Movie Poster: EX2 - The Expendables 2

I am reasonably sure that this poster tells you everything you need to know about this movie.

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Blu-ray Review: The Ultimate Force of Four

The Ultimate Force of Four
Featuring: Hero, Iron Monkey, The Legend of the Drunken Master, and The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi

Asian cinema fan? Samarai Fan? Kung-Fu fan? Any of these types will be thrilled with the recent release of Miramax's Blu-ray Box Set The Ultimate Force of Four.

The set features some great films from some industry legends including Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Takeshi Kitano.

Click the Rawr for our thoughts on the set!




The Ultimate Force of Four features a nice spread of Asian cinema from historical epics to wild action. Each of the four titles included in the set are prime examples of amazing fight scenes, high drama, and exceptional film making.

First up is Hero, which happens to be my favorite of the bunch. The Jet Li epic is presented here in gorgeous 1080p. The sound and picture are quite good and make revisiting this film a treat. Special features wise, Hero has the most to offer. We get featurettes including a conversation with Quentin Tarantino and Jet Li and a Making of. Storyboards, a Soundtrack Spot, and a digital copy of the film make up the rest of the features.

Honestly, the features aren't that great but the film is so good and is so well represented on blu-ray that is really doesn't matter.

Next up is the action packed Iron Monkey. This film is full of some incredible fight scenes and has a great story as well. It is a really fun film that is gorgeously presented on blu-ray. The problem here is the complete lack of features. There are two interviews (Quentin Tarantino and Donnie Yen) and nothing else to speak of. For a film that "critics everywhere have called one of the greatest martial arts films of all time" they sure don't think it deserves any kind of supplemental material. That is pretty sad considering a film like this must have a wealth of material that could be presented.


Thirdly, we have the Jackie Chan classic The Legend of the Drunken Master, which is exactly what it sounds like. The stunts and fighting in this are great. Jackie Chan was truly incredible back then. He's top of his game in this one. It's a pretty funny movie too. A movie about a guy who gets better at fighting the drunker he gets has to have some laughs right?

Sadly, this disc is also vacant of features outside of a Jackie Chan interview. Besides that the disc looks and sounds incredible it's just unfortunate we get a goose egg for special features.

Last on the list is the film written by, directed by, edited by, and starring Takeshi Kitano, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. This is probably my second favorite of the set. It's a gorgeous film about a revenge seeking, nomadic, blind samurai. He has a lot against him but it certainly doesn't stop him from slicing and dicing.

The film looks and sounds great of course (beginning to sound like a broken record here but Miramax truly does great with their releases) but again, not many features to be had. This time we have a behind the scenes special and cast interviews. Still the film alone is enough, it truly shows off Takeshi Kitano's talents as a film maker and an actor.

Individually, these films can cost you between $25.99 and $29.99 buy you can get the entire set for under $75. That's a great bargain for some excellent martial arts cinema.

Sure for the most part the discs are light on features but the quality of what we're seeing more than make up for that. Amazing picture, stunning sound, and superb films make The Ultimate Force of Four a no brainer.

The Ultimate Force of Four is available now.

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DVD Review: The Forbidden Kingdom

The Forbidden Kingdom
Written by: John Fusco
Directed by: Rob Minkoff
Starring: Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano, Yifei Liu, Colin Chou, and Bingbing Li

Fans have been waiting years for martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li to unite on film. I'm not quite sure The Forbidden Kingdom is quite what they had in mind.

It's a fish out of water tale about a boy who mysteriously travels from modern day Boston to ancient China in a journey to deliver a magic staff to its rightful owner, The Monkey King. The story is apparently based on the Chinese epic story 'Journey to the West', one of the four great classic novels of Chinese Literature.

The Forbidden Kingdom is not entirely original in its execution. It is extremely reminiscent of The NeverEnding Story and even The Lord of the Rings movies. It fact it almost seems like the folks behind the movie wanted to mash those two movies together and throw in some Martial Arts for good measure.

It's a silly, family movie that hard core fans of Li and Chan probably will snub. It's American to a fault and lacks the authenticity of an Asian martial arts epic.

That said, I can't deny its charm. It so hard to be good that it can't help but win you over.


Like I said before, it's silly. There are a few laughs and some pretty decent fight scenes but it's really Michael Angarano and Jet Li who carry the movie. Jackie Chan hams it up as a drunken immortal and Bingbing Li does a decent job as a bounty hunter after the staff but the real heart of the movie is with Michael Angarano. He plays his fish out of water part to a tee and handles the Martial Arts work like a pro. He was pretty close to inheriting the role of Peter Parker, according to rumor anyway, and I can see why. I expect big things from him in the future.

As far as characters go, they're all pretty standard here. There is nothing that really stands out as far as originality. Save for Golden Sparrow, who has a rather interesting way of speaking and is played wonderfully by Yifei Liu.

The lack of originality is really the main flaw of the movie. There are some clunkers as far as dialogue goes but it has a certain charm that helps you overlook the negatives.

It's a fun family fantasy with some cool fight scenes. A nice way to kill a couple hours.

As far as the DVD goes, I was sent a copy of the 2 disc special edition. Which basically is just a reason to charge more money for a digital copy of this film. This is a trend that needs to stop immediately if you ask me.

The DVD has a lot of special features including a hilarious blooper real, deleted scenes, commentary, and numerous featurettes.

Overall, The Forbidden Kingom is a good buy. It's a great film to share with your kids. I know it isn't what hardcore Martial Arts fans were expecting but hopefully we'll get a more serious collaboration from Li and Chan in the future.

The Forbidden Kingdom is in stores today.

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