Description on the RDF release of Shaolin Chatity Kung Fu on DVD. It reads: ROBERT TAI directed all of the Shaolin collection and is regarded as the best action director of the Far East. For many years, he was the backbone in the making of the Shaw Brothers Classics in the Seventies. He directed films like 'The One Armed Swordsman' 'Chinatown Kid', 'Men from the Monastry' (sic) and some of the films have been released by Warner Brothers.

We've all seen posters use a little hyperbole. Covers that are, ahem, unrepresentative of the film. But to just plain lie to this extent? The only truth here is 'some […] have been released by Warner Bros.' It's RBF's release of Shaolin Chastity Kung Fu, in case you wondered.
#physicalmedia #filmsky

This was the first film I got from arrow that I almost didn't finish. That fact alone is the only thing that got me to the end of it. And the fact that it's in a box set is the only thing that stopped me fucking it out the window.

Bluray cover for the 2008 film Sparrow

This went straight into my top five Johnnie To movies. It's not a musical, but definitely evokes Umbrellas of Cherbourg (more through vibe than style). Simon Yam plays against type, and is wonderful. Chameleon did us a great service by bringing this out (and including the soundtrack).
#filmsky

DVD cover for the 2013 film Battle of the Damned

Next in my cataloguing quest was Battle of the Damned… Dolph and Robots vs. Zombies. I had no recollection of it whatsoever. I soon discovered why; shakycam infests the film throughout and utterly ruins what could've been a most entertaining flick. Now I must excise it from my memory again.
#filmsky

Bluray cover for the 2011 film Some Guy Who Kills People

Really liked #SomeGuyWhoKillsPeople a decade ago but would it stand the test of time? It turned out to be even better than I recall.A great script elicited some damn fine performances, not least from Barry Bostwick. A fine start to my @terrorvisionvids.bsky.social collection.
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Four Terror Vision Blurays; Some Guy Who Kills People, Frogman, Satanik and Srigala.

Wasn't expecting this #psysicalmedia delivery yet, but those lovely people at @terrorvisionvids.bsky.social surprised me. I'll be keeping Frogman until last in the hope – the belief! – that it's more kappa than scuba. More bayou than Cousteau. More batrachian than subaquean.

I'll stop now.

It's quite a while since I've seen it, but you've pretty much encapsulated my objections. However, ISTR the last fifteen minutes or so kicking it up a notch and showing us that the film could've been truly great had it all been like that.

The gold standard, though, remains Warner's bluray release of Casablanca. When you put the disk in for the first time, it goes straight to the movie. That's it. No menus. No bullshit. It's the one and only disk (that I can recall) where that happened.
/rant ends

Like I said, things have gotten better; on boutique disks, at any rate. Eureka just give us one static page with all the options. Awesome. @vinsyn.bsky.social's chapters would ideally be in a submenu, but it's not the most egregious of sins. 5/6

Add all this together and we're in the ridiculous situation where you can slap a disk into the player and then start torrenting the movie in HD. You'll be watching the download long before the disk gets around to playing the damn thing. 4/6

Then, of course, there's the 'Pick A or B' choice. Did I idly press a button while waiting? I'm not sure. So which is the option I'll select… the one in red or the one in green? No fucking idea. Is it so hard to use an underline or glowy effect or something? 3/6

And don't even get me started on unskippable ads. Even skippable trailers are annoying; if I want to watch them, it'll be after the movie. But more often than not there's no menu option so they get skipped and remain forever unwatched. Looking at you, @srscinema.bsky.social. 2/6

User-interface enshittification continues apace, but in one regard things are better: DVD/Bluray menus. I've put a lot of disks in the player to glean catalogue information in recent weeks, and I've seen too many pointless animated video menus that leave me waiting to continue. 1/6
#physicalmedia

Poster for the 2025 film Detective Chinatown 1900

This was all over the place for the first 45ish minutes, but it settled down to become a serious murder mystery with a backdrop of racial tensions in San Francisco in 1900. I was starting to feel its 135-min running time towards the end, but it was definitely worth a trip to the cinema.
#filmsky

I'm quite envious. You get to watch it for the first time.

The film makes a lot more sense when you realise it's by the same lad who made The Story of Ricky.

The fact that Kuang I made an onscreen appearance was the thing that truly delighted me on my latest watch; he's written so many great films, including quite a few of Chang Cheh's Shaw flicks.

Fukasaku was a busy lad. Haven't seen this, but I did see New Battles Without… 2, Cops vs. Thugs and Graveyard of Honour. All from the same year.

poster for the 1973 film Revolver

Revolver is an impressive thriller with a top-notch performance from Oliver Reed. Nicely done car cases and decent action go alongside a plot that doesn't follow the traditional path such films take. Overall, a damn fine film.
#filmsky

It's got some pretty impressive effects for the time, and the script has a lot more going on that just 'look at the scary witches'. I was impressed.

I dunno if it's on the Radiance release, but there's also a shorter version with William S. Burroughs narrating.

I bought this while I was on a bit of a Jack Hill buzz (which is mostly still going on, tbh). It absolutely wasn't what I expected, and became probably my favourite of his films.

I meant 'enough books', but can't edit. And in truth, is it really possible to have enough books?

Anyone whose bookshelves are tidy clearly doesn't have books.

Definitely one of the greats.

Poster for the 1946 film Cloak and Dagger

I know I've seen this before, and recently. How did I make it to the end without recognising that the last ten minutes or so were lifted wholesale for the end of Top Secret? I saw parallels throughout, but the ending… I was just waiting for the airmen to play darts.
Great film, though.
#filmsky

Details of the movie Millionaires' Express which contains four cuts, one of which can be played in either of two languages.

Details of The Seventh Curse, which contains two separate releases and two different cuts of the movie on each.

Details of the Arrow Video release of Zero Boys which includes both bluray and DVD.

I've never really understood dual-format releases, but now I actively hate them as I enter another damn copy of the movie into the database. Displaying the information is tricky, too. Three of the more complex cases are shown here; if anyone has a better way of displaying the info, I'm all ears.

Seven disks; In the Line of Duty 3 and 4; Cure; Cloak and Dagger; Golgo 13; This Gun for Hire; Revolver

Postie just came through with a fresh batch of #PhysicalMedia courtesy of the fine folk at Eureka. As is traditional, I just intended to order the 4K of Cure and ended up getting another bunch of stuff, too. Though I've been meaning to get the In the Line of Duty flicks for ages, now.
#filmsky

Poster for the 2020 film Violet Evergarden: The Movie

My paltry words are wholly inadequate to the task of expressing the wondrousness of Violet Evergarden, and this film is a fitting coda to what must surely go down as one of the all-time greatest of all anime series.
#filmsky

You can never go wrong with Le Guin. If after reading that you find your appetite for her works duly whetted, I'd suggest The Dispossessed, my absolute favourite of her books.

Made two years after Seijun Suzuki's Eight Hours of Terror. By extrapolating, we can infer that by 1967, the Japanese were only enduring Fifteen Minutes of Terror.

I've long since reconciled myself to being the only with the correct opinion of that movie.