Originally Posted by 88 Films Friday announcement #2 Hong Kong's ever-evolving film industry was beginning to drift away from period-set kung fu craziness by the time FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS appeared in 1982. However, just before the dawn of POLICE STORY - and sundry heroic bloodshed blockbusters - director Chang Cheh showed that there was plenty of life left in straightforward wuxia chopsocky mayhem! Indeed, leave it to the Shaw Brothers studio to offer up a story as spirited as this one - with a young martial artist pitting his wits against a gang of well-disguised, sneaky and unthinkably sadistic masked men versed in Japanese combat techniques. Drawing on the age old tension between The Land of the Rising Sun and China - which famously led to colonialism and conflict before and during World War 2 - FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS, which was released in America under the culturally confused moniker CHINESE SUPER NINJAS, is a riotious rollercoaster ride of spilled blood, bludgeoned skulls and seductive, but deadly, Far Eastern femmes. Starring the mighty Cheng Tien-Chi - also of Jackie Chan's FEARLESS HYENA (1979) - FIVE ELEMENT NINJAS is one of the crowning achievements from the great career of legendary director Chang Cheh (THE ONE ARMED SWORDSMAN/ THE BRAVE ARCHER). Rediscover this carnage-packed classic on Blu-ray courtesy of 88 Films!
This film was actually already released on blu-ray. http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Five-Element-Ninjas-Blu-ray/34742/
Part of the problem with Asian films, especially Chinese, is that it's difficult to get anything close to what we now accept as a good 1080p final transfer for Blu-ray. I'm sure if the negatives were in relatively good shape this could be done, but license holder cheap out and use what's handiest with the quickest cheapest methods of telecine. And the results are suspected to be upconversions of previous standard definition transfers (either literally or finalized as masters suited to 480). So to shell out the extra few bucks to get the same results as my PS3's upconverter would produce with the cheaper DVD is not at all enticing. 88Films has got a lot to prove. I'm going to have to see some stellar reviews from trusted sources.
When Celestial Pictures purchased the Shaw Brothers library they cleaned up the transfers. I have quite a few of them on import DVD. Can't say how these would look on blu-ray but I would imagine it to be quite impressive.
Shaw Brothers Blu-Rays uses true 1080p transfers, and look great. Some of them sadly got some DNR, but still blows the DVD:s away. It's Fortune Star that cheats and put out upconverted SD transfers on most of their 70 and 80 movies. I bet that 88Films will do a great job with this new series.
i couldnt find a different 88 films thread or a Just Before Dawn one and didnt wanna start a whole new thread. i rolled the dice on this thread lol
Well here's a slasher one you started lol www.horrordvds.com/community/threads/88-films-classic-slasher-line.46061
Just make sure you check the box that says "Search thread title only". That brought it up straight away for me
The first four Asian film line blu-rays arrived today from the Indiegogo campaign. I never received email confirmation so it was a nice surprise. It appears that the limited slipcovers feature the Chinese poster art for the films.
I watched Hex today and didn't realize it was a Shaw Brothers Film. The picture quality was really good. It's unfortunate that it was wasted on such a boring movie. Shaw Brothers much have known what a dud they had so in the last ten minutes they tossed in a fully nude woman during the exorcism scene. The ending was a real let down. I'll still be picking up Seedings of a Ghost when I see it for a good price.
I like Hex, but then I really enjoy the Shaw Brothers horror stuff like Seeding of a Ghost, Black Magic 2, Human Lanterns and Corpse Mania (which is really quite a disgusting movie). They can be slow at times but I think they have a lot of really spooky atmosphere and I love the weirdo gore scenes, that despite looking kinda cheap are usually very creative and pretty effective.
