New Fist of Fury

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

New Fist of Fury

#1 Post by yoloswegmaster » Fri May 26, 2023 10:09 am

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Almost five years after breaking all Hong Kong box office records with the instant classic Fist of Fury, his last collaboration with the late Bruce Lee, director Lo Wei got to work on a sequel. It would be the first major leading role for Lo’s latest discovery, a young actor who had been a stuntman on the original film but would soon be as massive a star as Lee. His name: Jackie Chan.

Shanghai, 1910. With the Jing Wu martial arts school in shambles and pressure from the Japanese armies to suppress a Chinese uprising after Chen Zhen’s martyrdom, Chen’s fiancée Li Er (Nora Miao, reprising her role from Fist of Fury) escapes to Japanese-occupied Taiwan to hide at her grandfather’s school. Despite her attempts to lay low, she runs afoul of karate master Okimura (Chan Sing, The Iron-Fisted Monk), who plans to take over all of the Chinese-run schools in Taiwan. Amidst all of this, a young aimless thief, known only as Ah Long (Jackie Chan), befriends Li Er after unknowingly stealing the nunchaku once yielded by the late Chen. Will he give into his fears, or will he learn the martial arts of Jing Wu and fight alongside Li Er against the Japanese?

Considered to be one of the few “official” sequels to a Bruce Lee film, and now freshly restored in two different versions, New Fist of Fury is the first spark that would eventually lead Jackie Chan to becoming the worldwide star he is today!

Product Features

• New 2k restoration from the original negatives by Fortune Star
• High Definition (1080p) Bluray transfers of the 120-min Original Theatrical Cut and the 82-min 1980 Re-release Cut
• Original Mandarin and English lossless mono audio for the Theatrical Cut, plus newly uncovered alternate Mandarin and Cantonese mono audio
• Original Cantonese and English lossless mono audio for the Re-Release Cut
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• New feature commentary on the Theatrical Cut by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng & Michael Worth, co-producers of Enter the Clones of Bruce Lee
• New feature commentary on the Re-Release Cut by action cinema expert Brandon Bentley
• New Fist, Part Two Fist, a new video essay by Bentley comparing New Fist of Fury to the rival sequel made simultaneously, Fist of Fury Part Ii
• Trailer gallery, including a Chen Zhen trailer reel of sequels and reboots
• Image gallery
• Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Jonathan Clements and an archival retrospective article by Brian Bankston

ComradeMisato
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:31 pm

Re: New Fist of Fury

#2 Post by ComradeMisato » Tue May 30, 2023 6:26 pm

Already have the 88 disc, but gonna pick this up anyway. Might get Arrow's Heart of Dragon while I'm at it; I skipped that when it came out.

The language regarding the transfer in this copy is a little ambiguous -- I'd be surprised if Fortune Star had remastered this again since the transfer on the 88 disc, as cool as that would be. I suppose that transfer would be new to the territories where this is being released. I think the subtitles on Heart of Dragon were different from 88's, so the subtitles here probably are brand new.

Love Tony Stella's new artwork of course, and I think this is the first time I've seen the upcoming Severin Bruceploitation doc invoked as bona fides for a contributor on one of these boutique releases. Can't wait to see that!

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