The Hardcore Action Boxed Set is a simple boxed collection of three DVDs, each featuring a B-grade martial arts flick. In the order I reviewed them in, these B-grade flicks are The Young Master, Beyond Justice, and Fist Of Fear, Touch Of Death. The boxed set starts off well enough, with The Young Master, written, directed by and also starring Jackie Chan, generally being a reasonable action film, with IMDB users giving it an average rating of 7.8 out of ten. Then we have Beyond Justice, a lesser entry in the career of Rutger Hauer, but still passable if you believe the average vote of 5.7 awarded by the IMDB. Then there is Fist Of Fear, Touch Of Death, which has earned an average of 3.4, albeit only from fourteen IMDB users.

    Priced at $39.95, the box might seem like the bargain of the new century, but the overall quality of the DVDs leaves a lot to be desired. All three films are marred by copious and often distracting artefacts, although the degree to which they become distracting is dependent on how many allowances you are willing to make for the likelihood that no better transfers are ever going to be made. Each transfer is about as good as a just-duplicated VHS cassette.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

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General		Extras
Category	Martial Arts	None
Rating
Year Released	1980
Running Time	89:44 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Jackie Chan
Studio Distributor	Golden Harvest Company Ltd. MRA Entertainment	Starring	Jackie Chan Wei Pei Biao Yuen Li-Li Li Kien Shih Ing-Sik Whang
Case	Super Jewel
RPI	$39.95 (Boxed Set)	Music	Ryudo Uzaki

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Audio (Dolby Digital 2.0, 384 Kb/s) (English)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.20:1 (Measured) (NTSC)
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	?2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    Obviously, I'm in the minority here, as the film has earned a 7.8 out of ten on the IMDB, but this DVD presentation makes it hard to recommend to anyone at all, for reasons I will get into right now.

Video

    This transfer doesn't even come close to being sharp, with all but the most extreme close-ups being diffuse to the point where fine details are simply lost. Adding to this problem is the fact that the brightness level of the transfer is quite variable, with the contrast waving up and down quite noticeably. Many sequences also feature a white haze in the right edge of the frame, among other severe lapses in detail. Low-level noise is not apparent, but grain is a significant problem in this transfer, with the frame being filled with haze for a large proportion of the feature.

    The colour saturation is muted and dull most of the time, but also quite variable, with the colours in the scenery being faded, while the skin tones were on the verge of bleeding past their natural borders. Given the manner in which the contrast varies up and down in a number of shots, this is really quite a problem, and rather distracting to look at.

    MPEG artefacts are a significant problem in this transfer, with the backgrounds threatening to pixelate at any moment, and posterization springing out of the haze to add to the fun. Some loss of resolution with camera pans and high amounts of motion are also apparent. It really wouldn't surprise me to learn that this transfer is recycled from a laserdisc or even VHS master, it is that lacking in resolution. Aliasing is the mildest problem with this transfer, although there are not a lot of opportunities for it to arise. Film artefacts were all over the place on this transfer, with many shots peppered by black and white marks that were often accentuated by the lack of resolution.

Audio

    The score music in this film is credited to Ryudo Uzaki, and also features some uncredited music by John Barry, although you will be very hard-pressed to notice the difference between the two. The original Cantonese version of the film had some music from Gustav Holst's The Planets, mainly taken from Mars: Bringer Of War, which is not featured on this English version. The score music sounds as canned as the sound effects and the dialogue, but it is not especially frequent.

    The surround channels were not used by this soundtrack, and neither was the subwoofer. There wasn't much use of stereo effects, either, making the soundtrack seem more like a mono mix. Considering that the audio was clear and easy to understand all of the time, it is at least superior to the video.

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    The video quality is terrible.

    The audio quality is passable.

    The extras are non-existent.
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
November 1, 2000

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Movie Quiz game Biography: Rutger Hauer
Rating
Year Released	1992
Running Time	106:01 Minutes (Not 113 Minutes as per packaging)
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Duccio Tessari
Studio Distributor	Titanus Produzione MRA Entertainment	Starring	Rutger Hauer Peter Sands Carol Alt Kabir Bedi David Flosi
Case	Super Jewel
RPI	$39.95 (Boxed Set)	Music	Ennio Morricone

    Don't be misled by the 5.7 rating on the IMDB. This film is bad. Very bad. So bad, in fact, that it doesn't even come close to ever being good. I was actually rather surprised to learn that it was edited from the miniseries Il Principe Del Deserto, which one IMDB user has described as being Hauer's worst film to date, which is saying a lot considering the badness of such titles as Split Second.

