At the end of the 1970s, a new generation of martial arts stars — three adopted brothers — rose to the top of Hong Kong cinema: Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, who found fame as the director and star of The Iron Fisted Monk, The Magnificent Butcher and Encounter of the Spooky Kind.

Eureak’s latest set has three films spanning Hung’s career, from a supporting role in The Manchu Boxer to stardom in Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai.

The Manchu Boxer (1974): Ku Ru-Zhang (Tony Liu) has left his hometown in shame. He’s killing a rich man’s son (director Wu Ma) in self-defense, and even his father wants him gone. He promises never to fight again and quickly becomes a husband and father to a widower and his child. But then, when a martial arts master (Kim Ki-Joo) and his two henchmen (Sammo Hung, who was also the fight coordinator and Wilson Tong) decide to win a tournament at any cost, our hero must enter and fight again.

Ku Ru-Zhang is a good enough fighter that he can win a battle against multiple fighters without taking his hands out of his pockets, like some kind of martial world Orange Cassidy. Ah, but how will he fare against a femme fatale who can throw knives?

This Golden Harvest film came to the U.S. thanks to Independent-International Pictures as Masters of Martial Arts.

Paper Marriage (1988): Directed and co-written by Alfred Cheung, this finds boxer Bo Chin (Sammo Hung) in America. He agrees to marry Jade Lee (Maggie Cheung) so that he can stay in the country. After he goes the distance in a kickboxing fight, criminals steal his money. Man, Bo was poor to start with, thanks to his ex-wife (Joyce Godenzi, Sammo’s real partner)!

Also: That isn’t Los Angeles in this movie. It’s Edmonton, Alberta.

If you ever wondered where Shinya Hashimoto got his look from (or maybe Sammo is taking after him) or want to see Maggie Cheung mud wrestle, this is the movie for you! It’s a cute film and one that takes full advantage of its stars.

Shanghai, Shanghai (1990): This time around, Sammo Hung is the villain, Chin Hung-yun, facing off with Yuen Biao as Little Tiger and George Lam as police officer Big Tiger. Well, at first, Little Tiger is friends with Chin Hung-yun, but he must quickly choose between family and friendship.

This has a unique 1930s Singapore setting and Anita Mui as the love interest, but the whole reason to stick around is the movie’s ending battle between Sammo and Yuen Biao. You know how great it is when brothers fight, right?

I kind of love Hong Kong period films set at the start of the last century. This looks great, and while it takes a bit to get going, it all ends well enough.

This set has 1080p HD presentations from brand new 2K restorations of the original Hong Kong theatrical cuts of all three films; new audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth; new audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts Stefan Hammond and Arne Venema; new audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and producer/writer F.J. DeSanto; a new interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung; trailers; a limited edition exclusive bonus disc; a limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey and a limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Sammo Hung. You can get this from MVD.

A cat from outer space teams up with a young alien girl and her knight, along with a novelist named Wisely, to fight an alien that possesses people.

Sounds pretty simple, but from that description, you have no idea just how strange things can get. Based on Old Cat by Ni Kuang, this is like The Hidden with a cat. 

Wisely (Waise Lee) is a writer who comes into contact with a girl named Princess (Gloria Yip) and her cat, General (is this a Cat’s Eye reference?) and a knight named Errol (Lau Siu-ming). They’ve robbed an archaeological find called the Octagon, hoping to use it in their quest. As it is, Wisely is writing their story, even if he only knows them from afar. That soon changes as Wisley and his friend Li Tung (Lawrence Lau) help them battle the shape-shifting and possessing Star Killer.

This is berserk, filled with neon colors, goopy monsters, eyeball destruction, glittery cats, people set on fire and everything else you want from Hong Kong cinema. The scene where the cat battles a dog in a junkyard took six months to create. It’s just a few moments on screen.

If you like this Wisely story, check out The Seventh Curse, a perhaps even more deranged film. It shares the same director as this movie, Lam Ngai Kai. He also made The Ghost Snatchers, Erotic Ghost Story, and another of the oddest films ever made, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.

The limited edition 88 Films Blu-ray features a rigid slipcase with new art by Sean Longmore, a 40-page book, a premium art card, audio commentary by Frank Djeng, an interview with Gordon Chan, and an image gallery. You can get it from MVD.

After they both accidentally insult their boss, Tin (Paul Chun), Hsia “Little Monster” (Yuen Biao), who works for the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, and new partner Lei Kung “Mustache” (Lowell Lo) are given the assignment of finding a missing witness. Only that man’s girlfriend, Rosa (Lu Hsiao-Fen), knows where he is. Little Monster doesn’t help his new partnership when he falls in love with Kung’s sister Lui Lui (Kara Hui). And the case gets dark when Rosa’s lover is killed, and our heroes have to protect her.

Luckily, the girls are way smarter than they are, even if the guys do end up having to save them by the end. The odds are against them, including an entire building of Wang Ping Tang’s (James Tien Chun) henchmen in a warehouse ready to kill them. But seeing as this is an enjoyable action-comedy directed by “Joe” Cheung, things will work out just fine. 

The 88 Films limited-edition Blu-Ray of Rosa features a new 2 K restoration from the original negative, commentary by David West, an image gallery, and a trailer. It comes in a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Sean Longmore, and includes a 40-page perfect-bound book and a premium artcard. You can get it from MVD.

