Photos
Storyline
Featured review
Save your money for something else
Every so often, we'll stumble across a DVD that just screams "TACKY". We usually find these DVDs in department store "bargain bins" and with the poor packaging and terrible content, we wonder why anyone even bothered to produce such an atrocity. This is one of those DVDs. As a fan of the old Shaw Bros Kung Fu flicks with such stars as The Venoms, Gordon Liu and Lieh Lo to even modern martial arts movies with stars like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, I figured it wouldn't hurt to check this DVD out. I'll admit, the title did pique my interest: "Greatest Martial Arts Fights: Part II". Though the cover art, a collage of unknown martial arts competitors/instructors in action didn't quite fit the theme, the idea of a DVD highlighting some of the "greatest martial arts fights" sounded great.
I was wrong.
Upon playing the disc, the first thing you'll notice is the poorly created menu screen. It's basic and simple; something an intermediate computer literate could probably assemble in an hour. The packaging boasts "interactive menus" but aside from the main menu and the remedial scene selection screen, there is nothing else to do. As soon as the movie starts, we're immediately thrust into the action. There are no opening credits, no narratives and no captions. The movie begins with a poor video quality fight scene. As the movie progresses, the audio and video quality of the fight scenes goes from bad to worse. The compilation of fight scenes are all in fullscreen "pan & scan" and appears to be taken from old VHS tapes; spliced together for DVD format. What little dialogue there is, is English dubbed and the video quality of the scenes range from "decent VHS" to downright poor. In some scenes, you can even see tracking distortion which indicates that the footage are from old videotapes. Within the first few minutes, it was clear that there was no effort made in producing this DVD. The fight scenes jumps from one to the next and the DVD neither on the packaging nor on the disc itself makes no effort in identifying the movie the scenes originated from so even if you were to find some fight scenes interesting, there is no way you could find the name of the film. In terms of fight-quality, some scenes are decent while others are cheesy and terrible. They fit the typical 1970's Kung Fu B-movie craze that tried to ride the Shaw Brothers' coat tails of success. The fight scenes appear to be from low budget B-movies with unknown actors that are now long forgotten. Also, like a VHS bootleg, the 50 minute compilation abruptly ends with a blank blue screen. There are no end credits and the production company isn't even listed.
I purchased this DVD for $5 at a department store and needless to say, I should have spent my money on something else. The DVD lacks effort and even the most avid, martial arts movie enthusiast needs to pass on watching this. It's not even worth renting.
I was wrong.
Upon playing the disc, the first thing you'll notice is the poorly created menu screen. It's basic and simple; something an intermediate computer literate could probably assemble in an hour. The packaging boasts "interactive menus" but aside from the main menu and the remedial scene selection screen, there is nothing else to do. As soon as the movie starts, we're immediately thrust into the action. There are no opening credits, no narratives and no captions. The movie begins with a poor video quality fight scene. As the movie progresses, the audio and video quality of the fight scenes goes from bad to worse. The compilation of fight scenes are all in fullscreen "pan & scan" and appears to be taken from old VHS tapes; spliced together for DVD format. What little dialogue there is, is English dubbed and the video quality of the scenes range from "decent VHS" to downright poor. In some scenes, you can even see tracking distortion which indicates that the footage are from old videotapes. Within the first few minutes, it was clear that there was no effort made in producing this DVD. The fight scenes jumps from one to the next and the DVD neither on the packaging nor on the disc itself makes no effort in identifying the movie the scenes originated from so even if you were to find some fight scenes interesting, there is no way you could find the name of the film. In terms of fight-quality, some scenes are decent while others are cheesy and terrible. They fit the typical 1970's Kung Fu B-movie craze that tried to ride the Shaw Brothers' coat tails of success. The fight scenes appear to be from low budget B-movies with unknown actors that are now long forgotten. Also, like a VHS bootleg, the 50 minute compilation abruptly ends with a blank blue screen. There are no end credits and the production company isn't even listed.
I purchased this DVD for $5 at a department store and needless to say, I should have spent my money on something else. The DVD lacks effort and even the most avid, martial arts movie enthusiast needs to pass on watching this. It's not even worth renting.
helpful•00
- pyrojames
- Nov 23, 2006
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime50 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content