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Review by Michael Den Boer
Studio:
Theatrical: Shaw Brothers
Blu-ray: Well Go Usa
Disc:
Region: 'A'-locked
(as verified by the
Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)
Runtime: 1:41:56.376
Disc Size: 22,008,285,326 bytes
Feature Size: 21,328,735,889 bytes
Video Bitrate: 22.10 Mbps
Chapters: 10
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: April 27th, 2010
Video:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Resolution:
1080i
/ 23.976 fps
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio:
LPCM Audio Mandarin 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps /
16-bit
Subtitles:
English, Chinese, none
Extras:
• Trailers for The Heroic Ones (1:08;
Letterboxed Widescreen), The Battle Wizard
(1:03; Letterboxed Widescreen), The Duel of
the Century (1:07; Letterboxed Widescreen)
The Film:
Five brothers are separated after their
father is murdered by a man named Long Zeng
Feng. After the death of their father and
with the five brothers in hiding Long Zeng
Feng assumes control over the family’s
martial arts academy known as Flying Dragon
Villa. Several years later with the help of
a close family friend named Yen Lai the five
brothers regroup and plan their revenge
against their fathers’ murderer.
Brothers Five was directed by Wei Lo who
also directed Bruce Lee’s first two Hong
Kong films
The Big Boss and
Fist of Fury.
Brothers Five also features n a very brief
minor role Sammo Hung Kam-Bo playing a
security guard who is part of an envoy
protecting money they are transporting.
The plot for Brothers Five is you standard
martial arts revenge set up. The films main
twist of combining the five brothers as once
fighting force when they use a secret kung
fu handbook titled “Five Tigers with one
Heart” sounds cooler than it looks. On their
own each brother is an exceptional fighter
they are just not good enough individually
when opposing their fathers’ killer Long
Zeng Feng.
The film’s most interesting character is a
female marital artist named Yen Lai who is
portrayed by Pei-pei Cheng (Come Drink with
Me). Yen Lai spends most of the film
tracking down each of the five brothers and
then preparing them for their final showdown
with Long Zeng Feng. In the last half of the
film we finally get to see Yen Lai spring
into action after spending almost 2/3’s of
the film off in the background.
Each of the five brothers in the film gets a
scene to show off their fighting specialty.
Even though the story retreads familiar
ground it is during its numerous action
sequences where this films really excels.
Ultimately Brothers Five makes up for it
weak story with its wall to wall action.
Excerpt of review from 10kbullets located
HERE
Image:
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
Just like their DVD release the transfer for
this
Blu-ray
release is interlaced. Even though the
transfer is interlaced the 'combing' is not
as pronounced on this
Blu-ray
release as it is on the DVD release (see in
two captures below). The differences between
the transfer for this
Blu-ray
and the transfer for Well Go USA's DVD are
minimal with the biggest area of improvement
being the image looks sharper.
Audio & Music:
This release comes with one audio option, a
Dolby Digital stereo mix in Mandarin and
removable English and Chinese subtitles have
been included. The audio mix sound clean and
clear throughout with the sound effects
benefiting most from this audio mix. Looking
over the English subtitles the good news is
that they are not 'DUB' titles. And while they
are easy to follow, it should be noted that
I noted a few grammatical errors.
Extras:
Extras are limited to three trailer
The
Heroic Ones, The Battle Wizard and
The Duel
of the Century. All three trailers are
presented in a letterboxed widescreen, in
Mandarin with no English subtitles and in
standard definition.
Bottom line:
When I first heard that Well Go USA was
going to give some of their Shaw Brother's
titles that they had previously released on
DVD, a BluRay release. I had high hopes that
they would go back and improve and in some
instances correct the mistakes from these
previous releases. If you already have Well
Go USA's DVD release Brothers Five, this
release is at best a 'marginally' better
release that is not worth upgrading too.
Michael Den Boer
April 29th, 2010
More
Shaw Brothers-Martial Arts-Wushu or related films on
Blu-ray
reviewed (click review buttons to also see
comparisons where applicable): |