No comments about ADCC "2001: 66-76kg Tournament".

3 comments about Jackie Chan: Triple Punch Collection.

1. Okay, first of all, I was tricked by packaging when I first started my Jackie Chan collection. Trying to own every movie he's ever made in the shortest amount of time (I have since learned better), I bought 36 Crazy Fists because it touted Jackie as actually being in the film. NO! Jackie is NOT in the film, he was the action coordinator. Do not fall into the trap I fell into. The main actor, though, Tony Leung Kar Fai, I believe, did act rather Jackie-esque in the comedy department and the stamp of Jackie is vaguely on the film, but he's not in it. As for Fantasy Mission Force- well, in Jackie's own words about the premise: "If it sounds ridiculous, that's because it IS." He did the movie a favor to someone who had helped him out. Big mess that included the Triad. Yes, this is one of those movies Jackie would rather not have you see nor really admit he's been in. He shows up halfway through the film and somehow turns into the hero of the film, even though he's an overalled bumpkin. But he knows how to fight! There are Nazis, vampires and zombies, I think. It was all very confusing. You'd be better off injecting LSD directly into your eyeballs; you'd get the same effect. Horrible, awful movie. So do Jackie a favor, learn from my mistakes and wasted money and just skip this one altogether. Of course, if you're doing what I'm doing, which is to collect ALL his movies no matter how crappy they are, then you'll eventually have to bite the bullet and this to your collection. Hold off as long as possible. As for Young Master... well, that one was really good. I definitely recommend Young Master. Some great action in that one. Also features Yuen Biao. Vintage Jackie. **Three stars ONLY because Young Master in included**



2. First things first: only one of the three movies on this DVD ("The Young Master") actually stars Jackie Chan. The others where either had action choreography done by him ("36 Crazy Fists") or have a short cameo ("Fantasy Mission Force.")
   "Young Master" is an enjoyable movie, similar in tone and style to his relatively early "Drunken Master" period. The first half has its lulls, but the second half picks up with some terrific action and comedy.
   "36 Crazy Fists" actually has footage of Jackie doing choreography tacked on at the beginning, adding sleaziness to this hilariously bad epic. Obviously intended as a rip-off of "Drunken Master," this is truly awful, but it's entertaining in an odd sort of way.
   Chan apparantly did "Fantasy Mission Force" as a favour to Jimmy Wang-Yu, who helped get him out of a contract. This is a completely wild, insane movie, full of Amazon women, odd references to American movies, a singing hobo, and even vampires! It's wonderfully stupid in every conceivable way, although, truth be told, the final battle between Jimmy Wang-Yu and Chan is relatively exciting.
   Like most DVDs that try to cram three movies on them, this looks pretty atrocious. "Fantasy Mission Force" and "36 Crazy Fists" are both panned-and-scanned, and they look very claustrophobic. "Young Master" is in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, making it the best looking of the bunch. It still, however, looks smeary, faded, and fuzzy. As an extra feature, there is an average Jackie Chan biography, as well as some "film facts" in the form of liner notes.



3. Young Master-
   
   This is the cut version of Young Master, but still a good movie. The English dubbing is very memorable. I suggest getting the Fortune Star version, but this is still not a bad deal. This is my favorite kung fu comedy, and my favorite Jackie Chan movie. Actually, it is one of my favorite comedies from any genre. The kung fu is also tops. Whang In-sik is scary good as the villain. The only way Jackie can defeat him is to drink some opium water or something and turn into Superman at the end. This is one crazy movie. It also stars the guy with the claw from Enter the Dragon, Lily Li, Fung Hak-on, Lee Hoi Sang, Wei Pai, and Tien Feng (Bruce Lee's master from The Chinese Connection).
   
   5/5
   
   Picture quality is not bad. Just don't go into this expecting it to be perfect by any means.
   
   
   
   The 36 Crazy Fists-
   
   This is not a very good movie, but it has a really fun final fight with Yen Shi-kwan. Fung Hak-on and Tony Leung Siu Hung also have a couple good fights. The best part about this movie is that there is a behind the scenes making of that is played at the start. There is footage of Jackie Chan choreographing the action, and this stuff is even better than the movie itself. It must have been a promotional featurette or something. There is an announcer explaining that because of his contract, Jackie could not appear in this movie, and he hopes that you can forgive him.
   
   1.5/5
   
   Picture quality is bad, but still watchable.
   
