Criterion in the USA has announced a release of a Jackie Chan box set called Emergence of a Superstar featuring six of his movies.
These include 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu.
Originally tapped as a potential successor to Bruce Lee, Hong Kong martial-arts phenom Jackie Chan soon established his own unique screen persona, blending goofball slapstick and bone-crunching kung fu into intricate feats of supercharged athleticism. Tracing his rise from breakout star to full-fledged auteur, these six unabashedly silly, unstoppably entertaining early-career highlights find Chan refining the lovably mischievous image that would make him a global icon, while also assuming greater creative control over his projects—first as his own martial-arts choreographer, and later as a writer-director who set a thrilling new standard for daredevil action comedy.
FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- 2K digital restorations of Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars and high-definition digital restoration of Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- Alternate stereo and 5.1 surround Cantonese soundtracks
- Classic English-dubbed tracks for Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, The Fearless Hyena, and Fearless Hyena II, plus an English-dubbed alternate track for Fearless Hyena II, and contemporary English-dubbed tracks for The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
- New audio commentaries for The Fearless Hyena and The Young Master featuring Hong Kong cinema expert and producer Frank Djeng (Enter the Clones of Bruce)
- Interview with author Grady Hendrix (These Fists Break Bricks) about actor-director Jackie Chan
- Archival interviews with Chan, actor-director Sammo Hung, actors Michiko Nishiwaki and Hwang In-shik, and more
- The Young Master promo reel from the 1980 Cannes Film Festival and deleted scenes from the film
- Interview from 2005 with Hong Kong cinema critic Paul Fonoroff about producer-director Lo Wei
- NG shots from The Young Master and My Lucky Stars
- Trailers
- New English subtitle translations
- PLUS: An essay by critic Alex Pappademas