Category Archives: 80’s-riffic!

Cartagena’s Secrets are Mountainous EVIL Aliens! “Top Line” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

When Everyone’s Out To Get You, You Get “Top Line” on Blu-ray!

Washed up, alcoholic feature journalist Ted Angelo drinks himself into a stupor on the porticos of Columbia.  Having just been fired by his magazine editor for lack of content, Angelo scores big when led down the path of ancient tribal artifacts that proves the terminus of one of Europe’s famous new world explorers, rewriting history of the disappeared pioneer, but what he truly discovers is bigger, and more frightening, than history itself as he unearths a large alien spacecraft hidden within the Columbian mountains, big enough to enclose the explorer’s lost mast ship.  The discovery of a lifetime becomes the bane of Ted Angelo’s existence as he’s suddenly on a kill list and every organization, from the C.I.A., to the K.G.B., to former Nazis, is hunting him and wanting him dead.  Unable to trust anyone and nowhere to run and hide, the desperate writer is determined to expose the secret-to-kill-for to the world but not if the aliens have anything to say about it. 

Let’s talk about a film that is a bit of a smorgasbord with tapas plate tastings of just about every genre that exists.  That’s one way to serve the description of Nello Rossati’s “Top Line” with an inarguable action coating menu overtop the varietal lifeblood veins of science fiction, espionage, drama, parody, horror, and driven by a sensationalized historical context.  Directed under Rossati’s Americanized pen name, Ted Archer, and known alternatively as “Alien Terminator,” “Top Line” tries to appeal to western audiences with brazenly broad script cowritten by “The Woman in the Night” director and Roberto Gianviti (“Don’t Torture the Duckling,” “Murder Rock”) at the height of Italian ripping of popular American movies.  Filmed on site in Cartagena, Colombia, the Italian production was produced by Luciano Martino (“The Island of the Fishmen”) and productionally sanctioned under companies Dania Film, Reteitalia and the National Cinematografica. 

What’s likeable about Ted Angelo is he’s simply a writer.  He’s not a crack-shot, he’s not a world-class fighter, and he’s not one for conjuring up a complex master plan.  Instead, Ted Angelo is a flawed man under the influence of a bottle and is a low-level womanizer where the bedroom interests are more about local information than about the sexual activities.  Franco Nero (“Django,” “High Crime”) goes against his multifaceted ruggedness and muscular physique to be the more of an adaptable and instinctual hero that tries to make up for slouching about Columbia’s drink selection.  Nero’s the hero while Deborah Moore, of “Warriors of the Apocalypse” and daughter of former James Bond Roger Moore, tiptoes about the love interest trope after her character’s senior colleague, who is also Angelo’s good friend, is murdered in the plot and the two become intwined and more goal oriented in unearthing the reason in a minor ploy of revenge.  Yet, the trick is on them after discovering a U.F.O. right in their mountainous backyard and the hunt for their lives is on by a former Nazi and antiquities collector Heinrich Holzmann (George Kennedy, “Naked Gun”), a whole slew of clandestine organization spooks, and Rodrigo Obregón (“Savage Beach”) doing his best Arnold Schwarzenegger “Terminator” act as a large cybernetic man with a stoic and half-exposed face.  “Top Line” supporting cast includes William Berger (“Devil Fish”), Sherly Hernandez, Larry Dolgin (“Caligula:  The Untold Story”), Steven Luotto, Robert Redcross, and Mary Stavin (“House”) as Ted Angelo’s ex-blonde beauty editor girlfriend.

“Top Line” has one of those cinematic stories that’s all over the place pieced together by western inspiration like some sort of genre stitched together Frankenstein’s monster.  Unlike the flat top and bolt-necked creature born of electrical current and held together by suture and mad scientist sorcery, “Top Line” doesn’t have any hideous scars or an unfavorable attitude deterrent but what the Nello Rossati film does feature similarly are the monstrous best parts, such as unpredictability, a pendulum of excitements, and an everyone has grabbed their pitchforks and is out to get you sentiment.  “Top Line” is a wild, exciting, volatile ride set in the heart of a landscape and culturally showcased Cartagena and the ever game, Italian actor Franco Nero at the helm steering what at first appears to be an adventurous escapade of treasuring hunting and covert coverups in act one and two suddenly careens into an assault of astro-terrestrials forces to the tune of the fourth Indiana Jones film, “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, by crescendoing third act.  “Top Line” is just as theatrically thrilling without the whipcrackin’, fedora-wearing, family friendly archaeologist with multiple blood squib shootouts, a superb tongue-and-cheek car chase down winding mountainside road, and the hydraulics-driven special effects transfiguration your eyes need to see to below.

