The Company of Wolves

Starring:Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Tusse Silberg, Micha Bergese, Brian Glover, Graham Crowden, Kathryn Pogson, Stephen Rea, Georgia Slowe, Susan Porrett, Shane Johnstone, Dawn Archibald, Richard Morant, Danielle Dax, Vincent McClaren, Ruby Buchanan, Jimmy Gardner, Roy Evans, Edward Marsen
Director: Neil Jordan
Studio: Henstooth Video
Product Type: DVD

Customer Reviews:

MASTER OF THE IRON FIST !!.......2007-07-03

Kudo's to the Weinstein Company for releasing this Kung Fu classic on DVD.The audio and video restoration that went into this DVD release is absolutely incredible and Martial Arts fans won't be disappointed."King Boxer" is presented in it's Widescreen format and enhanced for 16x9 television's.The films colors are incredibly sharp and vibrant and the mono sound is clear and crisp.The video transfer of "King Boxer" is the absolute best version I have ever seen and fans of the Kung Fu genre will be amazed by the quality of this release.Sound options include original Mandarin and English dubbed version and choice of subtitles.The special features are an added bonus,specially the Trailer Gallery.This movie has it all,non-stop action,fierce fighting and plenty of blood.Watch the magnificent Lo Lieh as he masters the Iron Fist technique and exacts his revenge."King Boxer" is five star entertainment at it's very best!!

A classic finally gets its due.......2007-06-19

King Boxer (aka Five Fingers of Death) came out in 1973 and is a classic example of a Shaw Brothers kung fu film - a genre they helped pioneer and perfect with this movie being one of the finest efforts from this time period. It also has the distinction of being the first kung fu film to be released in the United States, just ahead of Bruce Lee's equally influential Enter the Dragon. In the 1980s, it inspired filmmaker John Carpenter to make Big Trouble in Little China and more recently was a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies.

The filmmakers maintain just the right level of pacing with very short lulls between action sequences. Let's face it - we're not watching King Boxer for its thoughtful characterization. That is not to say that this film is not well made or doesn't take itself seriously because it does, but it is hardly Shakespeare either. Director Cheng Chang Ho employs sudden zoom in and outs and even the occasional freeze frame during many of the film's dynamic fight scenes. This is a beautifully shot movie with expert use of the 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio with superb compositions of every frame. The use of shadows for dramatic effect in one scene, and a brief fight that takes place at sunset that looks like something right out of 1950s Technicolor era, is part of the reason why this film is so revered among kung fu film fans.

King Boxer features betrayal, torture, revenge and even some heroic style redemption thrown in for good measure - all heightened to melodramatic levels making for a very entertaining ride. Our hero has to deal with a devastating injury and his own self-doubts before he can face the bad guys and use the Iron Palm technique to save the day. You soon find yourself rooting for Chi-Hao to win the competition and the cute woman he loves as well. Even though our hero triumphs at the end, it is a terrible cost with friends, family and his mentor dead or horribly maimed all because of a petty rivalry between two martial arts schools.

There is an audio commentary by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and film critics Elvis Mitchell and David Chute. Love or hate Tarantino, the guy knows his film history, displaying an impressive encyclopedic knowledge of kung fu cinema. For example, he not only talks about how it was the first kung fu film released in America but then rattles off 5-6 other films that came after. This is a very entertaining, information-packed track by three guys who are fans of the film and display a genuine love for the genre. Highly recommended.

"Interview with Chang-Hwa Jeong." He talks about how he got involved with the film. Initially, he found the script to be "common" and studied Chinese history and literature in order to make improvements. He talks about some of the techniques he used to make the action sequences so exciting and visceral.

"Interview with action director Lau Kar Wing." Kar Wing was the kung fu director on the movie and speaks about how he approached the many fight scenes, including the challenge of matching the actor with their stunt double seamlessly.

"Interview with film critic/scholars David Chute and Andy Klein." Chute gives the film a historical context in terms of American cinema including its shocking level of violence at the time. They point out that the soundtrack was a pastiche of music ripped off of other film and that this would often hamper its distribution because of rights issues.

Also included are two trailers and alternate opening sequence that features very crude opening credits.

Finally, there is a "Stills Gallery" with poster and promotional photographs.

