General

Never Back Down

If you get caught up in the sweaty fight scenes in Never Back Down--and, despite the formulaic plot, you very likely will--it will be due to the sheer kinetic pleasure of muscular bodies in motion. Jake (Tom Cruise look-alike Sean Faris, Yours, Mine, and Ours), full of anger after his father's death, starts to find a place for himself at his new Florida high school--until Ryan, the head of an underground mixed-martial arts (Cam Gigandet, The O.C.), picks Jake out as a prime opponent. After being trounced by Ryan in front of everyone in school, Jake begins training under the firm, moral guidance of a martial arts master with a hidden past (Djimon Hounsou, a long way from Blood Diamond, but still bringing his essential gravitas to the screen). Basically, Never Back Down boils down to a cross between The Karate Kid and Fight Club, minus the sociopolitical commentary. The story and characters are a bundle of featherweight cliches, but that won't stop the aggressively edited fight sequences from stoking a viewer's adrenaline. Also starring Amber Heard (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) as the very blonde love interest, who (along with an abundance of girls in bikinis--'cause, y'know, it's Florida) is there to assure everyone that these handsome, chiseled boys are strictly heterosexual. --Bret Fetzer

Never Back Down [Blu-ray]

If you get caught up in the sweaty fight scenes in Never Back Down--and, despite the formulaic plot, you very likely will--it will be due to the sheer kinetic pleasure of muscular bodies in motion. Jake (Tom Cruise look-alike Sean Faris, Yours, Mine, and Ours), full of anger after his father's death, starts to find a place for himself at his new Florida high school--until Ryan, the head of an underground mixed-martial arts (Cam Gigandet, The O.C.), picks Jake out as a prime opponent. After being trounced by Ryan in front of everyone in school, Jake begins training under the firm, moral guidance of a martial arts master with a hidden past (Djimon Hounsou, a long way from Blood Diamond, but still bringing his essential gravitas to the screen). Basically, Never Back Down boils down to a cross between The Karate Kid and Fight Club, minus the sociopolitical commentary. The story and characters are a bundle of featherweight cliches, but that won't stop the aggressively edited fight sequences from stoking a viewer's adrenaline. Also starring Amber Heard (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) as the very blonde love interest, who (along with an abundance of girls in bikinis--'cause, y'know, it's Florida) is there to assure everyone that these handsome, chiseled boys are strictly heterosexual. --Bret Fetzer

Never Back Down

If you get caught up in the sweaty fight scenes in Never Back Down--and, despite the formulaic plot, you very likely will--it will be due to the sheer kinetic pleasure of muscular bodies in motion. Jake (Tom Cruise look-alike Sean Faris, Yours, Mine, and Ours), full of anger after his father's death, starts to find a place for himself at his new Florida high school--until Ryan, the head of an underground mixed-martial arts (Cam Gigandet, The O.C.), picks Jake out as a prime opponent. After being trounced by Ryan in front of everyone in school, Jake begins training under the firm, moral guidance of a martial arts master with a hidden past (Djimon Hounsou, a long way from Blood Diamond, but still bringing his essential gravitas to the screen). Basically, Never Back Down boils down to a cross between The Karate Kid and Fight Club, minus the sociopolitical commentary. The story and characters are a bundle of featherweight cliches, but that won't stop the aggressively edited fight sequences from stoking a viewer's adrenaline. Also starring Amber Heard (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) as the very blonde love interest, who (along with an abundance of girls in bikinis--'cause, y'know, it's Florida) is there to assure everyone that these handsome, chiseled boys are strictly heterosexual. --Bret Fetzer

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

Big Trouble in Little China (Single Disc Edition)

Once you settle into the realization that this 1986 John Carpenter (Halloween) film is not going to be one of the director's more masterful works, Big Trouble in Little China just becomes a full-tilt comic blast. Kurt Russell is hilarious as a drawling, would-be John Wayne hero who steps into the middle of a supernatural war in the heart of Chinatown. While kung fu warriors and otherworldly spirits battle over the fate of two women (Kim Cattrall and Suzee Pai), Russell's swaggering idiot manages to knock himself out or underestimate the forces he's dealing with. The whole thing is dopey, but it's supposed to be dopey and Russell's game performance brings an ironic edge. Carpenter directs some nifty spook effects (the sudden arrival of three martial arts demigods from out of nowhere is worth applause), and he also wrote the music. --Tom Keogh

Directed by thrill master John Carpenter this edge of your seat adventure stars Kurt Russell as Jack Burton a tough talking wisecracking truck driver whose hum drum life on the road takes a sudden supernatural tailspin when his best friend's fianc e is kidnapped. Speeding to the rescue Jack finds himself deep beneath San Francisco's Chinatown in a murky creature filled world ruled by Lo Pan a 2000 year old magician who mercilessly presides over an empire of spirits. Dodging demons and facing baffling terrors Jack battles his way through Lo Pan's dark domain in a full throttle action riddled ride to rescue the girl. Co-starring Kim Cattrall this effects filled sci fi spectacle speeds to an incredible twist taking finish.System Requirements: Running Time 99 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: PG-13 UPC: 024543044758 Manufacturer No: 2004475

