titles such

Such A Gorgeous Kid Like Me: Main Title
$0.99

Der unsichtbare Ring [Orig. Title: There's no such place as far away]
$9.95

Kung Fu Theater: Legends of Kung Fu Fighting
$19.98
With the re-release of Video Asia's finest Bruceploitation sets in one(The Ultimate Dragon Collection) it was only appropriate that Kung Fu Theatre/EPI give us their best 5 in one Bruceploitation set(Legends of Kung-Fu). For the record, as becomes most films from the Bruceploitation era, the movies are cheesy, tend to borrow from familiar Bruce Lee works, and in some cases, are out there, so in no way am I suggesting that these are martial arts classics or masterpieces, they're for die hard fans of Bruceploitation who watch these films for the fun of it:

Bruce Le's Greatest Revenge: In a nutsehll, a rehashing/rip of Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection/Fist of Fury at best. The kung-fu is good(although Bruce Le insists on dishing out and redishing the same old 'Snake fist' setup for virtually ALL of his films, the fight scenes are quite convincing, he does more than mimick Bruce Lee's facial expressions and Brucisms...at times he does remind you of the real mccoy and there's a fight with Bolo Yeung toward the end). Only downsides of the movie are obviously the shortcomings in action and plot(ie, after Le knocks off Bolo, he goes on to fight the Boss, who retreats by diving into the water, swimming ashore and getting killed by 2 of Le's fellow students...ending the movie), then there's the swordsman(obvious rip of Robert Baker's Russian character). Enjoyable if you focus on the action instead of the cheese.

Bruce Li in New Guinea: Ho Chung Tao stars as a scientist who ventures out to New Guinea to search for the Snake Pearl and encounters several tribaes on the way, particularly The Great Wizard who oppresses the people with a tyrannical rule, Ho is poisoned by the Wizard's ring, is romanced by the princess-to-be(who puts a logve spell on him), they conceive a child, the Wizard puts a spell on the child, Ho must fight his way up to the Wizard. Simply put...the action makes the movie. To try and figure out the rest will make you sick from the psychadelic 70's-ness of the film. I'm not even going to acknowledge the "ape" that guards the princess...lol. But the kung-fu is pretty good, and the fight scenes between Ho and the Wizard and Bolo Yeung are impressive.

Superdragon, the Bruce Lee Story: This film was also released under the title,"Bruce Lee, A Dragon Story"...only this version is actually a better cut as there are more scenes available. This was one of the darker attempts to portray Bruce Lee's life as it begins with his college exploits, progresses to his break in the martial arts film industry, and then darkens when he starts to become involved with betty Ting Pei, resulting in an all-out affair which culminates in his dying in her apartment(Bruce Lee is portrayed as cold and calloused toward his wife and kids as things get sticky between he and Betty).

Bruce Lee We Miss You: One of the better Bruceploitation films...Ho Chung Tao portrays Stone, a martial artist and a fan of Bruce Lee who investigates the circumstances behind his death. As with many other such films, this one plays toward the syndicate/crime boss/conspiracy theories as Stone gets in touch with Betty Ting Pei and fights his way through syndicate figures "involved in Bruce Lee's death." The use of actual personalities (ie, Betty Ting Pei, Low Wei,etc) may not suit everyone's tastes, but the action is there.

The Kung-Fu of Tae Kwon Do: not Bruceploitation, I kind of neglected this one as being filler, but, unless I'm mistaken...the lead actor is also known as Bruce Pak and starred in the Return of Fist of Fury (a sequel to Bruce Le's Ching Wu & Shaolin 1 & 2).

One qualm that I have with this set is with the 15-30 second black screen "breaks" in some of the scene changes.

Animaland
$9.99
A film archivist in Burbank, California named Ken Kramer bought several reels of movie film, paying $50 to the guy who was selling them just to get rid of him. The haul was mostly movie trailers. Then, he struck pure cinematic gold. Four of the reels contained a series of theatrical cartoons that were thought to have been lost forever. The 9 cartoons had the look and feel of vintage 1940s Disney with a liberal splash of Looney Tunes lunacy. Each was identified as "A David Hand ANIMALAND Cartoon".

A phone call to Leonard Maltin revealed David Hand to be the same David Hand who was Walt Disney's supervising director of the animated features "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Bambi". After progressing as far as he could in the enforced anonymity of the Disney studios, Hand was lured to England by J. Arthur Rank to establish a similar animation studio on the British Isles. The "Animaland" cartoons were released theatrically in Europe but could never find an American distributor, possibly because of pressure from Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures and Hand's former employer, one Walter Elias Disney, all of whom had their own thriving animation divisions.

When the Rank Organisation closed Hand's studio, the fate of the "Animaland" cartoons remained a mystery for the past 50 years. Hand returned to the USA and turned his back on animation. He spent most of the rest of his career producing industrial training films. In Europe, 4 "Animaland" cartoons eventually turned up and were released on home video overseas. They were thought to be the ONLY extant specimens.

Flash forward to Ken Kramer's incredible find. The 9 cartoons are, to date, the biggest collection from the series. The good news is that David Hand's son, David Hale Hand, agreed to their release on home video in the USA. Since David Hale Hand owns the American rights to his father's work, there are even plans for an animated feature film starring the cast of the "Animland" cartoons.

Many of the cartoons feature Ginger Nutt, a fiery red squirrel who's easily as cute as Thumper the rabbit from "Bambi" but can be intimidating enough to fend off the 3 forest troublemakers Corny Crow, Dusty Mole and Loopy Hare. Ginger Nutt's love interest is a female squirrel named Hazel. The rest of the cartoons are one-shots with obbligatory production numbers about such species as the cuckoo, the duck-billed platypus, the ostrich, the lion and the house cat.

Anyone who enjoys classic Disney and Warner animation won't be able to stop watching these cartoons. They offer a glimpse into another cartoon world located somewhere between Disney's unrelenting cuteness and Warner Bros. Looney Tune madness. There's also a sense of sadness of what might have been, had David Hand been able to continue the series.

Thanks to this collection, Animaland will always be around, waiting for animation aficionados to pay a visit.