The Gold Ninja Video Blu-ray Thread

[Drunken Monk]

I just stumbled across https://goldninjavideo.com

They’re selling Blu Rays it movies like Thundering Mantis, Kung Fu Zombie and a Godfrey Ho collection.

They have ZERO information about themselves on their website and the box art is questionable. Has anyone heard of these guys? Is it safe to assume these are bootlegs?

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Looks pretty sketch.... I would avoid.

[ShawAngela]

According to the description on Beardy's movie, it's none other than a custom Blu, from not even a remastered version, just as any of us could do, so it mustn't be original releases...

[Drunken Monk]

5 hours ago, ShawAngela said:

According to the description on Beardy's movie, it's none other than a custom Blu, from not even a remastered version, just as any of us could do, so it mustn't be original releases...

Ah, I obviously didn’t read enough. Thanks for clearing that up, @ShawAngela

Sounds like these guys are best avoided as @TibetanWhiteCrane said.

[Yihetuan]

On 8/1/2020 at 9:28 AM, Drunken Monk said:

I just stumbled across https://goldninjavideo.com

They’re selling Blu Rays it movies like Thundering Mantis, Kung Fu Zombie and a Godfrey Ho collection.

They have ZERO information about themselves on their website and the box art is questionable. Has anyone heard of these guys? Is it safe to assume these are bootlegs?

I actually enjoy these releases. Of course for $10, one isn't expecting a remastered blu ray and they explicitly state on their website that their transfers are not remastered or restored in anyway but are watchable standard definition prints. They use BD-Rs to just cram as much extras and bonus films onto the disc. I enjoy the audio commentaries by Justin Decloux and various guests as he is really enthusiastic about the material and it comes across to the viewer.

[Yihetuan]

Gold Ninja Video has released The Desperate Chase with free bonus movie, The Master Strikes.

https://goldninjavideo.com/21-blood-of-the-dragon/

[snakymonkey]

i just got Unlucky Stars blu from them, pretty great release.

[Yihetuan]

They have a pre-order up right now of Lee Tso-nam's Kung Fu Wonder Child with bonus film, Lucky Seven aka 7 Ninja Kids.

https://goldninjavideo.com/24-kung-fu-wonder-child/

[thundered mantis]

Unlucky Stars seems to be their only legit release. Their boots may have nice extras, but they don't even look the best versions around. At the end I'm afraid that kind of boots do harm the possibilities of a company remastering, say, thundering mantis from a 35 mm print and providing us with a real upgrade on our experience of the film

[Yihetuan]

New title up for pre-order from their Eagle Claw Classics imprint. 3 disc limited edition set titled Jackiesploitation - A Treasury of Jackie Chan Inspired Rip-Offs and Copy Cats.

Jackie Chan changed action cinema.

And a lot of people tried to rip him off.

Gold Ninja Video is proud to present some of the best in this ten-movie collection of Jackie Chan imitators and copy cats that feature action movie legends like Angela Mao (DANCE OF DEATH) and Sammo Hung (THE INCREDIBLE KUNG FU MASTER) trying to replicate Jackie’s comedy kung fu success. Special features on this 3-Disc Set include three commentary tracks, video featurettes exploring the history of Simon Yuen (The Real Drunken Master), getting to the bottom of “Is Jackie actually in that movie?” and a new instructional video on how to construct your very own Jackie Chan fight scene at home! 

MOVIES INCLUDED ON THIS 3-DISC SET:

• MASTER WITH CRACKED FINGERS: A shameless hack job to capitalize on Jackie’s success that takes footage from Chan’s first film Cub Tiger of Kwantung and cuts it into new footage featuring Simon Yuen and a guy who’s supposed to be Jackie, but we only ever see the back of his head! 
• CUB TIGER OF KWANTUNG: Jackie Chan’s first starring role! 
• JACKIE CHAN’S 36 CRAZY FISTS: Jackie did a favour for his director friend Chen Chi-Hwa by choreographing this SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW clone - and the distributor went ahead and slapped Jackie’s name in the title, face on the poster, and crowbarred in some behind the scenes footage of Jackie in the opening! 
• DANCE OF THE DRUNK MANTIS: Yuen Woo-ping directed  Jackie to stardom with SNAKE IN THE EAGLE’S SHADOW and DRUNKEN MASTER, so he tried to do it again, this time with one of his brothers in the starring role, in a film that is ten times wilder! 
• DANCE OF DEATH: Angela Mao does the comedy kung-fu schtick and is fantastic at it, in a film choreographed by Jackie Chan! 
• METHOD MAN: A jaw-dropping slice of Chansploitation about an acrobatic young man (Peter Chan) out for revenge  against the man who killed his family (Casanova Wong) 
• MYSTERY OF CHESS BOXING: It's chess. It's martial arts. Simon Yuen is there too! 
• THE INCREDIBLE KUNG FU MASTER: All of the Hong Kong stuntpeople that weren’t involved got together and tried to re-create that Jackie magic! Starring action choreographer Stephen Tung, Sammo Hung and Philip Ko. 
• TWO WONDEROUS TIGERS: Top-tier Jackie imitator John Cheung tries to win the heart of a young woman by fighting her entire family in a series of expertly choreographed duels.
• HELLZ WINDSTAFF: Why get only a single Jackie clone if you can get two for the price of one? Co-starring one of Jackie’s most fearsome foes - Korean super kicker Hwang Jang-lee! 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Commentary on MASTER WITH CRACKED FINGERS by Jackie Chan obsessives Will Sloan and Justin Decloux 
• Commentary on DANCE OF DEATH by Carlo Vanstiphout (Back Row Cinema Blog) and Justin Decloux
• Commentary on THE INCREDIBLE KUNG FU MASTER by Alex Chung (Filmmaker and Stunt Artist) and Justin Decloux 
• IS JACKIE IN THAT?: A Video Saga
• THE ART OF PUBLIC DOMAIN MARTIAL ARTS VIDEO: A Video Exploration 
• CHANTASTIC MADNESS: A Jackiesploitation Trailer Reel
• SIMON YUEN - THE REAL DRUNKEN MASTER: A Video Essay 
• A FUNNY PUNCH TO THE FACE - HOW TO SHOOT A JACKIE CHAN FIGHT SCENE (WITH ALEX CHUNG): A How-To Video 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by Yihetuan

[Iron Head Rat]

On 3/17/2021 at 2:21 PM, thundered mantis said:

Unlucky Stars seems to be their only legit release. Their boots may have nice extras, but they don't even look the best versions around. At the end I'm afraid that kind of boots do harm the possibilities of a company remastering, say, thundering mantis from a 35 mm print and providing us with a real upgrade on our experience of the film

Exactly this

[JDecloux]

Howdy!

I run Gold Ninja Video, and my main gol was always meant to provide context to the films that have been released, not cut off at the legs any possible releases that may come down the line. The whole thing started as a bit of a gag between my friend and me "What if you picked a movie out of a bargain bin and the company treated it like a Criterion Release with special features - but the film wasn't remastered?" and it has grown from there.  The rule of thumb I use is if it's widely available on Youtube, and has been previously released by a number of different fly-by-night companies, then it's considered in the 'grey market' - and I've pulled a release in the past when I realized that that wasn't the case. Like I say on the site, they are not remastered releases, but I do it because I want to highlight these filmmakers and artists to new audiences that may not have heard about them before through tons of new special features - and it's the reason I make them limited runs and as inexpensive as I can - because I want them to be done after a stretch of time - and I would love for a different company to come in and release a REMASTERED EDITION if something I put out proved there was interest in it. I was inspired by the slew of German releases that would come and go in the wind - and while those are often new scans - I'm planning on starting to do that very soon. The issue was always cost, but I've built up enough of an audience that will allow me to afford it.

We work hard on the special features, and I consider money paid for the stuff we put out to be for that and not for the movie themsleves, which are often widely available on Youtube and the like.

Here's a clip for a featurettewe did for the JACKIESPLOITATION disc where I wanted to discuss Jackie Chan and then have the people discussing it illustrate those concepts through a fight scene shot that same day:

 

And as far as releases we've worked directly with the filmmakers with, they include FLESH FREAKS, LOCAL LEGEND, DON'T LET THE RIVERBEAST GET YOU, KILLER QUEEN, MANGOSHAKE, A SWEET AND VICIOUS BEAUTY, THE OTHER SIDE OF GARY GRAVER, and DINOSAURS IN A MINING FACILITY.  

