When I first began reviewing DVD's five years ago, I'd regularly encounter a cheapie vhs-to-DVD transfer of a kung fu film and give it a mediocre passing grade. Of course, times have changed and quality standards have risen. Back then, a term like "anamorphic" was not understood outside of tech heads.

When it comes to kung fu films, as much as things have changed, they have also remained the same. While Celestial over in Hong Kong has done a pretty good job remastering hundreds of Shaw Bros titles, the indies and more marginal kung fu films still have a spotty track record when it comes to getting good transfers. Tracking down solid elements is tough and the genre is so fringe, remastering those elements is not always cost effective.

So, for kung fu films, the grey market still exists. The spotty transfer, bad encoding, and because companies just aren't likely to invest much effort into the titles, many fans still grin and bear it or just cut out the middle man and make their own vhs-to-dvd transfers and trade between each other.

Which brings me to Video Asia, a company so bad the folks over at HKFlix actually have put up a disclaimer warning about the low quality of the offerings. Buyer Beware, indeed.

Picture: To my surprise, both films were anamorphic... but, not really. Iron-Ox is clearly a fullscreen print that has been matted with widescreen bars and made faux-anamorphic. There are several scenes where you actually have only the corner of an eye or a persons ear on one side of the screen, the rest is flat space. So, technically, Iron-Ox is anamorphic cropped fullscreen. Jade Haipin, likewise, is also a bit cramped but thankfully the framing is a bit better so less image is lost.

Both films look bad. No, I take that back. Jade Hairpin looks worse for wear but watchable, and Iron-Ox looks like complete dog shit. Iron-Ox has a print that is a fuzzy sea of diluted, muddy, greenish puke. I've run across many a sub-standard kung fu flick print on those mega bargain bin DVD sets of kung fu films, and I have to say that this transfer may be the worst one of run across, at least in the top three.

Sound: Mono. Iron-Ox is English dubbed. Jade Hairpin is in Cantonese with white, burned-in English and Chinese subtitles. Both are fussy, slightly distorted tracks, marred by age and the transfer element quality. The subtitles on Jade Hairpin are quite hard to read and frequently cut off at the sides so small words will be lost and larger words half seen.

Extras: Nothin' really. A "Insta-action" feature breaks the films down into nothing but fight scenes. For instance, the "Insta-action" version of Jade Hairpin lasts a mere seventeen minutes.

Conclusion: Even at bargain bin prices there is no real good reason to buy this set. Iron-Ox's print is so poor it is about as fun to look at as watching a child die of dysentery. Even though these are both low grade kung fu films, they don't deserve transfers this bad.