Jackie Chan 4 Film Collection [Blu-ray] [US Import]

WOw, WTF?????????!!!!!! what were the collective brains in hullywood thinking when they reworked these 4 movies?
I know.... the pervasive thinking which has infiltrated humanity, namely, hey! lets make some money taking this pretty good item and make it crummy.

The music is gone about an hour is cut total from all 4 films. entire plot lines and characters are dropped.

The transfers are blow ups the fortune star editions which are in the proper aspect. Looks no better than a standard dvd.

save your money, these are unwatchable.

Okay, so before I go any further, I must say, that I am a hardcore Jackie Chan fan. Have been since I was a kid and always will be. I have owned every Jackie Chan movie at one point on either VHS, LD or DVD and I am slowly collecting them on Bluray. Why am I not going full force into the Blurays you ask?
It's with a heavy heart that I say, these films still aren't getting the respect they so rightfully deserve.

The Good:
The Price, you can't go wrong with 4 movies for $10 or less. I found this bluray for $7.99 which was a win.

The Image quality on Armour of God (here labeled as Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods) is pretty spectacular considering the age of the film and how badly my DVD of this same film looks. What would make this version of Armour of God perfect is, if it wasn't ONLY available dubbed, and if it wasn't edited. Also, the place card for the title of the movie, surprisingly says Armour of God and is NOT the relabeled "Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods" that I was expecting.

The dubbing is bad, lets just say it, its dubbing. But at least Jackie Chan provided his own voice in a few of these.
While I ALWAYS prefer these in their original language with English Subtitles, it is nice to have the dubbed versions as well for when friends come over who hate to read subtitles or for watching with my kids.
The sound is labeled as 2.0 and it is, but it comes up as DTS on my receiver. Either way, it sounds good, about as good as the old DVDs do.

The Bad:
They are only available in English Dubbed.

Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, Project A and Project A: 2 are cropped to 1:85:1 down from the original aspect ratio of 2:35:1. Your missing a good amount of information on the sides, but it appears that no panning and scanning was done, so it is just a straight crop.

The prints on Project A and Project A: 2 are HORRIBLE. The images are soft, grainy and full of scratches and dust. It seems like when Miramax did the transfers, they used the same old crappy versions that were floating around since day one. No care was put into restoring these in any way, shape or fashion. What is odd is Project A: 2 is probably the worst looking of the bunch and its a newer film than Project A and Armour of God.

Armour of God 1, surprisingly looks the BEST out of the bunch and it is one of the older movies.
Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, fairs the 2nd best, or maybe its a tie, it is hard to tell really.

The new opening title sequences are annoying as all get out, and are featured on all but Armour of God.

The Editing doesn't make sense to me. Why cut out the humor when that is what Jackie is known for. Incorporating humor into action is his signature, and Miramax cutting the humor out is just a slap in the face. A perfect example of how stupid the editing is comes from Operation Condor. A lot of the humor is cut out, and a nude scene (never seen in any of the Chinese prints of this film that I have on DVD or LD) was edited back in!

Overall, if your a true fan or a completist like me, and you want these on Bluray cheap, you can't really go wrong. At the very least, they look as good as the much more expensive HK versions that are available (which are primarily upconverts from 480P to HD)
None of these films look as good as Drunken Master II (AKA: Legend of the Drunken Master)but look about as good as the other budget Jackie Chan Bluray 2 pack of Twin Dragons and Supercop.

It is a damn shame that these films haven't gotten a decent Bluray release at all yet (with the exception of Armour of God 2: Operation Condor which is available on Bluray by a company named Kam and Ronson that is a VERY good quality transfer). I am hoping that Kam and Ronson eventually does decent releases of the rest of Jackie's films but I am not holding my breath. So far The Accidental Spy and Operation Condor seem to be the ONLY 2 decent Blurays of Jackie Chan's movies.

Bottom line, it is up to you whether it is worth your money, but if you can find this Bluray for $10 or less, you will be vastly entertained for the money.

Eeek. He speaks English. Dodo Cheng speaks English. Yuen Biao takes off his clothes and speaks English. Spolis my memories of watching this in a cinema when I was 12.

Just a heads up this 4 pack has only 2 films that actually has Jackie Chan in it("Jackie Chan Invincible fighter", "Killer Mereors"). One with his teacher("The Old Master"). Even one with his dad("Kung Fu Cook".

Echo Entertainment collected 4 of Jackie Chan's films on a dual layer bluray for this release including "Operation Condor", "Operation Condor 2: The Armour of God", "Project A" & "Project A 2". These are the English dubbed Miramax versions of each movie and have been cropped from their original aspect ratios of 2.35:1 to 1.78:1. The picture quality varies between quite crisp for both of the Operation Condor films to soft and sometimes indistinct for the Project A films. Sound is presented in lossless 5.1 sound for each film and the bit rate gets up into the low 20's during busy action sequences which is surprising considering they crammed about 6 hours of movies onto one dual layer bluray.
While it is disappointing to these films not being given uncut, in their originsl apsect ratio and original language bluray releases, seeing that I bought this disc brand new for only $7.99 brand new makes it quite a deal for people wanting to get a quick fix of classic Jackie Chan action goodness.
I thought that the cropping would bother me more than it did but I didn't notice any instances where the films felt too cramped on the left and right of the frame. Typical Echo Bridge Entertainment nonsense in that respect but going from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1 is not as severe as it would be to 1.33:1 though. I noticed no compression artifacts while watching each film.
The fillms are all great fun and well worth checking out. I do also need to mention that the 2nd Operation Condor film is actually the first in the series and vice versa.