   
   
   Fantasy Mission Force-
   
   During the late 70's Jimmy Wang Yu must have run out of ideas, because all of his movies started becoming complete trash. Jackie Chan was a superstar at the time this movie was made, and even he can't save it. There is also a young Brigitte Lin on hand and Adam Cheng has a cameo, but sadly Jackie Chan is the only good thing about this movie. The story is unforgiveablely bad, and only 1 or 2 action scenes are good. I can't say enough bad things about this movie. It starts out like it might be fun, but ends up taking a nose dive halfway through.
   
   1/5
   
   Picture quality is bad but watchable
   
   
   All in all, not a bad 3-pack, but only worth buying because it is so cheap.

4 comments about Simplified Tai Chi Chuan.

1. This traditional short form of Tai Chi for health is demonstrated by Master Liang and his students. Its very easy to learn thanks to the repeated form from multiple angles, and after reading about Master Liang, I wouldn't want to learn the short form from anyone else.

   Master Liang, Shou-Yu is a living Tai Chi Master, who started his training at the age of four! He travelled all throughout China, thanks to his family, and trained several internal arts with many of the living Masters prior to coming to the USA!

   Another excellent video from YMAA Publication Center!




2. Although this video was beautiful to watch, it was not helpful in learning tai chi. The moves were not repeated or named so there was no way to learn anything.



3. This is the best Tai Chi video to start with, for beginners and experienced Tai Chi players. This is the official 'Simplified' Short form of Tai Chi for health. Both the 24 posture form, and the 48 posture form, are considered traditional, because they're derived from tradtional Taijiquan, and still have their martial arts applications intact.

   Unlike most simplified Tai Chi videos, this is authentic Taiji as it was meant to be passed down over the centuries in a short, easy-to-remember form.

   While you cannot hope to completely learn Tai Chi just from a video, this one (in combination with the book of the same name) provides deep instruction and is a great way of reminding yourself of the movements for the Yang form (24 postures) in between your practical classes.




4. This is not a good video to learn Tai Chi. It does not give you step by step instruction nor the name of the postures. It demonstrated the 24 form very strict forward, which I could easily download from alot of the Tai Chi site. I would not recommend this video to any one.

1 comments about Big Box of Kung Fu, Vol. 3.

1. Amazon, you dope! Vol. 4 contains the films listed above, not
   three! Big Box of Kung Fu Vol. 3 contains Return of the Chinese
   Boxer, The Bloody Fists and Holy Robe of Shaolin Temple! GET IT
   RIGHT!
   
   THE RETURN OF CHINESE BOXER
   
   The story is about this Princess who is on a misson to
   assassinate some samurai! But she runs into trouble when a
   Kunoichi and some other samurai fighters try to intercept her
   mission! Along comes the bad ass Jimmy Wang Yu to stop all these
   people from killing her! The movie was awsome! Though the story
   was non-sensical, it still was great! The movie has some
   influences towards Master of the Flying Guillotine but very
   little! And Wang Yu dirrected this film too! The picture quality
   is good! Though the movie does suffer from degration and
   scratches, the colors look good!
   
   BLOODY FISTS
   
   This one is about this Japanese fighter who is going around
   beating up Chinese fighters! That's it! This one is a bit
   boring! The fights weren't anything special and supposively Yuen
   Wo Ping choreographed the fights in this movie but he's not
   credited at all! Therefore it could be a lie! But who knows! The
   picture quality is descent with the usual white speckles and
   stuff but overall it's watchable!
   
   Holy Robe of Shaolin Temple
   
   Another one of those depressing Shaolin movies where the Monks
   are treated like poo poo! Only some escape and are on a mission
   to protect the red robe from the evil Manchus! This one I liked!
   I always love watching Shaolin kung fu demostrations in these
   films! The fights were great! The picture is descent though it's
   a bit faded!
   
   All these movies are in widescreen! Holy Robe has imbedded
   Chinese and English subtitles and is in Chinese! The others are
   english dubbed! The DVD's play fine without hiccups or technical
   issues!

1 comments about Krav Maga: Line of Fire--Defending Against Handgun Threats.

1. This DVD concentrates defending against handgun threats. There is one technique for defending against a long gun as an DVD extra, but otherwise all the techniques concentrate on handguns. At the film they mention that they are producing more films in the future that include also defences against long gun threats. As in the previous films, this film starts with 15 minute long introduction, in which they tell principles of gun disarming techniques, give very brief instruction on differences between pistol and revolver, and give some advise on safe practise with firearms.
   
