Wheels On Meals (1984)

It's time for some 1980s Jackie Chan comedy action as Sammo Hung's WHEELS ON MEALS gets a 2K restoration Blu-ray release from Eureka.

  Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Biao Yuen) live in Barcelona and earn their living selling fast food from a van. Their friend Moby (Sammo Hung) is a private detective who gets them involved in his current case to find a missing heiress who, it turns out, is someone they've already met (and become enchanted by in a 1980s comedy way). It all climaxes at the kind of castle some of us might be more used to seeing Paul Naschy pictures (never a bad thing).

The film got the title WHEELS ON MEALS because the previous two films from production company Golden Harvest had both started with the letter 'M' (MEGAFORCE and MENAGE A TROIS) had both been box office failures. WHEELS ON MEALS did very well indeed, but that's more likely down to its impressive array of stunts and Sammo Hung's expert fight choreography than anything else. 

Filmed in Barcelona because by 1984 it had become impossible to make these movies in Hong Kong (the stars would get mobbed amongst other factors), like some of Chan's other films WHEELS ON MEALS contains a lot of skilfully executed slapstick humour, with the climactic fight between Chan and Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez an acknowledged classic of the form.

Eureka's Blu-ray comes with several audio options - original Cantonese (mono and DTS-HD), English audio with a different soundtrack (mono and 5.1), an alternate English dub from the 2006 DVD release and finally a new track which mixes the  Cantonese dialogue with the English dub music! 

Otherwise you get two archival interviews with Sammo Hung, others with Biao Yuen, Benny Urquidez, martial artist Keith Vitali, and director / choreographer Stanley Tong.  Alternat credits featuring a blooper reel, more outtake footage, and several trailers. A limited edition (4000 copies) features a slipcase and booklet with new writing on the film. 

WHEELS ON MEALS is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 18th March 2019

Project A & Project A Part II (1983 & 1987)

It's time for some more knockabout martial arts comedy fun as Eureka releases Jackie Chan's colourful period adventure pictures in a special limited edition two-disc hardbound boxed set.

PROJECT A sounds like it might be science fiction, or possibly a political thriller, but in fact it's a pirate adventure set at the turn of the century. (The title was apparently Chan's attempt to stop other studios copying him before his film had been released).

This time, our Jackie is Sergeant Dragon Ma, a member of the Hong Kong Marine Police Force. Pirates have been attacking and raiding ships in the area and it's up to our hero, with the help of Sammo Hung, to get into as many highly (and possibly sometimes dangerously) choreographed fight scenes as possible. For those of you interested in Chan's stunts, this is the one where he pays tribute to silent comedian Harold Lloyd by hanging from a clock before plummeting (several times in the out-takes) to the ground, without the aid of a net but with the aid of some canopies to break his fall.

PROJECT A PART II followed four years later. Dragon Ma is still busy up against pirates, again in lengthy, sometimes breathtakingly choreographed fight scenes. This time we get a tribute to the Marx Brothers' A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and perhaps even more famously, a tribute to the classic scene in Buster Keaton's STEAMBOAT BILL JR where a house falls onto our protagonist and he escapes unscathed. 

Eureka's transfers for PROJECT A PARTS I & II are absolutely gorgeous - bright and colourful, they've done a very fine job indeed with these 2K restorations. Both films have both Cantonese & English dialogue tracks. There's an absolute stack of interviews (ten altogether), some of them new and some archival. You also get an archival featurette, Jackie's introduction to the film for the lunar new year 1984, behind the scenes footage, alternate out-takes from the Japanese version of PROJECT A, behind the scenes footage and deleted scenes. Exclusive to the box set are booklets for each film, featuring both new and archival material.

Jackie Chan's PROJECT A & PROJECT A PART II are out in a limited edition set now. 

City Hunter (1993)

"Very Silly Indeed"

Eureka continues in its efforts to bring as many Jackie Chan films to the UK viewing public as possible with the release of this knockabout slapstick outing from 1993.

Jackie Chan is the City Hunter of the title. He has his own (silly) theme song, a male partner who dies in the opening (very silly) montage, and when he's not working at city hunting he spends his days swinging on a hammock and having (extremely silly) Benny Hill-type dreams about girls in red swimsuits.