Cauldron Films proudly presents “Top Line” onto Blu-ray for the first time, the resulting 2K transfer sourced from the camera negative. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 decodes a clean, color stable picture that feels organic around the diffused color scheme, and that palette pops without being artificially enhanced. Grain appears in check, natural, and consistent throughout. Presented in the original aspect ratio, a widescreen European ratio 1.66:1, does capture the grandiose of a 17th century exploration ship inside the cavernous mountain without a squeeze of the frame, providing more depth with the help of the art direction to visualize and construct an actual set. Textures, fibers, and other tactile s are limited around the jungle setting that does offer a nice leafy and lush setting that depicts a thicket of a developing country without just being a smear of the same color arrangement but outside of that, what does source de facto is sumptuous textural material. Two audio options are available to choose from with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono and an Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono. The Italian is done in post with ADR and has that nagging space between action and voice while the English track goes through less dubbing, or more exact dubbing, with Franco Nero, and other cast, having their voice heard in scene and in synch. The only issue concerning comes with George Kennedy’s dialogue which is dubbed to be more archetypical German of the Nazi-era; however, this route was not heavily travelled with very few lines being delivered by Kennedy, or rather Kennedy’s voiceover actor. Ambience travels amply and disseminates well for a single signal to travel through a stereo output and this jumps the eclectic range of action from the speakers to your ears. Granted, the action is very selective as you don’t every nuisance of jungle skirmishes and the other village landscapes, but there is enough and what’s not covered is often overlayed with Maurizio Dami’s tribal, tropical paradisio percussion and parallel synth with echoing vocal snips, such as whistling, and peppered with scene bytes – the chase sequence where the first batch of armed men running down Ted Angelo is audio composition gold. Special features on Cauldron’s standard Blu-ray contain an exclusive, new interview with lead man Franco Nero Black Top!, an interview with Eugenio Ercolani The Strange Case of Ted Archer, parapolitic researcher Robert Skvarla takes at examples of known alien sightings and speculations in Alien Terminated: The Alien Theories, an audio commentary by film historian Eric Zaldivar that includes interviews from Deborah Moore and Robert Redcross, and with additional insight on Italian cult films from actors Brett Halsey and Richard Harrison. The clear Amaray Blu-ray houses reversible cover art, both representing original artwork from the film’s release. The primary art is more adventurously exciting with Angelo’s arm wrapped around Moore and a rope, reminiscent of “Romancing the Stone,” while the interior cover plays to the science fiction side of the story, more “Terminator-y” to be exact. There are no inserts or other tangible items included. The 92-minute feature is presented unrated with a hard encoded region A playback.

Last Rites: “Top Line” is a top tier title with a little bit of everything for everybody that’s accentuated by a on-the-run Franco Nero performance with a new, gorgeous 2K transfer Blu-ray packed with special features from our friends at Cauldron Films.

When Everyone’s Out To Get You, You Get “Top Line” on Blu-ray!

EVIL Lies in Ancestral Ties! “Dogra Magra” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Dogra Magra” on Limited Edition Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

A young man wakes up in an asylum cell, unable to remember how he got there, his name, and doesn’t even recognize his face.  The asylum supervisor, Prof. Wakabayashi, has been overseeing his condition ever since the suicidal passing of former experimenting director, Dr. Masaki, nearly a month ago.  Disoriented, the young man is toured around the hospital grounds where Wakabayashi tells him the tragic tale of a 9th century man who kills his bride the day before their wedding day to capture the stages of her decomposition recorded onto a sacred scroll.  Distancing himself from the possibility of being murderous man, Wakabayashi informs him he is Kure Ichiro, the direct descendent of the groom and he enacted the very same events his ancestor committed long ago.  When the sudden reemergence of Dr. Masaki covertly corners Ichiro in his office, Masaki divulges his and Wakabayashi’s theories about Ichiro’s case but how the events came to fruition just may be plain and simple murder. 

