Why So Blu?

Jackie Chan, Socrsese 4K, Malick 4K & More Coming to The Criterion Collection November 2023

Coming this November: Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar, a six-film, early-career celebration of the Hong Kong martial-arts phenom; Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese’s electrifying vision of sin and redemption; and La cérémonie, Claude Chabrol’s riveting study of class dynamics and the psychology of crime. Plus: Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick’s dreamlike turn-of-the-century idyll, and The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich’s aching portrait of a dying American West—now on 4K UHD.

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JACKIE CHAN: EMERGENCE OF A SUPERSTAR

Originally tapped as a potential successor to Bruce Lee, Hong Kong martial-arts phenom Jackie Chan soon established his own unique screen persona, blending goofball slapstick and bone-crunching kung fu into intricate feats of supercharged athleticism. Tracing his rise from breakout star to full-fledged auteur, these six unabashedly silly, unstoppably entertaining early-career highlights find Chan refining the lovably mischievous image that would make him a global icon, while also assuming greater creative control over his projects—first as his own martial-arts choreographer, and later as a writer-director who set a thrilling new standard for daredevil action comedy.

FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu,The Fearless Hyena,Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• Alternate stereo and 5.1 surround Cantonese soundtracks
• New audio commentaries for The Fearless Hyenaand The Young Masterfeaturing Hong Kong cinema expert and producer Frank Djeng (Enter the Clones of Bruce)
• Interview with author Grady Hendrix (These Fists Break Bricks) about actor-director Jackie Chan
• Archival interviews with Chan, actor-director Sammo Hung, actors Michiko Nishiwaki and Hwang In-shik, and more
• The Young Master promo reel from the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and deleted scenes from the film
• Interview from 2005 with Hong Kong cinema critic Paul Fonoroff about producer-director Lo Wei
• NG shots from The Young Master and My Lucky Stars 
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translations
• PLUS: An essay by critic Alex Pappademas

HALF A LOAF OF KUNG FU

1978 • 96 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Cantonese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Like a live-action comic book, this antic farce lets Jackie Chan, choreographing his own fight sequences, cut loose with a wild parody of the martial-arts genre. He plays a bumbling wannabe kung-fu master who, when he assumes the identity of a dead hero, finds himself embroiled in a series of absurd misadventures and the search for a pair of mystical artifacts. Cartoon sound effects and send-ups of everything from Popeye to Jesus Christ Superstar are part of the lighthearted fun—not to mention Chan fighting a bald adversary with his own wig!

SPIRITUAL KUNG FU

1978 • 98 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Mandarin with English subtitles • 2.39:1 aspect ratio

Jackie Chan’s kung-fu clowning gets a supernatural twist in this off-the-wall action fantasy. He stars as a cheeky student at a Shaolin temple who must fight to protect his order, with help from some unexpected mentors: five pink-haired, silver-leotard-sporting extraterrestrial spirits who train him in arcane, animal-style martial arts with an otherworldly flair. The ghostly high jinks (realized with eye-poppingly outlandish special effects) give way to a last half hour that’s near-nonstop action, with Chan single-handedly taking on eighteen stick-wielding monks in a blistering battle royal.

THE FEARLESS HYENA

1979 • 97 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Cantonese with English subtitles • 2.39:1 aspect ratio

An auteur emerges as Jackie Chan—working for the first time as director, in addition to serving as cowriter, lead actor, and martial-arts choreographer—takes full charge of his on-screen image. Perfecting the archetypal Chan character, he stars here as a rapscallion student of his martial-arts-master grandfather (Hong Kong cinema legend James Tien) who uses his kung-fu prowess to fight challengers for money—until a personal tragedy forces him to get serious. Experimenting with various lenses and camera setups, Chan maximizes the action’s visual impact, while unleashing some of his most innovative fight choreography in a stunning, whirlwind display of “emotional kung fu.”

FEARLESS HYENA II

1983 • 91 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Cantonese with English subtitles • 2.39:1 aspect ratio

By the early 1980s, Jackie Chan’s popularity made him box-office gold. Thus when, midway through filming the sequel to his hit The Fearless Hyena, Chan walked off the production to defect to rival studio Golden Harvest, producer Lo Wei opted to complete the film with the help of stunt doubles and recycled footage. The result—the tale of two lazy cousins (Chan and Austin Wai Tin-chi) who join forces to avenge the deaths of their fathers—may not be pure Chan, but there are plenty of loony pleasures (including our hero fighting an adversary with his feet!) to be had.

THE YOUNG MASTER

1980 • 105 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Cantonese with English subtitles • 2.39:1 aspect ratio

Jackie Chan’s second directorial effort was also a film of important firsts: his first for upstart studio Golden Harvest and his first with cowriter Edward Tang, who would become a key collaborator. The star-filmmaker shows his increasing confidence with this endlessly inventive tale of a martial-arts student (Chan) who goes in search of his exiled brother, only to become entangled in a case of mistaken identity—with much amusement provided by Chan’s interplay with his real-life former schoolmate Yuen Biao. The epic finale, in which Chan goes from human punching bag to raging bull, is a bruising highlight of his career.

