Dragon Fist [Eastern Heroes]: Technical Notes

Eastern Heroes have again tried to do the best they could with what was made available to them. The film has been transferred from a full screen video master and like the previous disks in the series (controversially) has been cropped top and bottom to allow for an anamorphic widescreen presentation. While most of the fight scenes are shot at a distance with the action taking place centre screen, there are still moments where it becomes difficult to follow what is happening. This is most noticeable towards the end of the movie.

The available print was in appalling condition so the screen is filled with sparkle, scratches, blemishes and lines running down the screen. There are also frequent points where the contrast flickers. Again Eastern Heroes have had to do the best with what they were given and there has been colour enhancement of the image. The picture has definitely benifited from this and is about as good as you could expect from a video transfer. While quite often suffering from grain I didn't notice any artefact or pixellation problems.

Two English soundtracks are provided; Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0. While the 5.1 track suffers from some distortion of the dialogue I still preferred the fuller sound it offered. This was most noticeable with the incidental music and the sound effects during the fight scenes. Those punch and kicks really sounded solid.

The disk comes with a fair set of extras for a budget price disk. There is a Jackie Chan interview however this appears to be the same as seen on the 'Snake and Crane...' DVD.

There is also a widescreen Cantonese trailer for the film which, while also being in terrible condition, is a worthwhile extra. Finally there are the standard biography, filmography and promotional trailers.

While this isn't an ideal presentation of a Jackie Chan film, for such a low price...I don't think you can really complain.