Brian Trenchard-Smith’s body of work gets a perusal as ‘The Man from Hong Kong‘ gets a blu-ray release with a lot of value-for-money extras…
Cult director Brian Trenchard-Smith’s epic collaboration with Golden Harvest studios The Man from Hong Kong is getting a very impressive blu-ray release from Australian distributor Umbrella Entertainment. The film pits former One Armed Swordsman Jimmy Wang Yu (playing the title character) against one-time James Bond George Lazenby (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) as a Bond’ian styled villain and features high-impact fight and stunt choreography from Hong Kong legend Sammo hung and Oz stunt guru Grant Page.
The newly remastered 1080p HD release comes from a brand new 4K transfer and hits the shiny disc with all manner of suitably epic bonus content, including: audio commentary featuring writer/director Brian Trenchard-Smith, the Making of the Man from Hong Kong newsreel footage, uncut extended interviews about the film with many of the key cast and crew as seen in Not Quite Hollywood, including George Lazenby, Rebecca Gilling, Roger Ward, exec producer David Hannay, 2nd Unit Cameraman John Seale and Trenchard-Smith himself.
There’s also Trailers from Hell’s discussion of the film with the director, the original trailer… as well a rarely seen alternate trailer, a deleted scene, and an exclusive 24 page booklet featuring exclusive stills from the film and a new discussion of the film by Brian. There is als an excerpt from his new novel The Headsman’s Daughter.
And if that wasn’t enough they are also including two bonus features Death Cheaters and Stunt Rock, both of which were directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith and come with audio commentary, and three more features Kung Fu Killers, Danger Freaks and Stuntmen which all feature Australian stunt legend Grant Page (who plays a memorable role in Man from Hong Kong as well as helping coordinate the action in Australia).
We’re very excited about the release, as we’re big fans of the film (also known in a few territories as The Dragon Flies). Trenchard-Smith is one of our favourite directors having helmed everything from this through to BMX Bandits (the latter of which starred with a young Nicole Kidman) and on to the original gorefest Turkey Shoot, Day of the Panther, Strike of the Panther and Dead End Drive In. Lazenby is still one of our favourite 007’s. He’s since played very Bond’ian characters in titles such as Return of the Man from Uncle, The Master Ninja, and Never Too Young To Die. (We even got excited that the mid 1990s cover version of Sky High, (by Brit singer Newton) as recorded by Jigsaw is the theme song for this movie!
Trenchard-Smith is very open about the highs and lows of his output and it’ll be interesting to hear his thoughts on the making of this movie, as well as the cast and crew’s uncut thoughts about Jimmy Wang Yu (who by all accounts didn’t win himself a lot of friends during the shooting with his attitude and his interactions with the rest of the cast). The comments about him in Not Quite Hollywood were – shall we say – less than complimentary. Lazenby’s recollections of the shooting of some of the action scenes in Hong Kong under Sammo’s guidance are very interesting, if a little scary, to say the least.
It’sa ll good value, with the inclusion of the utterly insane Stunt Rock (Australian stuntman Grant Page goes to Los Angeles to work on a television series. He uses his spare time to lend his expertise to rock band Sorcery, and also finds himself in a budding romance with a magazine writer as he recounts to her his own exploits as a stuntman and daredevil as well as various stunts by other greats), Death Cheaters ( Two ex-Vietnam commandos who do stunt work for television. They are hired by the government to raid the island stronghold of a Filipino racketeer.), Kung Fu Killers ( Grant Page travels to Hong Kong to find the next Bruce Lee and explore the cultural phenomena of Hong Kong movies, and talks to Angela Mao, Stuart Whitman and George Lazenby as well as fighting Carter Wong from Big Trouble in Little China!), Danger Freaks and the Stuntmen (two documentaries on stunts and stuntmen which helped serve as Brian’s calling card into feature film directing.) These make the disc even more of a must-buy in our opinion, the film packed with tons of bonus features related to the movie, and a wealth of Brain Trenchard-Smith films and assorted goodies to enjoy too!
The disc can be pre-ordered from www.umbrellaent.com.au