Nature versus Nurture and the psychosis that ensues when discussing Pre-World War II context of Empirical Japan and their either inherent tendencies to repeat a violent past or to be triggered, poked, and prodded toward repeating history is the surmised and experimental plot of writer Yumeno Kyūsaku and his psychoanalytical novel “Dogura Magura.”  The title rearranged to “Dogra Mogra” is used for the film adaptation of Kyūsaku’s novel with the script written-and-directed by the avant-garde filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto (Japan’s “Demons” of 1971).  Matsumoto cowrites the script with Atsushi Yamatoya (“Story of David:  Hunting for Beautiful Girls”) written primarily from the distressed perspective of the protagonist Kure Ichiro only to switch hands when the experimenting Masaki enters the fold.  Shuji Shibata and Kazuo Shimizu inpendently produce the 1988 film under production companies Katsujindo Cinema and Toshykanky Kaihatsu AG.

Principal players of “Dogra Magra” boil down to a three-prong outfit centered around Kure Ichiro and his theorized amnesia.  Before being the lead voice actor in “Prince Mononoke,” a decade earlier Yôji Matsuda was waking up with an inexplicable unawareness of who he was or what he had done as Kure Ichiro.  Matsuda feigns forgetfulness with shock and surprise, that will too place audiences in situational darkness, with the young Ichiro arousing in a powerful moment of unfamiliarity.  A shaken, discombobulated Ichiro becomes the object of obsessional mark between two theoretical and experimental-competing psychoanalysts in Prof. Wakabayashi and Dr. Masaki, played respectively by a collectively calm and bearded Hideo Murota (“Rape and Death of a Housewife,” “Original Sin”) that emits a sense of academia and medical security and reason and a hyenic-laughing, bald and glasses-wearing Eri Misawa who is more maniacal and unconventional to the likes of a mad-scientist   Yet both men have motivation that stirs the enigmatic pot of Kure Ichiro’s plight, stemmed from the very same source that drives the brutal murder of his beautiful bride one day before their wedding that eerily follows the footsteps of his macabre ancestral history.  There’s an inarguable difference between Wakabayashi and Masaki’s approach handling the curious case of Kure Ichiro; Wakabayashi’s hides in the clandestine shadows that aims to subvert the thought dead Masaki’s work whereas Masaki, under his blunt-force mania, is straight forward, almost apathetically.  In either case, both psychoanalytical professionals are indifferent to the crux of human life by focusing solely on whether either one of their theories is correct in an odd game of deception and death.  “Dogra Magra” rounds out the cast with Kyôko Enami (“Curse, Death & Spirit”) and Eri Misawa.

An attribute for audiences to become lost in “Dogra Magra’s” ethereal can be contributed by Toshio Matsumoto’s accosting avant-garde disorientation that swallows Kure Ichiro past, present, and future, plays tricks on his mind and eyes, and that also fishes patiently for a conclusion that rarely seems apparent.  The experimental qualities of “Dogra Magra” seep out of the tap of dark comedy and amnestic thriller and into a basin of spreading horror and exploitation.  “Dogra Magra’s” surreal storytelling and interesting, visceral visuals often reminds us of an old-dark house film a decade prior with the Nobuhiko Obayashi film, “Hausu,” and while not based in satirical foreplay like “Hausu,” “Dogra Magra” begins to unravel more questions than answers with a fleeting sense that nothing is real, nothing is as it seems, and maybe perhaps were all stuck in Kure Ichiro’s herded and scrambled mind that may or may not be his inherent, innate doing after all and that changes the narrative entirely.  Themes of historical repetition, ancestral culpability, forgetting the past, and empirical brainwashing are churned intrinsically into “Dogra Magra’s” constitution as well as within Japanese legacy with a formidable and prophetical proposition for no hope on horizon through a chimerical lens of learning and growing into the truth.