MY LUCKY STARS

1985 • 96 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Cantonese with English subtitles • 1.78:1 aspect ratio

Longtime friends Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao—who had worked together since childhood as part of a Beijing opera troupe—join forces for this rollicking blend of action thrills and lunatic humor, which sees Chan’s undercover agent recruiting his band of outlaw buddies to travel to Japan in order to help him catch a rogue cop who has stolen millions in jewels. Though not the main star, Chan lights up the screen in the film’s most exhilarating set pieces: a kinetic amusement-park-set opening and a surreal haunted-house finale, both stylishly and creatively staged by director-star Hung.

Available November 7, 2023

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DAYS OF HEAVEN

 One-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has created some of the most visually arresting films of the twentieth century, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros, stands out among them. In 1910, a Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and flees with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and his little sister (Linda Manz) to the Texas panhandle, where they find work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating a timeless American idyll that is also a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.

1978 • 94 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring editor Billy Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
• Audio interview with actor Richard Gere
• Interviews with camera operator John Bailey, cinematographer Haskell Wexler, and actor Sam Shepard
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Adrian Martin and a chapter from director of photography Nestor Almendros’s autobiography

 

Available November 14, 2023

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THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

One of the key films of the American seventies cinema renaissance, The Last Picture Show is set in the early fifties, in the loneliest Texas nowheresville to ever dust up a movie screen. This aching portrait of a dying West, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, focuses on the daily shuffles of three futureless teens—enigmatic Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), wayward jock Duane (Jeff Bridges), and desperate-to-be-adored rich girl Jacy (Cybill Shepherd)—and the aging lost souls who bump up against them in the night like drifting tumbleweeds, including Cloris Leachman’s lonely housewife and Ben Johnson’s grizzled movie-house proprietor. Featuring evocative black-and-white imagery and profoundly felt performances, this hushed depiction of crumbling American values remains the pivotal work in the career of invaluable film historian and director Peter Bogdanovich.

1971 • 126 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital restoration of the director’s cut, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
• Texasville (1990), the sequel to The Last Picture Show, presented in both the original theatrical version and a black-and-white version of Peter Bogdanovich’s director’s cut, produced in collaboration with cinematographer Nicholas von Sternberg
• Two audio commentaries, featuring Bogdanovich and actors Cybill Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Cloris Leachman, and Frank Marshall
• Three documentaries about the making of the film
• Q&A with Bogdanovich from 2009
• Screen tests and location footage
• Introduction to Texasville featuring Bogdanovich, Shepherd, and actor Jeff Bridges
• Excerpts from a 1972 television interview with filmmaker François Truffaut about the New Hollywood
• Trailers
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Graham Fuller and excerpts from an interview with Bogdanovich about Texasville, with a new introduction by Bogdanovich biographer Peter Tonguette

 

Available November 14, 2023

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MEAN STREETS

Martin Scorsese emerged as a generation-defining filmmaker with this gritty portrait of 1970s New York City, one of the most influential works of American independent cinema. Set in the insular Little Italy neighborhood of Scorsese’s youth, Mean Streets follows guilt-ridden small-time ringleader Charlie (Harvey Keitel) as he deals with the debts owed by his dangerously volatile best pal, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), and pressure from his headstrong girlfriend, Teresa (Amy Robinson). As their intertwined lives spiral out of control, Scorsese showcases his precocious mastery of film style—evident in everything from his propulsive editing rhythms to the lovingly curated soundtrack—to create an electrifying vision of sin and redemption.

1973 • 112 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Excerpted conversation between Scorsese and filmmaker Richard Linklater from a 2011 Directors Guild of America event
• Selected-scene audio commentary featuring Scorsese and actor Amy Robinson
• New video essay by author Imogen Sara Smith about the film’s physicality and portrayal of brotherhood
• Interview with director of photography Kent Wakeford
• Excerpt from the documentary Mardik: Baghdad to Hollywood (2008) featuring Mean Streets co-writer Mardik Martin as well as Scorsese, journalist Peter Biskind, and filmmaker Amy Heckerling
• Martin Scorsese: Back on the Block (1973), a promotional video featuring Scorsese on the streets of New York City’s Little Italy neighborhood
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Lucy Sante

Available November 21, 2023

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LA CÉRÉMONIE

Claude Chabrol’s forty-ninth feature stands as the crowning achievement of his prolific career—a coolly riveting study of class dynamics, the psychology of crime, and the sordid secrets lurking beneath the veneer of everyday life. A fascinatingly enigmatic, César Award–winning Isabelle Huppert is the chaotic yin to Sandrine Bonnaire’s tightly coiled yang. They are, respectively, a small-town postal worker and a maid to a wealthy family, a pair of outsiders who form a mysterious alliance that gradually, almost imperceptibly, goes haywire. With a master’s control of sound, editing, and suspense, Chabrol constructs a tour de force of sustained tension that delivers each brilliant shock with ice-pick precision.

1995 • 112 minutes • Color • 2.0 surround • In French with English subtitles • 1.66:1 aspect ratio

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by actor Thomas Chabrol[ck] and composer Matthieu Chabrol[ck], sons of director Claude Chabrol, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Selected-scene commentary featuring Claude Chabrol
• New introduction by filmmaker Bong Joon Ho
• Making-of program
• Archival interviews with Chabrol, actor Sandrine Bonnaire, and cowriter Caroline Eliacheff
• Episode of the Criterion Channel series Observations on Film Art about the use of offscreen sound
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by crime-fiction and true-crime authority Sarah Weinman

Available November 21, 2023