Based on the Dark Horse comic book by John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke, The Mask was directed by Chuck Russell (A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob, Eraser) and written by Mike Werb from a story by Michael Fallon and Mark Verheiden. Was it a success, despite having newcomers Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz in the leads? You bet. It made $352 million on an $18 million budget.

Stanley Ipkiss (Carrey) is a bank teller who everyone abuses. But for some reason, when gangster Dorian Tyrell (Peter Greene) sends his girl Tina (Diaz) into his bank to take photos for a robbery, she falls for him. Even his best friend, Charlie Schumaker (Richard Jeni), is surprised.

Things are looking up for Stanley, who soon finds a wooden mask that transforms him into a green engine of madness. He’s soon chased by Detective Lieutenant Mitch Kellaway (Peter Reigert) and newspaper reporter Peggy Brandt (Amy Yasbeck), who want to figure out who this new crime player is and how he ties into the coming war between Tyrell and his boss Niko (Orestes Matacena).

Russell and Werb turned the violent comic book into a romantic comedy, complete with Stanley performing “Cuban Pete” at a nightclub while dodging cops and robbers. A dog turns into The Mask, Tyrell becomes a giant monster (that’s Jeep Swenson, who also played Bane in the abortive Batman and Robin), and Carrey went all out in this, becoming a living special effect. He was only paid $450,000 for this and had to act even though he was violently ill with the flu at one point.

While Son of the Mask was a flop, Carrey and Diaz have discussed a sequel as late as 2025.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD of this film has a 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative by Arrow Films approved by director Chuck Russell, two archive audio commentaries (Chuck Russell alone and Russell with New Line co-chairman Bob Shaye, screenwriter Mike Werb, executive producer Mike Richardson, producer Bob Engelman, ILM VFX supervisor Scott Squires, animation supervisor Tom Bertino and cinematographer John R. Leonetti); new interviews with Russell, Mike Richardson, Mike Werb, Mark Verheiden, visual effects supervisor Scott Squires, editor Arthur Coburn, Amy Yasbeck and choreographer Jerry Evans; a video essay by critic Elizabeth Purchell on canine sidekick Milo; archival features; deleted scenes; a trailer; an image gallery; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and original production notes; a double-sided fold-out poster featuring two original artwork options and six postcard-sized reproduction artcards. You can get it from MVD.

As one of the first hip hop movies, this groundbreaking film, directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn, features a legendary cast of scene figures, including Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz, Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, The Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, Rammellzee with Shockdell, Queen Lisa Lee of Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash, and ZEPHYR.

Raymond Zoro (Lee Quiñones) doesn’t want to sell out like other graffiti artists who are taking hip hop culture to the masses and becoming part of New York City’s trendy art scene. But that’s pretty much just the basics that the story revolves around, as it is a ramshackle narrative that gets into dance, art and music, all elements of the scene. It’s a hangout more than a story.

Debbie Harry was going to play Virginia, which would have made the scenes of her driving around to Blondie’s “Pretty Baby” and the use of “Rapture” mean something more than they did. Chris Stein from Blondie also helped create the soundtrack, collaborating with Fab Five Freddy to produce the actual breakbeats used in the film, “an inspired decision that would provide a source of obsession among crate diggers for decades to come.”

The Arrow Video 4K UHD of this film has a perfect bound collector’s book featuring new and archival essays and articles, alongside an extensive collection of stills and artwork from the film, a reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options, a double-sided foldout poster featuring two original artwork options, an exclusive mini-version of the Wild Style issue of Hip-Hop Family Tree comic book by Ed Piskor and three Wild Style logo stickers. There’s a new 4K restoration from the original 16mm negative by Arrow Films, new audio commentary with Jeff “Chairman” Mao and Andrew “Monk One” Mason, legacy commentary featuring director Charlie Ahearn and Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, a feature on the soundtrack, a trailer and an image gallery, as well as interviews with most of the cast, panel discussions and exhibits from the anniversary event and videos, as well as a CD that has a Wild Style Megamix by Jorun Bombay, original radio commercials by Fab 5 Freddy and Queen Lisa Lee, rare alternate mixes of Subway Rap and Wild Style Theme, audio outtakes from the film and soundtrack and a 1983 radio interview with Charlie Ahearn. You can get it from MVD.

Tulsa Terrors is all about the direct-to-video horror boom of the mid-1980s, which was sparked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and led by United Entertainment (now VCI Entertainment, which released this) and its founder, Bill Blair.

Starting with Blood Cult, Blair’s idea to produce films exclusively for home video revolutionized the industry, leading to a wave of low-budget genre films that bypassed theatrical release. You know, SOV. And yes, I know that Boardinghouse was SOV first, but it was made for theaters, not video. Same as Sledgehammer, which was created for video, but not advertised as such, like Blood Cult.

This film features interviews with everyone who was there and covers many of the movies you know and love. You’ll learn how Blair approached Christopher and Linda Lewis with The Sorority House Murders and the idea to film on video, just like a soap opera. After all, he had two Betacams and Sony editing equipment. And you’ll get to see moments from the films, like The Ripper, Revenge, Toe Tags, Branded and The Stitcher.

If you have any love for SOV, consider this an essential watch.

You can get this from MVD.