Average customer rating:

Company of wolves
A little too artsy fartsy ...but it has werewolves.
little red riding hood for grown ups
Company of Wolves? sounds like my office...not a looker amongst 'em. :)
Fine Company

The Company of Wolves
Starring: Sarah Patterson , Angela Lansbury , David Warner , Tusse Silberg , and Micha Bergese
Director: Neil Jordan
Manufacturer: Henstooth Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00006G8H3
Release Date: 2002-10-15

Amazon.com essential video

The tangled forest is misty with mystery, the thatched cottages are cute and quaint, and the dashing rogues are devious charmers, but this revision of "Little Red Riding Hood" is not your usual fairy tale. In the troubled dreams of an adolescent girl in the hormonal rush of puberty, it becomes a veritable werewolf story with lush storybook imagery, gothic horror flourishes, and decidedly sexual implications. Director Neil Jordan, who collaborated with author Angela Carter in this 1985 adaptation of her story, applies a knowing intelligence to the bittersweet tale. The often startling transformation effects may appear primitive compared to modern movies, but the delight is in the dark imagination, dense textures, and fantastical wonders of this dream world. Angela Lansbury is the story-spinning granny and David Warner the understanding woodsman father, and watch for a devilish cameo by a sinister and seductive Terence Stamp. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

Company of wolves.......2007-05-16

The reason I gave this movie 3 stars is because I love the atmosphere it evokes, like little red riding hood meets tales from the dark side. If it were done with more budget in the effects area it would get 5 stars, but for an old school... It rocks:)

A little too artsy fartsy ...but it has werewolves........2007-02-10

This is Neil Jordan's second flick. He made this before he had the break thru success of Mona Lisa. This film has not aged well and really cannot compete with the likes of American Werewolf in London or The Howling. Neil gets a little artsy in this flick and I find the whole concept of this being a girl's dream really annoying and cheesy. The other aggravating aspect to this film is that you can tell this was all shot in a studio and it makes it appear as you are watching some cheap-made for TV-BBC movie. Another thing that disrupts this flick is all the stories the grandmother tells little red riding hood. Every time you hear "Once upon a time...," you know they are going to give you some back story about these Werewolves which involves a dramatization/flashback of the tale. This really messes with the flow of the movie.

On the other hand, this movie is zany and it does give you a nice smack of gore. It is an adult version of Little Red Ridding Hood and as the other reviewers have stated there is a lot of symbolism about a girl coming to age and a bit of barley legal erotica.

The best thing about this movie is the transformation sequences of the werewolves. But as all of these types of movies go, you will ask yourself "why aren't these people running away while these creatures are transforming?" These transformations last up to 2 - 3 minutes, giving the victims plenty of time to leave, but of course...the victims are never too smart and stick around to get eaten.

The DVD itself wasn't well produced. The image is Letterboxed with some weird sort of Pan and Scan going on. I doubt that this is the true widescreen version of this film. The Colors look faded and it really does not have any special features, making the price for this DVD outrageous. Overall the movie itself is entertaining and if you saw it back in the day, it will give you a feeling of nostalgia... but it is not worth the price. Put it on your net flix queue, not really worth owning.

little red riding hood for grown ups.......2006-10-21

angela lansbury wrote the screen play for this adaptation of the classic childs fairy tale "little red riding hood" however, this movie is much more than that.
this movie is a a very dark psychological trip into the the mind of a young girl coming into puberty and the decisions she must make as she approaches adult hood. her grandmother played by angela lansbury-a wonderful and gifted movie and stage actress,singer etc., takes the young girl under her wing and does her best to teach her about the many dangers she faces in the world and how best to protect herself.
there are actually 3 or 4 different stories that the grandmother is telling the young girl to try and teach her so she will not come to the same fate as her older sister whom died earlier on in the picture.
there are alot of underlying metaphors and deeper meanings spread throughout this wonderfully directed,acted and produced movie, the sets are as i said before are very dark but put together very well and the time period is set up wonderfully also.
i can highly recommend this movie as a thinking persons "little red riding hood" definately not for children basically because of some violence and transformation scenes that are quite cruesome but really are necessary for the story line and they are very well done also. if you are looking for a very,very good horror movie this is it.

Company of Wolves? sounds like my office...not a looker amongst 'em. :).......2006-07-18

anyway, yeah, this movie is very well made for the time period(early 80's). it's a literist's and horror aficionados mixed bag of goodies with gore galore and symbolism aplenty! The usual female coming of age story of first experiences with womanhood and the opposite sex and how to tame them and man's eternal struggle with the voracious beast within that wants to "eat" blossoming females. i could go on, but i think you get the point. the screenplay was actually written by famed author angela carter who deals with such subjects as children's fairy tales and adult "fairy tales" of sexual politics. in the end, what difference does it make? either you become a wolf yourself or become the prey. either way you're dammmmmmnnnnneeddd.....

