John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat Films Among Hong Kong Classics in Shout! Deal
Shout! Studios acquires 156 Hong Kong action classics from Golden Princess, including John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat hits like 'Hard Boiled' and 'The Killer.'
Result! Although my wallet won't appreciate it.
Just to impress upon folks the magnitude of this announcement, this the biggest news that's ever been posted in this channel. The vast majority of these films have basically never been officially available on disc in the West.
There have been a couple of DVD releases of Hard Boiled and The Killer, including by Criterion. Dragon Dynasty released a typically mediocre Blu-ray of The Killer. For A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in the Head, Once a Thief, Prison on Fire, etc. you have to pick up a European release (usually region-locked, if you're a North American fan). Many (all?) of these are bootlegs trying to pass themselves off as officially licensed releases.
The quality is what you would expect. They usually don't have the original Cantonese soundtrack, let alone the original Cantonese mono soundtrack (the later mixes are sometimes very bad), and the picture quality is usually only passable. Sometimes they're missing English subtitles. There are also region-free Taiwanese releases of some of these, but many are missing the international cuts.
It's just a mess. This is the first opportunity that we'll get many of these films in 4K or HD from new scans, with the original Cantonese mono, and with multiple cuts of the film.