   With some techniques, there is a chapter titled "tactical considerations", in which they discuss tactics associated with given technique. In these chapters they tell some basic principles of combat, but I feel these principles would have been better included into the first (introduction) tape. That way, the intro tape would have included some worthwhile information, and the information would have been presented before any of the techniques.
   
   This film includes fewer techniques than other films. But in the other hand, the instruction in more detailed than in other films. On the downside, they instruct hitting to the head with a closed fist in just about every technique. This is not very good thing, especially if you are a police officer or armed citizen. If you first hit your adversary with a fist, breaking your trigger finger, then you cannot use your own firearm to protect you, even if the situation warranted it.
   
   Run time: 1:17

No comments about The Big Box of Kung Fu, Vol. 2.

2 comments about Fitness Kickboxing By Stacy Cronin.

1. I love this dvd! It's fun and it's a good workout. This is one of the view exercise videos I haven't become bored with.



2. I am a beginner to kickboxing and this was just the dvd I needed to get me started. While the kick and arm combos were hard to get down at first and I still have a hard time keeping up, it gives me a good workout. Some say the music is kinda cheesy, but I found it motivating. The volume is kinda low, so I always have to turn it up louder, but I enjoy the dvd thoroughly to prepare me for tougher kickboxing in the future. If you want to learn kicks and punches this is the dvd for you! I'm a very satisfied customer

5 comments about The 36 Crazy Fists.

1. Do not believe the cover of the movie. This is not a Jackie Chan movie. You see him in a behind the scenes bit in the beginning, but that's it. As far as the movie itself, I've only seen it once and it wasn't good enough for me to not get so easily distracted from it. I can't really remember too much about it anymore. Not memorable.



2. Martial arts direction by the master. Worth the price for great action!



3. As some of the other viewers have already noted... this film does not star Jackie Chan (however, he did direct it). The movie is actually pretty good- but I am here to tell you that this (Brentwood Home Video) copy is horrible. You can even see people walking in front the screen during certain parts- the images are cut off due to it being filmed directly from a TV screen. Vintage Video released the same film in "Jackie Chan- Triple Punch Collection". The box set is cheap and the transfer is actually a trasfer- not a video of a TV screen. The quality is still low, but acceptable considering it is not digitally remastered. It is ashame that Amazon carries Brentwood- they should rethink carrying such a shady company. (Just so you know- the triple punch is not that great of a deal, the second movie "fantasy mission" is ridiculously poor by any standards).
   
   All the above aside- the film should get some credit- it is not the fault of Hua Chen that his movie was pirated and deviously marketed. The movie IS good, the surrounding context is what makes this a rip off.



4. Great fight coreagrphy by Jackie Chan. 98 lb weakling, begs to join temple to learn kung-fu to avenge his father. he learns with amazing speed. tons and tons of long involved fights. he wins some he loses, he goes back for 1 week of training, he wins, gets new challenge, 1 month training, fights the big boss master, he wins, with help, the end.



5. The story is not worth going over. This is easily one of the most boring kung fu movies ever. One of the best kickers in cinema history Tony Leung Siu Hung stars as a young man who is trying to learn kung fu. The fights are pretty good, but there is not nearly enough of them. Fung Hak-on has a good cameo using a chain rope, and Lau Ga-yung from 'Dragon Claws' does some decent work. The best part about this movie is the final fight with Yen Shi-kwan. It goes on for well over 10 minutes but barely manages to save this horrible movie.
   
   1.5/5
   
   The version I have is from Groundzero and has watchable picture quality. It is under the title 'The Master and the Boxer'. Included on the disc are bonus clips from other Groundzero movies and some cool lost IFD trailers.

1 comments about Control & Conquer (Volume 1): Unarmed Against the Knife.

1. In this DVD Franco provides us with a concise logical and easy to understand strategy for defending yourself from an assailant armed with a knife. Before I watched this DVD I had a lot of misconceptions about knife-fighting. I wrongly assumed that your first objective in defending would be to disarm the weapon. I now understand that this is actually the LAST objective as there are three things you MUST do before you attempt to disarm the weapon. If you do not your attempt to disarm could very easily fail and you will likely be stabbed or seriously wounded perhaps fatally.
   
