate essay.

The camera sort of like Stallone then, even if most may not have caught it pre-1976. So it is nothing great or special, but I was glad to see it just what did work or is interesting. Until he gave up circa Cobra, it shows a time Stallone aspired to make serious, respectable films that said something and this one is on that still on that short list.

Extras include Rebel Reborn: The Making And Restoring Of REBEL: DIRECTORS: CUT featurette and a Theatrical Trailer.

And last we have another Western. Richard Gray's The Unholy Trinity (2024) has promise and curio value pairing Samuel L. Jackson and Pierce Brosnan star in this revenge western that could have been really good, but is too safe (despite its R-rating) and offers nothing we have not seen before much. A man wants to get payback for the murder of his father, Brosnan is the local sheriff and there are alleged secrets and attempted plot twists to go with it all.

Despite a sincere effort by Saban Pictures, the film cannot fight the fact that this is a dead genre and there is just no enough here to make this work, even when you add a Tim Daly, Brandon Lessard, Ethan Peck, Katrina Bowden and David Arquette among others. Some will also have problems getting Jackson's Tarantino Western out of their head while viewing, but unlike most of the truly bad attempts at a Western I have suffered through in recent years, at least these people tried!

There are no extras.

Now for playback performance.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image on Betrayal looks good and even a little better than expected, even with some uneven moments, some distortion from the older anamorphic lenses and good detail and even depth. The Japanese PCM 2.0 Mono shows its age much more and can be rough in spots, but it plats well otherwise.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Brothers also looks good, is color consistent and sports nice depth and detail, while the Cantonese 2.0 Mono actually sports one of the better soundtracks here. The combination is not bad and the image is only a 2K restoration?

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 black & white digital High Definition image transfers on the two U.S.A. films can show the age of the materials used, but they still look better than the many poor releases both have had over the decades, with Rocket also here in 1.78 X 1. Still, they can both be rough and the PCM 2.0 Mono in both cases shows the age low budget of the audio, so only expect so much.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Proof Of The Man has more than its share of great shots, but also more than a few soft shots, maybe caused by filming in wide-apart locations and age of the negative? Either way, it looks good when it does and the multi-language PCM 2.0 Mono is decent for tis time and as good as this film will ever sound.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Rebel was shot on 16mm color film and can show the age of the materials used, but there are still some nice shots among the soft ones and stock footage. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix shows the age of the low budget and audio, but is consistent for what it is.

The 1080p 2.00 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Unholy is an HD shoot with more softness than I would have liked, but might look better in 4K, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix easily has the best sound here as expected.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 images on the NCIS episodes would certainly look better in HD, but the faux black and white bumpers between commercial breaks is very annoying, so HD might make them more so. These are still too soft overall, but at least the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes have some life to them, yet they would sound better lossless.

- Nicholas Sheffo