Radiance Films continues to starkly highlight underscored and wayward films from around the globe and “Dogra Magra” is no exception with a beautifully curated Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 features the original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 filmed by cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki.  The Radiance print for the limited-edition Blu-ray is pulled from the original 35mm elements and transferred in Hi-Def by producer Shuji Shibata and supervised by Tatsuo Suzuki.  The stunning upgrade leaves nothing to the imagination with a starkly harsh color grading that appears rawer than air or bright, leaning into grayscale more with darker tones of a greenish-yellow to accentuate the morbid, maybe even grittier, side of this tale, but often has naturally flourishing landscapes, such as the beach cove and the asylum yard that provides a good stretch of depth when not filtered through a POV celluloid handheld.  What’s a real winner here are the textural details that emerge through a blanket of consistent, healthy stock grain with dust and dirt retained to an extreme minimum.  The Japanese LPCM Mono mix disperse a sure-designed composition between natural audio elements layered upon or spliced with the incongruous tunes of one going through a hallucinogenic and dissociative state.  Dr. Masaki’s maniacal laughter has a sharp authoritarian jest that makes it even more frighteningly surreal.  Dialogue withholds that same sharpness and clarity throughout channeled through a single output, harnessing all the action into a funnel but clearly distinct.  English subtitles are optionally available.  The static menu’s special features store an achieved commentary track from late director Toshio Matsumoto, a 2003 interview with the director, programmer and curator Julian Ross’s visual essay on the cinematography Dogra Magra Through the Eyes of Tatsuo Suzuki, a featurette Instructions on Ahodara Sutra on the subject of the chant used in the story, a still gallery of production sketches, and the trailer.  A 51-page, color book weighs the Blu-ray package with contents that include a director’s statement from 1988, exclusive essays and an interview by Hirofumi Sakamoto Late-Period Toshio Matsumoto and Dogra Magra, Jasper Sharp The Pen is Mightier than the Sword:  The Life of Atsushi Yamatoya, and Alexander Fee and Karin Yamamoto Memory traces:  Interview with Producer Shuji Shibata, and rounding out with transfer credits and release acknowledgements.  The reversible sleeve is housed in a clear Blu-ray Amaray with new illustration compositional art and the original, more traditionally composed, Ukiyo-e artwork on the reverse.  Encoded only for regions A and B, Radiance Films’ limited-edition release to 3000 copies has a runtime of 109 minutes and is not rated. 

Last Rites: “Dogra Magra” psychosomatic surrealism is mind games on methamphetamines and Radiance Films does the 1988 Japanese picture justice rekindling its worth to the world of cinema.

“Dogra Magra” on Limited Edition Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

Cheese Isn’t the Only Snack on this EVIL Rodent’s Diet! “Rat Man” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

See Nelson de la Rosa as the “Rat Man” on Blu-ray!

On the Caribbean Island of Santo Domingo, a genetic fiend scampers on the streets.  By injecting the sperm of a rat into a Monkey embryo, one fervent geneticist’s desires to be globally renowned creates a small yet deadly human rat.  Intelligent, agile, and with a lethal poison under its fingernails that could kill a normal size human in a matter of seconds, the creature escapes confines and roams the streets looking for fresh meat to eat.  One of the victims is a photoshoot supermodel from New York City that prompts an unofficial investigation of the mistaken sister to the supermodel and a mystery writer who are now on the hunt for the whereabouts of the others from the photoshoot group.  As the bodies pile up, the rat man wreaks havoc on the small island villages where the survivors and investigators must fight for their life to avoid being gnawed upon.

“Rat Man,” aka “Quella villa in fondo al parco,” translated to “That Villa at the End of the Park,” is the 1988 the Italian-made, creature feature of predominant spaghetti western and poliziotteschi director Giuliano Carnimeo in what would become one of his last feature films  Credited as Anthony Ascot, the western “Sartana” franchise and “The Exterminators of the Year 3000” director tackles the horrors of genetic manipulation with survivalist rodent given primate intelligence, a far cry from Carnimeo’s usual genres.  The screenplay comes from “Demons” and “The Ogre” writer Dandano Sacchetti under the penname David Parker Jr.  Carnimeo and Sacchetti Americanize their credits to appeal more to western audiences who, in the late 80’s, were lapping up Italian horror and creature features starring known international actors in tropical republics and “Rat Man” falls perfectly into that category.  “Zombie” and “The Beyond” producer Fabrizio De Angelis produces the film from production companies Surf Film and Fulvia Film.

