Revenge

Kill Bill - Volume One

Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a "Shaw-Scope" logo and gaudy '70s-vintage "Our Feature Presentation" title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004's Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain--and this frequently breathtaking movie--with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books. Everything old is new again in Tarantino's humor-laced vision: he steals from the best while injecting his own oft-copied, never-duplicated style into what is, quite simply, a revenge flick, beginning with the near-murder of the Bride (Uma Thurman), pregnant on her wedding day and left for dead by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS)--including Lucy Liu and the unseen David Carradine (as Bill)--who become targets for the Bride's lethal vengeance. Culminating in an ultraviolent, ultra-stylized tour-de-force showdown, Tarantino's fourth film is either brilliantly (and brutally) innovative or one of the most blatant acts of plagiarism ever conceived. Either way, it's hyperkinetic eye-candy from a passionate film-lover who clearly knows what he's doing. --Jeff Shannon

The Bride, a former member the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad seeks revenge for the death of her groom and unborn child at the hands of her associates.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 25-JAN-2005
Media Type: DVD

Kill Bill - Volume Two

"The Bride" (Uma Thurman) gets her satisfaction--and so do we--in Quentin Tarantino's "roaring rampage of revenge," Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Where Vol. 1 was a hyper-kinetic tribute to the Asian chop-socky grindhouse flicks that have been thoroughly cross-referenced in Tarantino's film-loving brain, Vol. 2--not a sequel, but Part Two of a breathtakingly cinematic epic--is Tarantino's contemporary martial-arts Western, fueled by iconic images, music, and themes lifted from any source that Tarantino holds dear, from the action-packed cheapies of William Witney (one of several filmmakers Tarantino gratefully honors in the closing credits) to the spaghetti epics of Sergio Leone. Tarantino doesn't copy so much as elevate the genres he loves, and the entirety of Kill Bill is clearly the product of a singular artistic vision, even as it careens from one influence to another. Violence erupts with dynamic impact, but unlike Vol. 1, this slower grand finale revels in Tarantino's trademark dialogue and loopy longueurs, reviving the career of David Carradine (who plays Bill for what he is: a snake charmer), and giving Thurman's Bride an outlet for maternal love and well-earned happiness. Has any actress endured so much for the sake of a unique collaboration? As the credits remind us, "The Bride" was jointly created by "Q&U," and she's become an unforgettable heroine in a pair of delirious movie-movies (Vol. 3 awaits, some 15 years hence) that Tarantino fans will study and love for decades to come. --Jeff Shannon

The Bride, a former member the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad continues to seek revenge for the death of her groom and unborn child at the hands of her associates.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: THURMAN/HANNAH/CARRADINE
Title: KILL BILL-VOL. 2
Street Release Date: 06/07/2005
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE

Last Man Standing

Best known for making movies about men and violence, director Walter Hill scored a misfire with this ambitious but ultimately dreary remake of Akira Kurosawa's samurai classic Yojimbo. The story's essentially the same but the setting has been switched to a dusty, almost ghostly Texas town in the 1930s, where two rival Chicago gangs are locked in an uneasy truce. Bruce Willis plays the lone drifter who allies himself with both gangs to his own advantage, working both sides against each other according to his own hidden agenda. The violence escalates to a bloody climax, of course, with Christopher Walken, David Patrick Kelly, and Michael Imperioli as trigger-happy lieutenants in a lonely, desolate war. Fans of gangster movies will want to see this, and, if nothing else, Hill has brought his polished style to a vaguely mythic story. It's far from being a classic, however, and although its action is at times masterfully choreographed, the movie's humorless attitude is unexpectedly oppressive. --Jeff Shannon

The Punisher

The impressively muscular chest of Tom Jane is the focal point of The Punisher, a movie based on a Marvel Comics superhero. Frank Castle (Jane, Deep Blue Sea) retires from the FBI, which means--as any moviegoer expects--that his family is toast. Howard Saint (John Travolta, Face/Off), a shady Florida businessman whose son was killed in Castle's last mission, orders a hit not only on Castle's wife and child, but also on his parents and a whole bunch of aunts, uncles, cousins, and so forth. The killers shoot Castle himself in the chest, but he inexplicably survives and--as any moviegoer expects--sets out to even the score. Implausibly, given his sometimes curious and roundabout methods, he succeeds. Also featuring Will Patton (Armageddon) as an oily thug, Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive) as Saint's fleshpot wife, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (X-Men) as a waitress with bad taste in men. --Bret Fetzer

Each DVD at launch will include a 28 page mini-comic inside the amray case.

The comic is the first ever prequel comic to a movie. It is an alternate origin story to the Punisher and ends with the opening dock scene of the movie. It is written by Garth Ennis, premiere writer of Punisher comics, and the cover is illustrated by Tim Bradstreet. The comic is being written exclusively for this promotion, and will not be anywhere else in the marketplace for 6 months. The comic is full color and has a retail value of $2.25.

10,000 comics out of the total run will have a unique cover and be positioned as a limited edition. They will be randomly inserted into the DVDs and randomly distributed to retail.

