Bruce Lee New BIG BOSS DVD Review!

[Squid Lips]

Just came out region 2:

The Big Boss
Reviewed by Neil Jenkins 2nd November 2000

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Alternative Titles: Big Brother From China, King Of Boxers, Tang shan da xiong, China Mountain Big Brother, Tang saan daai hing
Main Stars: Bruce Lee, James Tien
Studio: Hong Kong Legends
Packaging: Clear Keep Case
Extras: Animated Menus, Scene Selection (30), Bruce Lee Biography & Filmography, Photo Gallery, 3 Theatrical Trailers including rare deleted footage, Audio Commentary by Bruce Lee expert Bey Logan
Aspect Ratio: Digitally remastered Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1
Sound: Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono English Dubbed, Dolby Digital 1.0 Cantonese with remastered English Subtitles, Dolby Digital 1.0 Cantonese with remastered Dutch Subtitles
Subtitles: Remastered (very clear) English, Remastered (very clear) English
Director: Lo Wei
Rating/Certificate: 18 (newly released Uncut)
Region: R2 PAL
Price: £19.99

Film

In 1971 a film was released in Hong Kong that was to introduce a new star and in turn create a cinema and cross-cultural icon. The film was Tang shan da xiong aka The Big Boss and the star was Bruce Lee.

Filmed for around $100,000 in Thailand the film was a critical success for Lee who had returned to Hong Kong following unsuccessful attempts to break into mainstream Hollywood despite being a popular child star.

The film covers the story of Cheng Chao-An who finds work courtesy of his uncle in an Ice making factory. Honoring his mother Cheng refuses to get embroiled in the factory problems until pushed to the extreme.

The fairly standard Revenge theme allows a quiet reserved Lee to frown, grimace and smolder before breaking out into his trademark fighting stance.

Cinematography and style take a back seat to the kicking that ultimately is the draw for the film. In this modern age of "Bullet Time", Wire Fu and obvious Stunt Doubles there is smoothing visceral and rewarding about the onscreen Lee.


With an onscreen presence that so dominates one can't help but wonder how the Martial Arts/Action genre would have looked today.

Whilst The Big Boss is not the best Bruce Lee film (we'd go with Fist of Fury) it is an essential title to own for the Martial Arts/Bruce Lee fan.

Of course the critical question really becomes "Which is the best DVD of The Big Boss?"

For such an important film we have compared the following versions:

R2 Hong Kong Legends PAL
R1 Fox Master Collection (under the USA title Fists of Fury) NTSC
R0 Universe NTSC
R0 WA China Version
Given the massive difference in improved picture quality of the new Hong Kong Legends version the other versions are only briefly covered for reasons that are self evident.

DVD Video Quality
The Big Boss was filmed in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio using a process called Dyaliscope. All the reviewed DVDs are in the correct ratio.

However this at the time of writing is a 29 year old film and the print as you can imagine is pretty poor quality across the R1 and R0 versions.

Using a print from the Golden Harvest vault Hong Kong Legends have digitally remastered the film frame by frame. So poor was the print that some frames had to be recomposited together. An example of this is a tear in the print that meant a table was actually two triangles. In the HKL version it is correctly a square.

Additionally and perhaps most strikingly this version has been extensively colour corrected.

So how does it look? Simply put the Hong Kong Legends release smacks down every other version with one swift punch.

The 2.35:1 print is also Anamorphic resulting in considerable detail improvements across every aspect of the picture. Comparing the pictures of the versions we see that the R2 print features significantly improved sharpness in the foreground, higher clarity of texturing particularly in the various scenes with clothes, and increases the quality of the backgrounds.

Yes, the higher PAL resolution and Anamorphic Enhancement help alot but it is HKL's quality improvements and remastering that have fundamentally elevated this version above the others. Areas of outstanding improvement include the opening harbour scene where you can see Bruce's face and the water ripples rather than the R1 blur, the numerous fight scenes, and the interior shots of the Brothel.