When he gets hired to find the daughter of a wealthy publishing tycoon, our Jackie finds himself on a posh cruise liner with the daughter of his old partner in tow and encountering more silly dance sequences, outrageous outfits, annoying pop songs and ridiculous fight scenes than I could cope with. 

Oh yes, CITY HUNTER is extremely silly. There are a few good stunts (a skateboard chase near the beginning is impressive) but these are greatly outweighed by its star indulging in dressing up in women's clothing, swinging from an inflatable dolphin and other acts of slapstick high hilarity that quickly become rather wearing if you don't have a great enthusiasm / high tolerance for this kind of thing.

Eureka's transfer is absolutely gorgeous it must be said. If only all early 1990s pictures could be made to look like this. It's a 2K scan and the colours virtually leap off the screen. There are five (!) audio options, three of which are Cantonese and two English. I couldn't tell a lot of difference between the two English tracks but one is listed as 'alternate dub' and is apparently the original home video version.

Other extras include archival interviews with Jackie Chan, plus interviews with stuntman Rocky Lai, actor Richard Norton and actor Gary Daniels (who does the remarkable splits routine in the film).

There's also an outtake montage, more archival footage, stills, trailers, TV spots and Japanese closing credits. Plus you get a booklet with new writing by James Oliver. 

Jackie Chan in CITY HUNTER is out from Eureka on 

Blu-ray now

Drunken Master (1978)

“Lots of Fighting & Lots of Silly”

         Yes indeed, if complex and intricate martial arts mixed with the pratfalls, gurning and silly voices of a typical British sitcom are what you want then DRUNKEN MASTER, Jackie Chan’s second breakthrough picture (following on from the same year’s SNAKE IN EAGLE’S SHADOW) is going to be just the thing for you. Eureka are bringing it out in a dual format Blu-ray and DVD release.

         Chan plays Wong Fei-Hung, (or ‘Freddie’ in the English dub), who keeps getting himself into all kinds of trouble. As punishment, his father sends him to train for a year under the auspices of martial arts master (and wine enthusiast) Su Hua Chi (Yuen Siu-tien). 

         Soon Fei-Hung is being put through the kind of training montage that would become de rigeur for these sorts of pictures but which was still pretty original back in 1978. Eventually Su teaches him the Way of the Eight Drunken Gods, and like the Oliver Reed of martial arts that he (sort of) is, he shows Fei-Hung that you have to be a bit pissed to be able to do it properly.

         Meanwhile, just as we’re beginning to wonder what all that stuff at the beginning has to do with this film, in which villainous assassin-for-hire Thunderleg (Jang Lee Hwang) has a dual to the death with his latest target, up he pops to give Fei-Hung a good slapping, before being given his latest commission - to bump off our hero’s father! Cue more training followed by intricately choreographed, well-shot, brightly lit smackdown in an attractive rural area. The End.

         If you can put up with the silly bits (and be warned there are a lot of them) DRUNKEN MASTER deserves its reputation as a great martial arts film and a fabulous showcase for the unique talents of its rising star. Chan is never less than likeable, and Yuen Siu-Tien is enjoyably crazy as his mentor.
         Eureka’s disc comes with some decent extras, including Cantonese, Mandarin and English dialogue tracks. The Cantonese is probably the best, while the English certainly adds to the feeling that this was made on a planet where they only have an approximate idea of how people speak and act. There’s also a 2002 commentary track with Ric Meyers and Jeff Yang. Check out the subtitle options, because while one is exactly what you might expect, the other gives you the kind of poorly translated (and utterly hilarious) experience you might have enjoyed on DRUNKEN MASTER's original release in the Westerm world.

    There are some good video interviews with Jackie Chan and director Yuen Woo-Ping, and good video appreciations by Gareth THE RAID Evans and Tony Rayns. Finally, if you’re like me and don’t know an awful lot about this subgenre of cinema, Michael Brooke supplies an excellent essay in the accompanying booklet that helps contextualise DRUNKEN MASTER in the history of Hong Kong cinema. A great package.



 

DRUNKEN MASTER is out from Eureka in a dual format edition on Monday 24th April 2017