Fine Company.......2006-06-22

Despite the removal of Hollywood backing in British cinema in the 1970's, the horror genre continued to thrive in independent circles. Horror, rather like the sex film, were among the most successful of British films at this time. The lack of intellectualisation, the increased violence and sexuality created distracting and unchallenging escape for adults. But even the horror genre began to struggle toward the end of the decade and by the mid 1980's was all but dead. This makes Neil Jordan's film all the more interesting. Jordan, himself a novelist, collaborated closely with feminist author Angela Carter on the film and the result was a visually imaginative film, with a great deal of psychoanalytical depth. Jordan, clearly aware of the success a number of Werewolf related projects had enjoyed, combined the conventions of that well worn sub-genre with the fairy tale world that Carter had vividly brought to life in her short story. The film abounds with Freudian imagery and like most fairy tales has a cautionary conclusion. A film of dreams and nightmares, in which realms of reality become confused by the double narrative that runs throughout the film. Like most horror films and fairy tales, the film is essentially an exploration of sexuality, but handled by Jordan with a rare sensitivity and pioneer spirit, that would be lacking in later features by the Irish director. Allegorically speaking the film could also be viewed as a rejection of the Victorian and patriarchal Thatcherite doctrines that formed an important part of government policy at the time. Horror fans might be put off by the dense psycho-analytical content, but are well compensated with some excellent special effects (for a British film) and some great performances by some of Britain's finest character actors.

Average customer rating:

Wilder is not such a bad movie
Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Good RH movie
Too much talk. Too little action.

Wilder
Starring: Pam Grier , Rutger Hauer , Romano Orzari , John Dunn-Hill , and Eugene Clark
Director: Rodney Gibbons
Manufacturer: Mti Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Customer Reviews:

Wilder is not such a bad movie.......2006-12-27

Rutger can come onto the screen & you no you are going to see a wonderful performance. Wilder has a good pliot good actors and the music isn't to bad either. I own this movie and I enjoyed watching this flick. I am a huge Rutger Hauer fan he does not get the credit he really really deserves! Rutger Hauer and Pam Grier are very good together in this movie they have a very good chemistry together. They bounce off one another brilliantly. It's a thriller/mystery with some romance and some very touching moments that Rutger does so well because he is such a good actor. If you are a Rutger Hauer & Pam Grier fan I suggest that you get this movie.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!.......2005-01-21

Rutger Hauer has Blade Runner money and Pam Grier should be doing just fine after Jackie Brown or even Foxy Brown, what are both of these two actors doing in this little project. While I hate to overuse the phrase that, "They just needed the paycheck", films like Wilder leave me no room for imagination or wonder. They had to just need some extra cash to spend with their children or pay their rent. Why would they attach their names to this film? From the opening credit sequence to the final moments that were meant to shake the bowels of justice in the comfort of your own home, Wilder proved that everything in-between was not as sweet as an Oreo cookie, but instead a murky lifeless substance that should have been left alone instead of released on DVD. There was nothing redeemable about this film. The sound was horrible, the acting seemed forced and honestly, non-existent, and the story was too big for its britches. Normally, I can ramble off at least one good element about the film that I just watched, but sadly, I cannot think of anything nice to say about Wilder. From the beginning it began imploding and falling apart at the edges, and it didn't stop until the final credits rolled.

The sound is a small, yet large element to a film. It gives us that extra punch in a finale, or an extra tear during a sad moment, or those dastardly violins that always seem to shrill whenever someone enters the room. Either way you see it, or hear it in this case, music pushes a film to a new level. So, when a film either chooses to use poor sound or no sound at all, you have to wonder why? Is it because the characters are the central focus and the silence symbolically adds to their meaning? Or is it because the production value was so low that Little Timmy from down the street was paid minimum wage to give a film ... oh, let's say ... Wilder a bit of noise in the background. I didn't hear music in this film, I heard recycled garbage going through the system. There was nothing prominent or distinguishable about the score of this film. Drunken monkeys with guitars could do better. It felt as if it was rushed together at the last moment, completely defacing an already troubled film.