   The four Knife-Defense principles Franco teaches us in this DVD are 1. Clear target from the knife 2.Control the weapon 3. Neutralize the attacker and only then do you 4. disarm the weapon. When you watch the mock knife attack shown where Anthony attacks Tim as realistically and forcefully as he can & with a training blade it becomes immediately obvious that any technique that requires fine motor skills like that of a disarm is going to be next to impossible to perform. An enraged adrenaline-pumped assailant is not going to allow it to happen.
   
   With this in mind Franco lays down the foundation for a successful defensive strategy for one of the most dangerous situations on the street. He takes you step-by-step through each of the four defense principles and shows you precisely what you need to do so you can get out alive. The concepts he teaches are simple enough that I would recommend the DVD to anyone martial artist or not but any serious martial artist who recognizes the danger inherent in a knife attack needs to understand the strategy Franco has developed. I believe you will agree with me that his strategy is logical powerful and will be effective if practiced and executed properly. Five Stars!

5 comments about Billy Jack.

1. Like many children of the 70's, I was fascinated by this yarn in the day. I saw it several times and dutifully saw "Born Losers" ( a exploitation re-release that features Billy Jack's character, and a far better film) as well as "The Trial of Billy Jack" (the third installment and even worse than this outing). Years later, it's enlightening to realize what we have outgrown from our youth. The acting, directing and production is pretty awful, but forgivable. The ideology spouted in this stinker is a fast food bastardization of the worst "hold hands and sing together" hippie trash.
   Tom Laughlin plays the title role of former Green Beret and reclusive "half-breed" ( their words) protector of a southwestern "Freedom School" where love interest/head schoolmarm Jean (Delores Taylor) and her doltish charges harbor runaways,perform dreadful improv and guerilla theatre and generally get under the skin of redneck cowboy law enforcement in their town.
   When Jean protects the runaway daughter of local lawman, tension come to a head and Billy Jack must step away from the pacifism he and Jean cherish and lay gratuitous Kung Fu beatdowns on local bullies.For martial arts fans, the payoff are far and few, if you enjoy rape scenes ( and I sure hope you do NOT!) there are a couple of man-with-knife-doing-bad-things-to-women scenes that appear as salacious panders to this element.
   
   If watching the Freedom School kids travel around like a Marxist Partidge Family in their stupid hippie bus doesn't make you dread Flower Child nostalgia, you will surely be disgusted by the use of violence to market non-violence, the lecturing moral high ground tone of the films message and the all around insipid style of this useless atrifact.
   
   (NOTE* all martial arts in the film are performed by Laughlins stand-in, the great Master Bong Soo Han, and if you look closely you'll notice a distinct physical disimilarity between Laughlin and the man doing great roundhouse kicks)



2. You don't get/watch this movie for the production values. You don't get this movie for the 70's nostalgia or the flower-power hippie esque themes.
   
   You get this movie because of a very simple thing. Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. This movie is about having the courage to do what's right - no matter the cost.
   
   Billy Jack is the archetype of the great protector who turns to violence because sometimes it's the only way. And this movie is the 300 of the seventies.
   
   Ironic how true it all rings when we look at the battles Tom Laughlin had with hollywood and with the government when it came to making and screening the Billy Jack Movies.



3. Some reviewers are lambasting this film as being "pretentious", and otherwise unreal. Well...it IS unreal, it's a MOVIE. If it's politically incorrect, so what??? I watch movies for the entertainment factor, not the reality factor. If you want reality just turn on the 6 o'clock news. As for the karate, it must be a popular thing considering the success of Bruce Lee's films (and now Jet Li). Yeah, it's a movie about an ex Green Beret who defends the school kids because he wants them to live without having to fight the way he does...so that makes him a big brother figure trying to change the future for the kids. Come to think of it, isn't that what our government is always doing...bomb the heck out of somebody so we can live in peace??? Maybe Billy Jack should have run for president! Then he would have had political immunity and not had to go to jail.



4. I first watched Billy Jack when I was a teenager ( when it first came out ). The DVD arrived in no time in perfect condition. Watching Billy Jack again after all these years was great, I enjoyed it as much as I first did, although being an adult now I saw it from a more adult perspective rather than from a teens perspective. It was great.



5. the video I recieved was very good quality. It came in perfect condition and played perfectly when put in my machine.