"Actor: Kien Shih"

• Enter The Dragon | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £6.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (100.14%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The last film completed by Bruce Lee before his untimely death, Enter the Dragon was his entrée into Hollywood. The American-Hong Kong co-production, shot in Asia by American director Robert Clouse, stars Lee as a British agent sent to infiltrate the criminal empire of bloodthirsty Asian crime lord Han (Shih Kien) through his annual international martial arts tournament. Lee spends his days taking on tournament combatants and nights breaking into the heavily guarded underground fortress, kicking the living tar out of anyone who stands in his way. The mix of kung fu fighting (choreographed by Lee himself) and James Bond intrigue (the plot has more than a passing resemblance to Dr. No) is pulpy by any standard, but the generous budget and talented cast of world-class martial artists puts this film in a category well above Lee's primitive Hong Kong productions. Unfortunately he's off the screen for large chunks of time as American maverick competitors (and champion martial artists) John Saxon and Jim Kelly take centre stage, but once the fighting starts Lee takes over. The tournament setting provides an ample display of martial arts mastery of many styles and climaxes with a huge free-for-all, but the highlight is Lee's brutal one-on-one with the claw-fisted Han in the dynamic hall-of-mirrors battle. Lee narrows his eyes and tenses into a wiry force of sinew, speed and ruthless determination. -- Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com

• Enter The Dragon (Special Edition) | DVD | (02/08/2004) from £10.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (45.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Legendary Bruce Lee. Unknown in 1971. Two years later an international cult hero and more than twenty years on still remembered as the star of the biggest martial arts epic ever filmed - ""Enter The Dragon."" ""Enter The Dragon"" takes Lee into the island fortress of a warlord of crime Han who carries on his opium smuggling and prostitution activities under the disguise of a martial arts academy. Determined to avenge the death of his sister Lee penetrates Han's Stronghold and en

• Hong Kong 1941 | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £21.29   |  Saving you £-1.30 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Hong Kong 1941 is a film from the former Crown Colony uniquely focusing on the Japanese occupation during the Second World War. Starring Chow Yun-Fat, shortly before A Better Tomorrow (1986) made him a superstar, this is a war drama far removed from the usual action fare expected from Hong Kong cinema. The English title deliberately evokes Spielberg's 1941, though the content anticipates the same director's Empire of the Sun, even to the extent that the hymn "Suo Gan" is used in both movies. The story of two friends in love with the same woman may call to mind Pearl Harbor, though this comparatively low-budget feature offers an infinitely more convincing account of the horrors of war than Michael Bay's glossy big-budget epic, with some of the most harrowing sequences since The Deer Hunter. The film does not shy away from the moral complexities of collaboration with the enemy, and likewise presents the main characters as fully three-dimensional. Chow Yun-Fat inevitably dominates (he won a Golden Horse award for his performance), yet Cecilia Yip Tong makes a strong impression as the heroine whose terminal illness does not result in the expected sentimental clichés. Alex Man is memorable as the third corner of the triangle, but what makes Hong Kong 1941 genuinely notable is its emotionally charged evocation of WWII from a rarely seen perspective. On the DVD: Hong Kong 1941 is presented in an anamorphically enhanced transfer at 1.77:1, cropping just a little of the original Hong Kong Critics Award-winning cinematography. The picture is excellent, with no blemishes, fine detail, rich colours and barely a hint of grain. The sound is offered in stereo in the original Cantonese, with optional English subtitles, or in a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix and dubbed into English. Both tracks have occasional distortion on the music. The original version preserves the performances much better, though some of the subtitles are wildly inaccurate--references to living in the 21st century and to Japanese jet planes--while the dubbed track offers better than average voice acting but with many of the cultural references Westernised. The multi-channel remix adds only discrete ambient effects and is barely noticeable. The main special features are an information-packed commentary by Hong Kong movie expert Bay Logan, and two interviews. Chow Yun-Fat speaks rather nervously in English for 12 minutes on a variety of topics, concentrating on his work with John Woo. The interview with Cecilia Yip Tong, specific to Hong Kong 1941, is in Cantonese with English subtitles, runs 27 minutes and is anamorphically enhanced with excellent image quality. Also included is a routine photo gallery, the original theatrical trailer and 12 Hong Kong Legends DVD trailers. --Gary S Dalkin

• The Young Master | DVD | (27/12/2002) from £16.98   |  Saving you £6.00 (42.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  It's trouble all the way when Dragon (Jackie Chan) tries to save his brother from a life of crime and through a case of mistaken identity finds himself on the wrong side of the law!

• Enter The Dragon - Box Set | DVD | (08/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  One of the most successful martial arts movies of all time, if not the best, Enter the Dragon (filmed in 1973) was Bruce Lee's last completed film and the first significant meeting of Hollywood and Hong Kong cinema. But it wasn't an entirely harmonious marriage, with on-set communication breakdowns and rows resulting in some poor scripting, editing and overdubbing. Lee plays a Shaolin fighter recruited by British intelligence to spy on renegade Shaolin master and crime overlord Han (Shih Kien) by entering the martial arts tournament held on Han's fortress island. If the plot sounds a touch contrived, it is. Han's fluffy white cat, clawed hand and ruthless megalomania suggest nothing so much as a classic Bond villain, and the plot has holes you could pilot a large Junk through (Lee's discovery that his sister committed suicide rather than submit herself to Han's men is particularly weak). Nonetheless, Lee is utterly compelling. At the height of his skills, he choreographed, directed and performed fight scenes which are among the most gripping ever filmed, including the classic underground scene which, in this uncut version, contains Lee's incredible (and previously deleted) nun-chuck display. John Saxon and karate champion Jim Kelly ably support him as fellow contestants, with the massive Yang Sze playing Bolo, Han's lieutenant. Despite being cheesy and overblown, Enter the Dragon is a highly entertaining and accessible Kung Fu film and a showcase for Bruce Lee's considerable skills. --Duncan Thomson