Video

    The colour saturation varies from shot to shot, with the red level of the transfer varying up and down from shot to shot. Colour bleeding is apparent in one shot at 10:55, where a thick red outline marks the edge of Carol Alt's face. Some misregistration and cross-colouration is also apparent, with the same shot exhibiting a cross-colouration effect in the same actor's hair.

    MPEG artefacts haunt this transfer constantly, with posterization and background macro-blocking being a serious problem in any and all shots. The bitrate of this transfer rarely rises above four and a half megabits per second, which, when coupled with the fact that almost four hundred kilobits is taken up by the audio transfer, is simply not enough to allocate to a Full Frame transfer of an action film without serious problems arising. Film-to-video artefacts are a small problem, with some aliasing apparent in chrome objects from time to time. Film artefacts are a small but constant problem as well.

Audio

    The score music is composed by Ennio Morricone, and an especially B-grade effort it is, too, making me wonder what kind of favour he must have owed the director. The score music is often distorted and hard to make out due to overcompression or channel restriction, emphasizing the distinct telemovie feel of the whole production.

    The surround channels had nothing to do with this soundtrack, although the subwoofer got a very light amount of use supporting some explosions and gunshots. Overall, this sounded like a mono soundtrack with some stereo separation.

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Movie Quiz game

Biography: Rutger Hauer (Actor)

    The video quality is about as good as a television broadcast.

    The audio quality might as well be monaural, and sounds very cluttered.

    The extras aren't worth the space they take up.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
November 1, 2000.

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Released	1980
Running Time	81:33 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	1,2,3,4,5,6	Director	Matthew Mallinson
Studio Distributor	Aquarius Promotions MRA Entertainment	Starring	Aaron Banks Richard Barathy Dean Brockway Annette Bronson Hollywood Browde Adolph Caesar
Case	Super Jewel
RPI	$39.95 (Boxed Set)	Music	Keith Mansfield

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Audio (Dolby Digital 2.0, 384 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1 (NTSC)
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	None	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is another one of those films that are so bad that they're just plain bad, so I will finish my summation here before I get too irritable. Again, the technical quality of the actual disc is more of a barrier to your enjoyment than any part of the film.

Video

    The colour saturation is dull, with the entire film taking on that murky appearance that suggests all the colour has been sucked out of the photography by the film stock, and the director has valiantly tried to restore it by raising the red levels to an unnatural position. Such photography, as ugly as it looks, is common to low-grade films and television shows of the era, so I wouldn't want to put money on this being a transfer fault.

    MPEG artefacts were a problem in this transfer, with posterization being the most common fault, as anyone and everyone's skin tones periodically changed from smooth steps of colour into uneven, blocky transitions. Motion compensation, as well as dramatic losses in resolution during camera pans, are another big problem with the transfer. Surprisingly, there is little evidence of any macro-blocking, although the picture frequently threatens to dissolve into a string of unrelated pixels. Film-to-video artefacts were not a serious problem with this transfer, although this is more because of the lack of resolution in the transfer than any care on the part of the authors. Film artefacts are also a serious problem for this transfer, with all sorts of black, white, and dirty-looking marks showing up on the picture with great regularity.

Audio

    The score music in this film is credited to Keith Mansfield, but has the same recycled feel as most of the rest of the film. You will be hard-pressed to notice any real difference between this score music and that from several other low-budget martial arts films. Indeed, most of this score simply consists of short progressions on pseudo-oriental instruments, adding to the stereotype that Bruce Lee worked so hard against for much of his career. The score severely detracts from this film rather than helps it at all.

    The surround channels were not used at all by this soundtrack, and there was little stereo separation between the two channels that it did make use of. Without any indication to the contrary, it is reasonable to believe that this is yet another mono soundtrack with artificial separation. The subwoofer was used lightly to support the music and the fight sequences, but it produced little more than an unnecessary rumble in place of any meaningful augmentation.

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    The video quality strongly suggests recycling from a VHS master that has been left in the ground for several weeks.

    The audio quality is unremarkable, and the audio sync is mostly terrible.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio sucks... read it anyway)
November 1, 2000.