The Eureka Entertainment August 2024 lineup of Blu-ray releases is an interesting selection which includes a Laurel & Hardy collection.
A Man Called Tiger – August 26, 2024 UK. August 27, 2024 US & Canada
Starring Jimmy Wang Yu (The One-Armed Swordsman) and directed by Lo Wei, the man behind the smash-hit Bruce Lee vehicles The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, A Man Called Tiger is a martial arts extravaganza released at the height of an international kung fu craze.
Chin Fu (Wang Yu) is a formidable martial artist who suspects his father’s apparent suicide was actually a cold-blooded murder. His desire for answers – and revenge – leads him to Japan, where he becomes entangled with the yakuza. With the aid of his fellow countryman Liu Han-ming (James Tien, Hand of Death) and a nightclub hostess (Maria Yi, Fist of Fury), Chin Fu sets out to infiltrate Tokyo’s underworld, expose a criminal conspiracy and uncover his father’s true fate by any means necessary.
Long rumoured to have been planned as the third collaboration between Lo Wei and Bruce Lee before Lee made his directorial debut with The Way of the Dragon, A Man Called Tiger instead became a vehicle for another martial arts superstar in Jimmy Wang Yu.
Special Features and Specs
- NEW 2K RESTORATION of the original Hong Kong theatrical cut (79 mins)
- NEW 2K RESTORATION of the extended export version (112 minutes)
- Original Mandarin and classic English dub audio options (original mono presentations)
- Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
- Brand new audio commentary on the Hong Kong version by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
- Brand new audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
- Reversible sleeve featuring original poster artwork
- Trailer
- A limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by James Oliver
- Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling
- Limited edition reversible poster featuring original poster artwork
Wolves, Pigs & Men – August 19, 2024
A standout yakuza film directed by a master of the genre in Kinji Fukasaku (Battles Without Honour and Humanity), Wolves, Pigs and Men is an uncompromising treatise on brutality and brotherhood starring Rentaro Mikuni (Harakiri), Kinya Kitaoji (Battles Without Honour and Humanity: Final Episode) and the inimitable Ken Takakura (Abashiri Prison).
Kuroki (Mikuni), Jiro (Takakura) and Sabu (Kitaoji) are three brothers born into poverty. Kuroki, the eldest, finds an escape from his squalid beginnings by turning to organised crime – and soon both Jiro and Sabu have followed him into the yakuza lifestyle. But none of the brothers see eye to eye, each of them showing more loyalty to their criminal comrades than to their siblings. Following a stint in prison, Jiro convinces Sabu to help him pull off a potentially lucrative heist, leading to a series of betrayals and horrifically violent acts that will test the bonds of blood to their breaking point.
Blending the staple themes of the Japanese gangster film with narrative and aesthetic qualities borrowed from the French New Wave and American film noir, Wolves, Pigs and Men stands as one of the finest yakuza movies of the 1960s. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the film in its UK debut, on Blu-ray from a new restoration of the original film elements by Toei.
Special Features and Specs
- NEW RESTORATIONrestoration of the original film elements supplied by Toei
- Original Japanese audio track (uncompressed LPCM mono)
- Audio commentary track by Jasper Sharp
- Interview with screenwriter Junya Sato
- Interview with producer Tatsu Yoshida
- Interview with Kinji Fukasaku’s biographer, Sadao Yamane
- Trailer
- A collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Japanese cinema expert Joe Hickinbottom
- Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju)
Laurel & Hardy: The Silent Years – August 19, 2024
Standing tall alongside Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as pioneers of cinematic comedy, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are two of the most beloved comedians in the history of moving pictures. Having acted alongside each other for the first time in 1921, they officially teamed up later in the decade in a series of shorts made for producer Hal Roach – launching a wildly successful partnership that would survive into the sound era and last for another quarter of a century.
This collection captures the duo’s earliest (mis)adventures on screen, chronicling their journey from their first films together – The Lucky Dog and the aptly titled 45 Minutes to Hollywood – to the dawn of their official partnership in thirteen shorts released throughout 1927. From Duck Soup and Sailors Beware! to Do Detectives Think?, Putting Pants on Philip and The Battle of the Century (once available only in incomplete versions until its missing scenes were rediscovered in 2015), these films show the development of two independent comedians into the most influential and celebrated comedy duo of all time.
The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the early works of Laurel & Hardy – painstakingly restored from the best available materials held by collectors and archives around the globe – in a special two-disc Blu-ray edition for the first time in the UK from 2K restorations. The set contains the following shorts: Lucky Dog, 45 Minutes from Hollywood, Duck Soup, Slipping Wives, Love ’em and Weep, Why Girls Love Sailors, With Love and Hisses, Sailors, Beware!, Do Detectives Think?, Flying Elephants, Sugar Daddies, The Second 100 Years, Call of the Cuckoo, Putting Pants on Phillip, and The Battle of the Century.
Special Features and Specs
- NEW 2K RESTORATIONS
- Scores by a variety of silent film composers including Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Eric le Guen and Donald Sosin
- Alternate scores on select shorts
- Audio commentary tracks on all films
- New interviews with silent film experts
- Image galleries
- Archival recordings and interviews
- A collector’s booklet featuring newly written notes on each film by Paul Merton, and a new essay by Imogen Sara Smith
- Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow
