Customer Rating:      Summary: 3 bad movies... bad. 3 sweet features... good. Comment: This two double-disc set will likely not appeal to its intended demographic. Hardly anything available in this set has anything to do with Jet Li. There are 3 terrible movies about Wong Fei Hung. At least, I think they're about him. It's hard to tell because they change the name of all the characters (rather hilariously) in each film. They were all made for Chinese television and feature lots of weird fights with nothing to link them together. Good luck trying to follow any of them. My suggestion would be to make up some sort of drinking game.
The 3 sweet features are pretty cool, though two of them are brief. The two involve an awesome, real Lion Dance, and then a segment on the southern Shaolin style of Hung Gar Kuen, the style practiced by Wong Fei Hung. Not too shabby. The real deal is the documentary on Kung Fu. This actually has Jet Li in it (albeit briefly) at about the age of 9, and then again at about 19. He does a few things at both ages that are pretty amazing, though his appearance is not worth buying the discs for. The documentary, on a whole, is where the justification comes in. Narrated by some English dude, presumably in the very early 80's, the film covers a whole mess of styles of hand-to-hand and weapons. The practitioners are all TOP athletes, and some of their demonstrations will blow you away, like the Ground Boxing. These are not actors, they are the real deal. There are also some really cool (choreographed) exhibition matches between the various weapons and styles. Eagle vs Snake, for instance. It all offers scenery of temples and the Chinese mountains and countryside, and then off to some homes for family demonstration and gymnasiums for competition.
The name of the documentary, according to this release, is "Jet Li- The Kung Fu Years", though I seriously doubt that is its original title. If you can find this documentary apart from the several hours of filler, it would be highly recommended. With the superfluous movies, then, uhhh... mostly recommended. I guess it depends on the price.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Kung Fu Wong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Comment: LOL FREAKING HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wong Fei Hung's name in two of these movies are Kung Fu Wong and in the other his name is Jackie Chan!!!!!! And all the other names are something to look out for. Julio, John Woo, Timothy... His dad is named Ken!!!!!!!!
Alright so you are probably wondering how the hell I could give this thing 3 stars but it is WELL deserved. The movies are just absolutely godawful. But on the plus side this collection has one of the greastest, most spectacular Shaolin documentaries EVER! It is not an instructional or anything but I guarantee that you will see some of the best martial artists in the world. The highlights include a family of iron armor practicioners and a son who can break marble with his head! His dad puts stones and walnuts on his dome and breaks them with a hammer. He has up to 7 tiles smashed on his and you can actually see HIS HEAD CAVE INTO HIS BODY WHEN THIS HAPPENS. Truly super human!!!! And to top ot off, this 10 year old kid is smiling while he is getting his head annihilated!
Another grerat highlight is a competition where 2 girls put on a show where I guess they try to make their fight look as real as possible, and I actually got a little frighteened by how highly skilled these girls are. On top of that you have drunken, snake, monkey, and many other forms beign used. I have honestly watched this documeantary about 10 times already! The picture quality is not great, but MORE THAN WATCHABLE!
Now the movies are not worth going over whatsoever. This is not a movie and is obviously a TV show. I would looks like it is about a season or 2. Pretty cut up and THANK GOD!!! They are truly some of the worst movies ever. Cheap is not even close to a good word to describe this piece of shheeeeeiittt.
There was one movie that was just as bad as the rest but had some really good action in it. It was the one where there is an evil eunuch going around trying to kill Wong. Horrible acting, horrible makeup, some of the worst production values ever... It's bad, but you may be able to make it through the eunuch one.
Now the dvd quality is just as bad as the movies. It constantly skips back a second, picture quality is horrible, and it has chinese subtitles. If you have the wutang 20 pack distributed by fortune 5 then you know how this is packaged: 6 features on 2 discs. Complete crap.
The insctructional is good, that is if I spoke chinese. But you could still learn from it. And the lion dancing feature is fun to watch once. And the picture quality is on this is actually superior to anything video asia ever puts out. NIce job, you couldn't translate this freaking thing into English?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!
So if you can get this thing for like under 10 bucks, then do it. The documaentary is one of the coolest things ever.
Customer Rating:      Summary: beware noting to do with Jet li or once upon a time in China Comment: Cant even belive it's not good. Amator night at the movies.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Rare Wong fei Hung tales!!!!! Comment: This doesn't star Jet Li except for a documentary that features him.
The real treasures are the films made in China about the legendary Wong Fei Hung.
We've only been fed what Hong Kong has given us but now the Mainland is giving their version.
If you're expecting Tsui Hark's epic films forget it.
BUT you have to factor in the price. You can get this 6 pack for less than the price of one DVD in the Once Upon a Time series.
These are smaller budget but just as entertaining.
The action is fast and plentiful.
Also included are great films on Lion Dancing and Southern Kung Fu from China.
Customer Rating:      Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS DVD Comment: I concur with other reviewers. Bad quality. Bad movies. A waste of time. Title is misleading/cheating. Two double sided disc. The only one feature worth watching is the very old martial arts competitions and styles documentary, and not even complete. Jet Li is featured maybe 5 minutes. I will never buy anything from Ventura Distribution again.
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