While usually Italian productions go after American names, like John Saxon, Christopher George, or Robert Vaughn, “Rat Man” looked elsewhere amongst the surrounding Anglo-Saxon countries and plucked a few names that lead the charge in what would become a cluster of principals to become ensnared by tropical bred, genetically tainted vermin standing just over 2-feet tall, with elongated sharp teeth, and poisonous fingernails.  Without a defined lead, the script swirls through possible hero and heroine tropes, such as the investigating team-up between New Zealand actor David Warbeck (“The Beyond”) and Swedish actress Janet Agren (“Eaten Alive”) who are no strangers starring Italian productions.  Agren plays Terry who flies into Santo Domingo under the impression her supermodel sister was brutally murdered, and she happenstance meets at the same hailed cab Warbeck’s character, work vacationing mystery writer Fred Williams, who for some reason, some how becomes involved in helping Terry without significant cause or benefit other than possibly the mysterious case being a good plot for his next book.  There’s also the case of the false hero and final girl with the pursuit of photoshop photographer Mark, played by Austrian actor Werner Pochath (“Devil in the Flesh”) and his hot model Marilyn, by Italian actress Eva Grimaldi (“Covent of Sinners”).  These intended, or perhaps not intended, red herrings do make “Rat Man” favorably unpredictable as well as grim in regard to centric characters.  Grimaldi becomes the object of obsession with gratuitous nudity and a showcase of her other assets.  In more forgiving times when the diverging physical differences subjected actors into selective roles, the film employed one of the shortest men in our lifetime with Nelson de la Rosa.  Standing all of 2’ 4 ¼” because of Seckel Syndrome, the Dominican Republic born actor donned the makeup, false teeth, glued-on nails, and the ratty clothes to be transformed into the titular villain.  Limited movements and with no dialogue, de la Rosa’s underrated, give-it-his-best performance reveals to be a bright spot in story about a rat spliced with a monkey with the assistance of some movie magic; that one scene where he climbs up the window drapes and looks over his shoulder at Eva Grimaldi as she sleeps in a dark room and he’s slipping into the shadows gives proper chills.  Cast rounds out with Anna Silvia Grullon, Luisa Menon, Pepito Guerra, and Franklin Dominguez. 

Out in the cinema land, there have been worse genetical abomination movies through the decades.  “Rat Man,” surprisingly enough, champions for the middle ground as a solid, campy, man-made creature-on-the-loose feature with, dare I say it, okay performances, competent camerawork, and a villain unlike any other scampering around.  Sure, there are cheesy moments, but rats do like cheese, or so the stereotype goes, and that adds a layer of relaxation and ease knowing Giuliano Carnimeo had a sense of acceptability rather than trying to make a absolute, serious horror movie.  The one aspect I will mention where there was difficulty in swallowing was the scattered story flow.  “Rat Man” seemed to be everywhere all at once from beaches to the jungle to the vacant streets of Santo Domingo without rhyme or reason.  For a while I ran with the theory the Rat Man followed the photoshoot group, targeting the eye candy for its own perverse desires, but that promising concept was blown to smithereens when the little village of St. Martin had been terrorized and abandoned in a moment of exposition awareness.  Carnimeo’s jump from out of the western pot and into the horror fire translates his eye for the lingering and peripheral dread, much like a showdown of glares that has revolutionized to the lie and wait of the rat man cometh but if only the director could yoke the loose story for a straighter edge, “Rat Man” would have been acute as pestilence in the Italian horror mercati.

The “Rat Man” chews its way onto a brand-new Blu-ray release from Cauldron Films.  The restored in 4K transfer is pulled from the 35mm original negative and presented on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, dual-layered BD50, exhibited in the original European widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1.  Primarily in low key, shadows run the range of a creature lurking in every nook and cranny, turning “The Naked Doorwoman’s” Roberto Girometti’s, credited as Robert Gardner, cinematography from darkened eyesore to a penetrating thriller of what’s scuttering beneath the shadows.  Emerging from the color is the perfect diffusion of color and texture underneath the natural looking stock grain.  There also isn’t a compression blemish insight or any kind of unnecessary enhancements from this good-looking print.  The only audio optional available is an English dub 2.0 mono track.  Despite an assortment of nationalities, the English dub does make the distinct accents go away with language uniformity.  Foley strength lies principally in the forefront but does champion the beast with a low growl always at your feet, or face depending on the camera angle.   English subtitles are optionally available and synch well with no errors in spelling or in grammar. Cauldron Films exclusive bonus features include an audio commentary, also available on the audio setup portion of the fluid menu, with film historians Eugenio Ercolani, Troy Howarth, and Nathaniel Thompson, and three Italian language with English subtitles interviews with cinematographer Robert Girometti, camera operator Federico Del Zoppo, and post-production consultant Alberto De Martino. “Rat Man’s” trailer rounds out the special features encoded content. The standard release comes in a clear Amaray Blu-ray case with new illustrated artwork that gives a real sense of what to expect by Justin Coffee. The reverse has the original, and if I might add beautiful, poster art that’s less surmising but more intriguing. Authored for region free playback, Cauldron Films’ “Rat Man” scurries with an 82-minute runtime and is not rated.