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

Tai Chi Master

Jet Li teams up with Michelle Yeoh in this period martial-arts tale of revenge and retribution filmed in 1993. Directed by Yuen Woo Ping (who also directed Jackie Chan's popular Drunken Master and Yeoh's Wing Chun), Tai Chi Master matches over-the-top melodrama with fantastical fight scenes. Li and Chin Sui Hou play Junbao and Tienbao, two misfit monks who have been getting in trouble at their Shaolin temple since childhood. Tienbao's volatile temper and ego get them banished from the monastery, and the pair tries to make a new life for themselves in a nearby village. From here they take decidedly different paths. Tienbao joins the military regime of a ruthless eunuch ruler while Junbao joins a group of political rebels that includes Yeoh. Tienbao's violent quest for power erases his friendship with Junbao, his betrayal causing Junbao to go temporarily insane. During this period Junbao discovers tai chi, which prepares him for a final confrontation with Tienbao. Tai Chi Master's action scenes include a memorable matchup of Li and Chin against the entire monastery, where in the nonstop action Junbao escapes attack by riding one of his foes like a snowboard out of the fray. Yeoh's fight scenes include a complicated orchestration involving tables and chairs; her scenes are so impressive that it's a shame she wasn't given more screen time. --Shannon Gee

TAI CHI MASTER (DVD MOVIE)

Hero

Director Zhang Yimou brings the sumptuous visual style of his previous films (Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad) to the high-kicking kung fu genre. A nameless warrior (Jet Li, Romeo Must Die, Once Upon a Time in China) arrives at an emperor's palace with three weapons, each belonging to a famous assassin who had sworn to kill the emperor. As the nameless man spins out his story--and the emperor presents his own interpretation of what might really have happened--each episode is drenched in red, blue, white or another dominant color. Hero combines sweeping cinematography and superb performances from the cream of the Hong Kong cinema (Maggie Cheung, Irma Vep, Comrades: Almost a Love Story; Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, In the Mood for Love, Hard Boiled; and Zhang Ziyi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The result is stunning, a dazzling action movie with an emotional richness that deepens with every step. --Bret Fetzer

Set in China's past, before the first emperor, the film tells the story of a town magistrate who is summoned by the king of Qin to tell the story of how he defeated those who plotted to kill him.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 2-AUG-2005
Media Type: DVD

The Last Dragon

Get ready for some seriously big hair. The Last Dragon--or, to call it by its full title, Berry Gordy's the Last Dragon--is a stunning example of 1980s camp cinema. One-name kung fu wonder Taimak plays Leroy Green, a.k.a. Bruce Leroy, a humble student of kung fu who has achieved the highest level of skill, but hasn't yet found his inner master. Wandering through the streets of New York in a Chinese peasant outfit, he accidentally becomes the protector of nightclub hostess/video jockey Laura Charles (played by former Prince protégé Vanity, who also costarred in the trash classic Action Jackson). She's being threatened by a height-challenged mobster who wants her to play his girlfriend's video (the girlfriend is something of a Cyndi Lauper look-alike, played by Broadway star Faith Prince). Meanwhile, a man who calls himself Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, wants to kick Leroy's ass and prove himself the baddest kung fu master in town. Add to this Leroy's smart-mouthed brother Richie (who calls Leroy "the chocolate-covered yellow peril"), a dregs-of-Motown soundtrack (DeBarge is a high point), ninja battles, pseudo-Eastern philosophical babble, and a jaw-dropping club performance by Vanity, and you have a hilarious example of why we're all so very glad the '80s are over. Featuring a bit role by William H. Macy (Fargo, Magnolia). --Bret Fetzer

The Forbidden Kingdom (Two-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy)

Getting martial-arts superstars Jet Li and Jackie Chan together in the same action film is like a fantasy come true, even if The Forbidden Kingdom is more of a children's movie than an instant kung-fu classic. Yes, Li and Chan square off in a lengthy, acrobatic fight scene that is a lot of fun, though it can't be what such a scene might have been even a decade ago: careful editing now compensates for the 54-year-old Chan's slower moves and reflexes. Still, Chan doesn't disappoint as Lu Yan, a drunken immortal in ancient China who mentors a modern-day American kid, Jason (Michael Angarano), the latter having slipped into the past while in possession of a magical staff that belongs to the imprisoned Monkey King (Li). In order to get back to his own time and help an old friend (also Chan) wounded by thugs, Jason accompanies Lu Yan and a lovely warrior, Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), on a journey to return the staff. Along the way, a (mostly) silent monk (Li, again), who has spent his life in search of the staff, joins their mission. He helps Lu Yan train Jason in fighting and adding more muscle to the party as it comes under siege from a violent witch (Li Bing Bing) and pathological warlord (Collin Chou). Screenwriter John Fusco (Hidalgo) and director Rob Minkoff (The Haunted Mansion) have made a slightly chintzy, Western version of a Chinese swords-and-sorcery tale. The gravity-defying, flying-through-the-air-while-fighting choreography looks pretty choppy and graceless compared to, say, the martial arts films of Zhang Yimou. But The Forbidden Kingdom is really aimed at kids, not aficionados of epic fight movies. On that score, the movie aims to please and does so for the right audience. -- Tom Keogh

Beyond The Forbidden Kingdom on DVD

Soundtrack

on Blu-ray

Stills from The Forbidden Kingdom (click for larger image)