High kicking, HK style

Thank or blame Quentin Tarantino, but this year - post-Kill Bill - Universal are releasing a swag of 70s-80s kung fu flicks under the Hong Kong Legends banner. They look great.

With digital re-mastering the series should be a treat for lovers of the genre, or the just plain curious. The big names are here - Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li - and the first batch is in stores. There are monthly releases, including Lee's Big Boss and Li's Once Upon A Time in China. From this month's releases:

Armour of God: This Jackie Chan action-comedy starts brilliantly with some ooga-booga primitives about to sacrifice a topless woman to the Holy Sword, Jackie out-fighting them. Then there's an Osmonds-type 70s band, and a massacre at a fashion show intercut with a Cantonese pop band. A fantastic first five minutes. From there on there's bad dubbing, cheesy Korg keyboards and a guitar solo worthy of Styx. Terrific. It's about locating the five pieces of the armour of God and a pipe-smoking Baron who lives in a castle guarded by 50 dogs and three leopards. And there are drug-dealing monks and some Partridge Family-type acting. Silly, but it tries to tell a story (with love interest) and there isn't enough fighting, gouging, kicking and other good stuff. For Jackie loyalists only.

Fists of Fury: An early Bruce Lee classic about the poisoning of a Chinese martial arts master. Lee, his avenging pupil, broods like Hamlet, beats up bad guys working for the Japanese villain Suzuki - and makes those noises like a demented chicken while doing so. There are sets which cost all of $12.50, some quasi-Morricone on the soundtrack and a geisha striptease. The real stars are Suzuki's paste-on moustache and his toadie, Wu. Oh, and Bruce with the legendary fist of fury and flying nunchakus.

Police Story: Hilarious Jackie Chan caper where he is a hapless cop on a drug bust. Punctuated by terrific set pieces: cars crash through a mountainside village setting the place ablaze; Chan hanging on to a bus by an umbrella; Chan juggling half a dozen phones. The mock murder attempt on the love interest is pure Scary Movie. The climax is a prolonged fight in a department store in which barely a piece of glass is left undamaged and ends when Chan does a death-defying dive down a three-storey trail of lights which explode - it's so good that the film shows it three times from different angles. Terrific.

Iron Monkey: Essential, pre-Crouching Tiger aerial ballets and battles with Donnie Yen and Yu Rong Kwong. Good story, humorous interludes as political functionaries screw up, and a climax where the two heroes fight the bad guy while standing on burning poles. Watchable characters, wonderful (and sometimes belly-laugh) fight sequences, and a good story, too. Recommended.

All these releases come with 5.1 audio and are enhanced for widescreen. They have biographical details of the performers (and sometimes directors), interviews and a picture gallery. They will be released on February 23.

* Courtesy of Universal Pictures Video, we have five packs of the first five DVD releases in the Hong Kong Legends series - Armour of God, Fists of Fury, Iron Monkey, Once Upon a Time In China, Police Story - to give away. To enter, write your name, address and phone number on the back of a postcard or sealed envelope and send it to TimeOut Hong Kong Legends Giveaway, Features Department, NZ Herald, PO Box 3290, Auckland 1. Entries close on Wednesday.