Last Rites: Forget setting out the poison, “Rat Man” can’t be exterminated with a phenomenally invincible release from Cauldron Films. In the slim pickings of the killer rat subgenre, “Rat Man” leads the pack rats as one of the more bizarre, degrading, and omnipotent villains ever to be on prowl.

See Nelson de la Rosa as the “Rat Man” on Blu-ray!

A Pact Plans EVIL Revenge on Crime Fighting Heroes! “Royal Warriors” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Royal Warriors,” a Revenge Tale, Now on Blu-ray from 88 Films!

Hong Kong police inspector boards a Hong Kong bound plane on return from her vacationing in Japan.  She meets Michael Wong, the plane’s air marshal, as well as her across the aisle seat mate, Japanese native, Yamamoto, a retired cop returning to Hong Kong to retrieve his wife and daughter and retreat back to Japan to start their new life.  Also on the plane, an escorted criminal being extradited to Japan for prosecution.  When a criminal accomplice takes the plane at gunpoint, Michele, Michael, and Yamamoto spring into action and thwart an aero catastrophe with the two terrorists dead.  After celebrating their success of saving many lives, the heroic trio begin to depart their separate ways when suddenly Yamamoto’s car explodes with his wife and daughter inside.  The assassination attempt puts a target on the backs of all three of them as two war veterans swear vengeance for their slain combat brothers from the airplane hijacking.

“Royal Warriors,” also known in other parts of the world as “In the Line of Duty,” “Ultra Force,” and “Police Assassin,” is the 1986 Hong Kong police action-thriller from “Web of Deception” director and “Once Upon a Time in China” director of photography, David Chung.  Stephen Chow’s regular screenwriter Kan-Cheung Tsang, who penned Chow’s “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” as well as “Magic Cop” and “Intruder,” reteams with Chung on their sophomore collaboration following the comedic-crime film “It’s a Drink!  It’s a Bomb!” starring the Hong Kong humorist John Sham, and a denotes a shared three-way perspective of protagonist principals while simultaneously providing sympathetic seedlings for the principal antagonists who though are coming wrongdoings and murdering up a storm of people, a wartime conflict bond between them holds them a higher level of honor between close brothers in arms.  Dickson Poon and D&B Films produce the explosive and hard hitting with prejudice venture with John Sham (Remember him from earlier?) and Yiu-Ying Chan, serving as associate producer.

Michelle Yeoh plays Michelle Yip, the level-headed chopsocky cop returning from some rest and relaxation only to wind up on a dish best served cold “Royral Warriors” for Yeoh, who then under the less recognizable moniker Michelle Khan, is the risk-it-all action film for the actress still in the earlier days of her what would be a prolific international career.  Her breakout hit “Yes, Madam,” saw both Yeoh and also then newcomer Cynthia Rothrock punch and kick into silverscreen success as unlikely onscreen partners to take down a crime syndicate.  In the Yeoh’s next film, she rides solo but only in the actress category, being a third of the good guys, yet holding her own as a strong female, lead between another prolific Asian cinema actor Michael Wong (“Tiger Cage III,” “Dream Killer”) playing essentially himself as Michael Wong (not a typo), the plane air marshal turned love sick puppy for Hong Kong’s tough cop Michelle Yip, and yet another prolific Asian actor whose career in Japanese films started well before Yeoh and Wong and has been rising internationally amongst the ranks of American cinema in Hiroyuki Sanada (“Sunshine,” “Mortal Kombat”) playing retired officer Yamamoto, a revenge-seeking justifier on those responsible for killing his family.  The level of how these three come together in a post-incident instantaneous bond borders an idealistic way of an extreme shared experience.  Yeoh and Sanada offer a cool, collective approach with degrees of vindictive separation with a layer of compassion thinly in between with Wong providing calculated lighthearted measures of chasing Yip with infatuated eyes to break any kind of monotonous, stagnant composure between the other two, yet they’re seemingly different lives, connected ever so vaguely by being around law enforcement one way or another, doesn’t seem to thwart an instant relationship immediately after the plan incident.  What’s also odd, especially with Yamaoto, is there is more background to the villains of the story than there is with him, providing rewarding elements for reason why the two men are hunting down Yeoh, Wong, and Yamamoto and seeking deadly revenge.  Ying Bai, Wait Lam, Hing-Yin Kam, and Michael Chan Wait-Man are the pact-making, behind-enemy-lines soldiers of some unknown war from long ago who neither one of them will turn their back on a combat brother in need.  Through a series of none linear flashbacks, a union of honor between them is made and while respectable and moral during war, that pact turns rotten overtime outside the context of global conflict, suggesting ever-so-lightly toward a combat shock issue between the four men that builds a bit of sympathy for them even though blowing up a mother and child and shooting to shreds a whole lot of nightclub patrons in their misguided revenge runs ice through their veins.  Peter Yamamoto wears his sleeve on his shoulder and there is this uncertainty with his character, and his wife too, that something is amiss, creating a tension that goes unfounded and sticks out.  “Royal Warriors” rounds out the cast with Kenneth Tsang, Siu-Ming Lau, Jing Chen, Reiko Niwa and Eddie Maher.

