"Actor: Chi Fai Chan"

• Police Story 2 | DVD | (25/03/2002) from £16.02   |  Saving you £6.96 (53.42%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Police Story 2 (1989) is one of those rare sequels that's more fun than its predecessor. Jackie Chan plays his usual rule-breaking cop, loyal to superiors that carp at the destruction he leaves in his wake but are prepared to take credit for every success he has. Here he finds himself up against vengeful gangsters whose plans he frustrated in the first of the series; but he also has to combat a ruthless team of extortionists with a taste for explosions both large and small--blowing up large buildings, turning people into human bombs and torturing people with firecrackers are all part of their repertoire. He has girlfriend trouble, too, since his fiancée is worried that he always puts the job first. Like its predecessor and the quasi-sequel First Strike (1996), Police Story 2 is transitional between Chan's early more fight-orientated Hong Kong movies and his later, blander Hollywood films. The fights and stunts here are most of the point of what is essentially a very good generic Jackie Chan vehicle; he takes on progressively larger groups of opponents, coping, for example, with a dozen gangsters armed with swords in a terraced garden by leaping from level to level and paying each opponent individual attention. The final fight in a fireworks factory is a Chan classic, depending as it does as much on the comedy of frustrating repetition as on daring stunts. --Roz Kaveney

• The Blade | DVD | (17/04/2000) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-10.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Legendary Hong Kong Director Tsui Hark blends violent action and stunning swordplay in his remake of the Shaw Brothers classic One-Armed Swordsman. The Blade is a sweeping epic which highlights the incredible fighting talent of Chiu Cheuk Hong Kong's latest action start. When a master sword-maker adopts the son of a murdered friend (Chiu Cheuk) the boy learns the master's craft well. As a young man he learns about his fathers death at the hand of a mysterious tattooed killer (Xiong-Xin-Xin). He takes fathers broken blade and sets out to seek vengeance. The daughter Ling follows but is caught in a bloody ambush. When he tries to rescue her his arm is hacked off in the battle and he is believed dead by all except Ling and his friend who set out in search of him. But he is saved by a hermit girl who nurses him back to health where he finds an old kung fu manual and practices with the broken blade to perfect the art of one armed swordfighting. In a breathtaking finale unlike anything you have seen before our hero sets off once again to find the tattooed assassin a quest that leads to an explosive and spectacular showdown.

• New Dragon Gate Inn | DVD | (31/07/2000) from £11.42   |  Saving you £8.57 (75.04%)   |  RRP £19.99

  New Dragon Gate Inn is the DVD title of the 1992 swordplay adventure Dragon Inn, producer Tsui Hark's follow-up to Once Upon a Time in China and Swordsman 2 (both 1991). In the wake of the huge success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon it is a film ripe for rediscovery. A pair of warriors (Brigitte Lin and Tony Leung), who only admit their love when it is too late, have to rescue two children from the clutches of a corrupt warlord. Fleeing through the vast, highly pictorial desert, they seek shelter in the isolated Dragon Inn run by the man-eating Maggie Cheung (traveller's tip, don't try the "mixed meat"). The scene is set for intrigue, romance and exhilarating wirework, as our heroes wait for the enemy to arrive in what is essentially the classic High Noon scenario. The build-up isn't always coherent, though that may have something to do with the subtitles, which are unnecessarily crude. Despite this the production values and high-flying fights are first-rate and the two actresses make the film, particularly the devilishly sexy Maggie Cheung. The final showdown in a desert storm is breathtaking.On the DVD: In the cinemas this was an absolutely gorgeous 2.35:1 widescreen film, which here has been reformatted to 16:9 TV ratio, sacrificing important visual information at either side and significantly damaging the stunning cinematography. Enough survives to indicate just how beautiful the complete images are, and the anamorphically enhanced 1.77:1 transfer is sharp and clean on exterior shots, though some of the dimly lit interiors display considerable grain. Although only mono the sound is full and free from distortion, providing a good showcase for the atmospheric score. The film can be watched with the original Mandarin soundtrack and English subtitles, or dubbed. Included is an interview with Donnie Yen and detailed text biographies of the two female stars. The music promo is Hong Kong Legends' own trailer, included together with five further trailers for other releases. The original theatrical trailer is also present, and no matter what screen setting it is played at, everything looks vertically compressed. However, change the DVD player setting from widescreen to 4:3 letterbox and the trailer plays in the correct 2.35:1 proportions, confirming how the film was really shot. Though the DVD packaging bills this edition of Dragon Inn as the full-length original version though there is no explanation of what footage has been restored from previous releases. --Gary S. Dalkin

• Naked Killer 2 | DVD | (17/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A suave and seductive serial rapist (Mark Cheng) is on the prowl terrorising an apartment block. Fearing her life to be in danger Chu (Jacqueline Ng) enlists the help of her old friend Yau (Chingamy Yau) as an avenging angel who will seduce the rapist and wreak revenge on behalf of the victims of his terrible crimes. Soon the two are embroiled in an erotic and deadly game of cat and mouse...