In a side by side comparison it is the colour differences that you instantly notice. The HKL R2 print features clean, natural colour hues rather than the dull washed imagery of the other versions. Fleshtones specifically appear clear and correct as opposed to the greyish tones of the R1. Saturation of the specific primary colours is a little high most evident in the key Ice chipping indoor scene but it is not enough to cause colour bloom or bleed on a properly calibrated TV.

Gone is the blue-grey black levels of the R0 releases to be replaced by a very deep pure black level. Due to the age of the print and the stock used there is only minor shadow detail.

Overall this is an exemplary remaster of key Martial Arts title. The quality of this R2 puts all the others to shame. Picturewise Bruce Lee has never looked so good.

DVD Audio Quality
Audio is provided as Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono Cantonese with remastered, sharp English subtitles. Whilst not great (remember this is 29 years old) the audio is perfectly fine and clear having fidelity levels that are in excess of the other versions. This about as good as the audio gets on this film.

A Cantonese track with Dutch subtitles is also included. Finally a reasonable English dub with an alternate music score completes the audio side of the DVD.

Compared to the other R1 and R0 titles this R2 disc has a cleaner, crisper sound. Some minor background noise is heard in the films quieter moments.


DVD Extras Quality
Considering the age of the film you would think that the disc is somewhat thin on the extras front. Whilst not as Extra rich as popular USA Hollywood titles the film has several important extras.

First up is the extensive Filmography and Biography with voice over about Bruce Lee.

Next up is the small but reasonable Photo Gallery. That has Lee in various poses, this is perhaps the weakest extra being somewhat small and not particularly large or clear.

The three trailers include Hong Kong Legends newly created The Big Boss promotional trailer, the excellent Hong Kong promotional trailer and perhaps most important of all the Original Theatrical Trailer featuring rare deleted footage. A nice touch here is a detailed explanation of the footage, and where it occurs in the film. Note that the Deleted Scenes are not included. The scenes were screened in a special Mandarin print in 1976 but despite extensive research and searching by the Golden Harvest team these scenes have not been found. In addition the frame regarding the infamous Saw in the Head sequence is not included if such an actual print master exists anywhere today. The scene is described in the Audio Commentary.

A small Easter Egg hides a set of Production Scenes for a fight sequence in the film. We'll leave it to you to find.

There are trailers for all the released Hong Kong Legends titles also included.

Of course we have saved the best extra until last and for a Bruce Lee film it is an excellent addition. The DVD includes a specially recorded full length Audio Commentary by Media Asia's Bruce Lee expert Bey Logan. Logan has been working extensively in the Martial Arts film industry for a long time. The commentary is detail rich, easy listening that complements the film extensively. So much so that it is unlikely you will ever read another book on The Big Boss so great is the content here. There is so much information that to enjoy it fully you'll need to listen to it a few times. The commentary also has some excellent comments, Macauley Culkin as Rambo 4 being my favorite. Of course with such an excellent extra Hong Kong Legends will now need to include a Logan Commentary on each of their Bruce Lee DVDs. The precedent has been set. An essential extra for any Fan.

Summary
Bruce Lee will remain an Icon for many years to come to many people across the world. No-one yet in modern films has managed to match his onscreen presence or ferocity (perhaps a melding of Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li is the closest). As such his films will remain classics as a result.

With many versions of the film available on DVD (we are aware of at least 8) the Hong Kong Legends version needed to be something special. Not only have the team created something special they have excelled in the restoration of one of the most important films in modern Hong Kong cinema.

The video quality considering the age and the other prints is superb. The audio is as good as it is going to be. The extras are reasonable but the audio commentary makes it excel. Yet another essential purchase and if you have any other version I'm afraid you're going to owe it to yourself to upgrade!

The ratings take into consideration the restoration issues and the conditions of Hong Kong Cinema prints.


Region 2
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Overall: A
B
A
A

BBFC Cut: The Big Boss has been released for the first time fully uncut.

Movie Trivia: If you pay attention through the movie, you can tell when Bruce will kill in a fight. When it's just a "fun" fight, he would wear either brown or blue pants with a t-shirt and a blue sash. But in a serious fight, he'd wear a long sleeve shirt with black pants and a white sash.