As part of the In the Line of Duy series, a strict criterion needs to be met:  Police Action, check.  Martial Arts, check.  A Level of High Intensity, check.  And a Female Heroine, check.  “Royal Warriors” meets and exceeds the bar with another bar, a no holds bar, of spectacular stunt work done by the Hong Kong standard way of action now, think later which looks phenomenal on camera and the resulting footage.  Hoi Mang’s martial arts choreography showcases a fast-striking combinations that cut traditional sparring with melee improvisation dependent on the surroundings, moving the action left-to-right, top-to-bottom by never staying in the same place and expanding the field of play with collateral damage of bystanders and family.  A couple of components are missed between that focused innocence and whiplash of violence.  For example, the playfully amorous affections between two of the characters are not poignantly shattered like precious stained glass when one is suddenly offed.  There are other examples of once a downspin cataclysm occurs, the aftershock of loss and change does not rear its ugly head.  “Royal Warriors” just pushes forth, continuing pursuit, in a rage of retribution and righteousness. 

88 Films releases “Royal Warriors” onto an AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50, presented in the film’s original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1.  If you own the “In the Line of Duty” four film boxset, the version in the boxset contains the same transfer as this standalone, standard version that stuns with a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm print.  When I say this restoration stuns, I mean it.  A clean-cut natural gain, color balanced saturation, and with all the detail trimmings laud 88 Films’ work, as such as with the rest of their higher definition catalogue in the older Asian film market.  Range of atmospherics challenge with a different lighting scheme and mise-en-scene cinematography, such as the pink and purple warmth of a nightclub glow or the brilliantly lit restaurant ferry boat.  Skin and texture tones cater to a slight darker pastel but is consistent through-and-through without appearing to unnatural.  The restoration does have a positive to a fault, revealing stunt equipment during the fast-paced fighting, such as the exterior stone ground turning bouncy with creases when Yeoh vault kicks one of the Japanese yakuza members to the ground.  The release comes with four, count’em four, audio tracks:  a Cantonese DTS-HD 2.0 mono theatrical mix, a Cantonese DTS-HD 2.0 alternate mix, an English dub DTS-HD 2.0, and an English dub DTS-HD 5.1.  Of course, I go with the theatrical mix to comply with the original fidelity as much as possible with any films using ADR for an immersive experience within the original, intended language.  the 2.0 mix keeps a midlevel management of the voluminous aspects to bombastic range but never muddles or mutes the tracks.  Dialogue comes out clear with a microscopic static lingering way deep in the sublayer but, again, has negligible effect on the mix.  Special features content includes an audio commentary by Hong Kong film expert Frank Djeng, missing airplane inserts which are spliced out shots of an inflight plane exterior, and the Cantonese and English trailers.  The standard edition comes pretty standard but does feature the new character compilation artwork of Sean Longmore on the front cover with the reversible sleeve featuring the original Hong Kong poster.  The disc is individually pressed with Michelle Yeoh doing what she does best in most of her films, kick butt.  There are no inserts or other tangible bonus content.  88 Films’ North American release comes with a region A encoded playback, not rated, and has a runtime of 96 minutes.

Last Rites: 88 Films’ “Royal Warriors” Blu-ray release captures Hong Kong cinema impeccably with monumental stunts, hard-boiled police work, and permeates with color, detail, and a cleanly, discernible audio mix. In the Line of Duty, “Royal Warriors” is the first, and foremost, cop crusading caper that began it all.

“Royal Warriors,” a Revenge Tale, Now on Blu-ray from 88 Films!