The Transporter

Move over, Vin Diesel, because The Transporter, Hong Kong action veteran Corey Yuen's English-language directorial debut, is revving up to steal your thunder. As the other top-billed action star to emerge in 2002, British hunk Jason Statham--previously seen in Snatch, Ghosts of Mars, and The One--plays a hard-driving courier for well-heeled underworld clients. He follows simple rules: (1) Stick to the deal; (2) Don't ask names; and (3) Don't look in the packages he transports. All's well until he violates rule 3, discovering a Chinese beauty (Qi Shu) in the trunk of his tricked-out BMW, and foiling a deadly plot to smuggle Chinese slaves through the port of Marseilles. The first hour is ass-kickin' fun, and the stuntwork is impressive throughout, even as the plot degenerates into a predictable series of bone-breaking showdowns. Statham boasts an appealing combination of brains and brawn, suggesting the suave versatility of a promising career. Coproduced by action auteur Luc Besson and filmed on dazzling French locations, The Transporter is an action fan's delight. --Jeff Shannon

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is the best as what he does: transporting dangerous or illegal goods with no questions asked. But his last shipment, a beautiful young woman kidnapped by international slave traders, brings deadly complications to his delivery plans. Now Frank must kick into overdrive in a nonstop action-packed fight to save his precious cargo - and his life.

Four Brothers (Special Collector's Edition)

Bound by love for their slain adoptive mother, the brothers in Four Brothers form a unique quartet that gives John Singleton's film a razor's edge of redemption. It's a thin edge, to be sure, because while Singleton's urban Western pays homage to the Blaxpoitation films of the '70s (as he did with his remake of Shaft), it walks a fine line of credibility with a mythic vengeance plot (recalling John Wayne's 1965 hit The Sons of Katie Elder) that endorses violence as the last resort of a family under siege. When a saintly foster mother (Fionnula Flanagan) is gunned down in a convenience store, her only adopted sons (two white, two black, played respectively by Mark Wahlberg, Garrett Hedlund, Tyrese Gibson and Andre Benjamin) go after the killers, only to discover that their mother's death was not a random event. As they uncover a sticky web of criminal activity involving a local kingpin (Chiwitel Ejiofor), the character-driven plot races toward an inevitable showdown, with ex-con Wahlberg leading the way. Making excellent use of blue collar locations in Detroit, Singleton keeps the action moving fast enough that the film's lack of realism is easily ignored, and the well-drawn characters (including Terrence Howard as a tenacious detective) lend emotional dimension to an otherwise familiar revenge scenario. Four Brothers is manipulative, but it's filled with grace notes of rugged working-class humanity, and it definitely holds your attention. --Jeff Shannon

Four adopted brothers come together to bury the woman who raised them. At the funeral, the brothers discover that their mother was murdered, and they look to seek revenge.

Lionheart

Kung Fu Hustle (Widescreen Edition)

Stephen Chow (director and star of Shaolin Soccer) is at it again with his newest action-packed and comedic martial-arts adventure, KUNG FU HUSTLE. From wildly imaginative kung fu showdowns to dance sequences featuring tuxedoed mobsters, you've never seen action this outrageous and characters this zany! With jaw-dropping fight sequences by Yuen Wo Ping (famed action choreographer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix), KUNG FU HUSTLE will blow you away! In a town ruled by the Axe Gang, Sing (Stephen Chow) desperately wants to become a member. He stumbles into a slum ruled by eccentric landlords who turn out to be kung fu masters in disguise. Sing's actions eventually cause the Axe Gang and the slumlords to engage in an explosive kung fu battle. Only one side will win and only one hero will emerge as the greatest kung fu master of all.

White Lightning

Burt Reynolds is Gator McKlusky a moonshine runner who wages war against corrupt police officials in this two-fisted four-wheeling action extravaganza. With adrenaline-pumping car chases bone-crunching brawls and terrific acting by an all-star cast including Diane Ladd and Laura Dern White Lightning will give you the jolt of your life!Gator is serving time in the Arkansas prison when he learns that his brother has been murdered by ruthless Sheriff J.C. Connors (Ned Beatty). Swearing vengeance Gator agrees to go undercover to expose Connors going to any lengths to get the goods on the sheriff and make him pay for the crime... with his life.System Requirements:Starring: Burt Reynolds Ned Beatty Jennifer Billingsley Matt Clark Bo Hopkins Directed By: Joseph Sargent Running Time: 101 Min. Color Copyright 2003 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: PG UPC: 027616889188 Manufacturer No: 1004914

Black Dog

An ex-con daredevil trucker must reinfect himself with white-line fever in order to save his wife and kid from nasty gunrunners in this enjoyably mindless, twisted-metal-fest from the director of Passenger 57. Longtime MIA action stud Patrick Swayze (who snagged the part after Kevin Sorbo had to suddenly vacate due to health problems) is even more expressionless than usual in the lead role, but helmer Kevin Hooks compensates with a seriously rocking country soundtrack, some pleasantly eccentric supporting characters (including erstwhile crooner Randy Travis and a way-over-the-top Meatloaf as a psychotic trucker preaching damnation by the dashboard light), and--most importantly--a whole lot of rolling iron getting smashed in spectacularly kinetic fashion. A low-down, down-home, cotton-picking flick that blows up real good. --Andrew Wright

Jack Crews, veteran truck driver, is being chased by Red, a fanatic who's as deadly as he is greedy.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD