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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: April 30, 2013.
Director: Lo Wei
Cast: Bruce Lee, Maria Yi, James Tien, Nora Miao, Lo Wei
Year: 1971/1972
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The Movies:
Shout! Factory presents two of Bruce Lee's features together on one handy DVD. The Big Boss and Fist Of Fury, both directed by Lo Wei for producer Raymond Chow in the early seventies, represent two of the films that would soon result in Lee becoming a household name. They're pretty much universally beloved amongst martial arts fans and both films hold up remarkably well, even by modern standards. Here's what you get…
The Big Boss (aka Fists of Fury) - 1971
In Bruce Lee's first starring role, we find him playing a young man named Cheng who moves from the city to a small town where his cousins live so that he can work with them at the local ice factory. Cheng, before he leaves the city he grew up in, makes a solemn oath to his family to never fight again, no matter what.
Maybe not so surprisingly, Cheng is forced to break this promise when a few members of his family start to mysteriously disappear. It seems that they had a run in with the management of the factory and that it didn't end well. It turns out that the men in charge of the plant are in fact drug dealers, and after the ill effects that this has on his family, Chegn decides to take it upon himself to break his promise. This means he's going to more or less go it alone and take down the slime balls who are causing so many problems for his family at the factory.
This one takes a little while to pick up steam, but once it does, boy howdy, watch out. Lee shows the world in his feature film debut why he is the baddest of the bad. The titular Big Boss himself is really no contest to this little man here, a man who is pissed off enough to take matters into his own hands and solve them once and for all. In short, here Lee is an instrument of vengeance sticking up for his family and for those who have been wronged by organized crime, something that would prove to be a recurring theme throughout his short career.
The fight choreography is practically flawless and Lee makes for a ridiculously intense leading man full of as much charisma as he is barely controlled anger. Though the pacing is a bit slow in the first half of the movie, it builds wonderfully to a violent and appropriately tense conclusion that makes great use of the locations and sets used for the film. A solid score and some nice supporting performances help as well, resulting in a movie that, if not Lee's best, certainly ranks up there.
Fist of Fury (a.k.a. The Chinese Connection) - 1972
Better known in North America as The Chinese Connection, Fists Of Fury (not to be confused with The Big Boss, which is better known in North America as Fists Of Fury …confusing, right?) is in this writer's opinion Bruce Lee's finest moment. Yes, it's a very traditional martial arts film and yes, he got a lot more creative in his later movies, but Lee in this film is the very embodiment of vengeance. Here he delivers such an amazing amount of pure anger into his performance that even if he had never made another movie he'd still truly deserve all of the accolades bestowed upon him for this film alone.
Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) is an aspiring martial artist in training who returns to his dojo one day to find that his teacher has been killed. Chen quickly runs to his teacher's grave and digs up the body, overpowered by grief and rage. When a competing Japanese school begins to tease Chen's school over their loss during the ensuing funeral, Chen loses it and the kid gloves come off. Once the funeral is over he pays a little visit to the Japanese school to teach them a thing or two. The result? Chen versus the entire school, and you know who's coming out on top, no contest. Chen is going to make the Japanese pay for what they did, in a big, big way.
No one, yes literally no one, has ever given such a genuinely pissed off performance as Lee gives in this film. Sonny Chiba has come close in a few of his movies, but not even Sonny can top Lee's anger here as he yelps, screams, kicks, punches and busts his way through as many men as the Japanese want to throw at him. The inevitable show down is a high point not only in Lee's career but in martial arts films in general. In a truly iconic moment, here Lee unleashes his full fury on his opponents, sparing no one and doling out his vengeance in as cold and brutal a manner as he can muster.
While the storyline may be pretty basic (man avenges teachers death, lots of ass kicking, the end) Lee is just so unbelievably fantastic in this film that it really doesn't matter. He's definitely the main reason to watch this one, and this is the film that proves as an on screen fighter he truly had no equal. On top of that, it's fast paced, easy to relate to (we've all been picked on at least once in our lives) and nicely shot. Once again it features incredibly impressive fight choreography and as far as revenge based martial arts films go, this one is tough to beat.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Shout! Factory has advertised these discs as being from new transfers and although the Fortune Star logo does appear at the beginning of the DVD and on the back of the packaging, you can see from these quick screen capture comparisons between this new Shout! Factory double feature and the 2004 Fortune Star Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection boxed set release from Hong Kong that there are some differences in the image quality, particularly in regards to the colors (the top images are from the Fortune Star discs, the bottom images from the Shout! Factory double feature).
The Big Boss
Fist Of Fury
Fist Of Fury
Both movies are presented in anamorphic widescreen and in pretty nice shape. Colors look decent, black levels are strong but not quite reference quality and detail is about as good as you'd expect from these movies in standard definition.
As far as the audio options go, we're given the choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 or Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks, and unfortunately they're both English language only. The Chinese language options are nowhere to be found here, and there are no alternate language options, closed captions or subtitles provided. The 5.1 tracks are nothing to get too excited about, they sound hollow and thin. The 2.0 tracks fare better and offer better quality in terms of balance and quality but are still less than amazing. Overall though, the 2.0 tracks are fine. The dialogue is easy enough to understand and there are no problems with any serious hiss or distortion.
There are no extras here outside of a menu and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Some extras would have been nice, but that didn't happen. As to the presentation? Decent. Here's hoping we get a Blu-ray set from Shout! sooner rather than later, one that offers up these movies in high quality high definition quality that trumps the Hong Kong Blu-ray releases that came out a couple of years ago. Getting back to the matter at hand, the two movies here are excellent, essential not just for martial arts fans but for anyone who enjoys action movies in general.