I talk about the music first in this review because when the acting is poor, sometimes you can overcompensate with a decent score. That was not the case here. Since the sound was poor, I found myself listening to the actors longer than I should have. I have never witnessed a complete lack of emotion and care as I did with Hauer and Grier. They need to stop now and go down in the history books for what they have accomplished already, not erased from the books for what they are currently attaching their names to. Grier attempts hard to be that strong female lead character that teeters on feminism and violence to help her find the answer the she seeks. That is a tough concept, and Grier never gets it. She constantly goes in and out of character, giving us something new and fresh each scene that she does. There was no consistency, no solid character, no emotion at all. Grier read her lines and walked the paces and that was it. The same can be said for Hauer. He was even worse than Grier in the fact that his acting felt fake and directed. I am not supposed to be reminded by the actors that I am watching a movie, I want to be entertained. Take me to a place I have never been, not a reminder that I am on my couch in the middle of the night. If they were handing out imagination and enthusiasm at the beginning of this film, Grier and Hauer must have missed the bandwagon. They were horrible. You could just see the director's suggestions playing out in Grier's head, like counting out loud. While she was focusing on that, she completely missed her character. Finally, the chemistry between Hauer and Grier was one of the worst combinations Hollywood has created. They were never meant to be together and this film only proved it. It was obvious from the beginning that they were not happy to be together, and we were not happy to be spending two hours with them. On both parts, it was a match made in hell.

Poor sound, flimsy acting ... what else could go wrong? How about a story that literally made no sense. I am not one to completely knock the writing of another (well, maybe I am) because of the hard work someone had to put into the finished product, but in the case of Wilder it was nothing but disaster. Nothing worked, nothing made sense, the actors were being lead on a blind ghost chase that somehow forced a conclusion on us all by showing us details that we may have missed earlier because we were falling asleep. There were just too many avenues to cross in this film that did not have the budget to cross them all. I also think that this final cut lost some of the momentum in the final cut. You could tell scenes that just seemed spliced together because they were incoherent and jumbled. We were moving all over the screen like a chicken without a head. Thankfully the final credits were there to put us out of our misery.

Overall, this was bad. The overwhelming story with low budgeting lead to horrible acting and miscasting by both Grier and Hauer, which lead to some bad music vomiting from my speakers, which ultimately lead to a straight to DVD release of this film.

Grade: * out of *****

Good RH movie.......2004-07-16

Nice story, humor and plenty of twists.The above review was probably written by someone who is expecting Gone With the Wind from every movie he watches,if he does.
For those in US who like RH, this is a good oportunity to please
themselves. Five stars because new RH movie is rare on US market and this one is pretty good.

Too much talk. Too little action........2004-02-06

You get with Pam Grier and Rutger Hauer in the same movie as heroine and villain & you'd expect something pretty special, right? Wrong. WILDER is a by-the-numbers murder mystery/ thriller which attempts to update Grier's FOXY BROWN/ COFFY persona for the 2Ks. There's one problem: this movie practically talks itself to death.
The plot: Dr Samuel Charney (Hauer) is the prime suspect in a violent murder. The victim is one of his patients who was about to sue him for malpractice. He claims he's innocent. Cop Della Wilder (Grier) is assigned the case, which she presumes to be an open-and-shut revenge killing. But of course, it's more complex than that- it would have to be because this movie drags on for 90 boring minutes and totally wastes the time and talent of the leads- who appear to be sleepwalking through the film. And so will you. Keep your fingers crossed that Director Rodney Gibbons and Writer Terry Abrahamson get blacklisted at some point in the future. Why does poor old Rutger always wind up in direct to video fodder like this? He hasn't been in movie worthy of his talents since 1984's LADYHAWKE. A real shame. And this movie is a real sham. If you must see it, rent it first. You've been warned.

Average customer rating:

Emerald Cowboy
Starring: Eishy Hayata , Eva Hayata , Luis Velasco , and Richard Wilke
Director: Eishy Hayata , and Andrew Molina
Manufacturer: Indican
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Average customer rating:

Company of wolves
A little too artsy fartsy ...but it has werewolves.
little red riding hood for grown ups
Company of Wolves? sounds like my office...not a looker amongst 'em. :)
Fine Company

The Company of Wolves [Region 2]
Starring: Sarah Patterson , Angela Lansbury , David Warner , Tusse Silberg , and Micha Bergese
Director: Neil Jordan
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video