The goal in the next few months is to acquire 35mm and 16mm prints and do new scans. I would have loved to do it before, but I just never had the capital to do so, and doing this along these lines allowed me to build up enough of an audience to move to the next step. 

I apologize if it seemed like I'm doing more harm than good, but I'm a massive fan of all this stuff which is why I wanted to build a label that eventually allowed me to distribute new films and complete new scans of films that had been forgotten. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by JDecloux

[Ninja Sinai]

6 hours ago, JDecloux said:

Howdy!

I run Gold Ninja Video, and my main gol was always meant to provide context to the films that have been released, not cut off at the legs any possible releases that may come down the line. The whole thing started as a bit of a gag between my friend and me "What if you picked a movie out of a bargain bin and the company treated it like a Criterion Release with special features - but the film wasn't remastered?" and it has grown from there.  The rule of thumb I use is if it's widely available on Youtube, and has been previously released by a number of different fly-by-night companies, then it's considered in the 'grey market' - and I've pulled a release in the past when I realized that that wasn't the case. Like I say on the site, they are not remastered releases, but I do it because I want to highlight these filmmakers and artists to new audiences that may not have heard about them before through tons of new special features - and it's the reason I make them limited runs and as inexpensive as I can - because I want them to be done after a stretch of time - and I would love for a different company to come in and release a REMASTERED EDITION if something I put out proved there was interest in it. I was inspired by the slew of German releases that would come and go in the wind - and while those are often new scans - I'm planning on starting to do that very soon. The issue was always cost, but I've built up enough of an audience that will allow me to afford it.

We work hard on the special features, and I consider money paid for the stuff we put out to be for that and not for the movie themsleves, which are often widely available on Youtube and the like.

Here's a clip for a featurettewe did for the JACKIESPLOITATION disc where I wanted to discuss Jackie Chan and then have the people discussing it illustrate those concepts through a fight scene shot that same day:

 

And as far as releases we've worked directly with the filmmakers with, they include FLESH FREAKS, LOCAL LEGEND, DON'T LET THE RIVERBEAST GET YOU, KILLER QUEEN, MANGOSHAKE, A SWEET AND VICIOUS BEAUTY, THE OTHER SIDE OF GARY GRAVER, and DINOSAURS IN A MINING FACILITY.  

The goal in the next few months is to acquire 35mm and 16mm prints and do new scans. I would have loved to do it before, but I just never had the capital to do so, and doing this along these lines allowed me to build up enough of an audience to move to the next step. 

I apologize if it seemed like I'm doing more harm than good, but I'm a massive fan of all this stuff which is why I wanted to build a label that eventually allowed me to distribute new films and complete new scans of films that had been forgotten. 

Hello my friend. It’s clearly your doing it for the love of the genre and not just out there trying to make a quick buck. 
 

Just scan 35mm prints of Tiger Boy and The Magic Ring for us and all will be forgiven 😁

[Yihetuan]

@JDecloux, fantastic news regarding your future plans to put out remastered HD titles. I can't wait!

[thundered mantis]

Interesting news @JDecloux. The fanbase is literally craving for HD scanned releases of the indy cults. Could you hint on what titles we may expect? Thank you so much

[Yihetuan]

I received my copy of the 3-disc Jackiesploitation the other day and it's a helluva lot of entertainment value for $20. The highlight for me was the anatomy of a Jackie Chan fight scene with Alex Chung and Justin. Alex doing Jackie from Police Story from memory was pretty cool too. Especially since it was shot at a public park, I was expecting some WTF? looks from passerbys but it was a deserted that day or they were edited out lol. Enjoyed the commentaries as well with Will Sloan, the aforementioned Alex and Carl (I knew he was into anime but didn't realize he was a fan of HK cinema especially the girls with guns genre).

Looking forward to the next release in the Eagle Claws imprint series!

[massa_yoda]

16 hours ago, Yihetuan said:

I received my copy of the 3-disc Jackiesploitation the other day and it's a helluva lot of entertainment value for $20. The highlight for me was the anatomy of a Jackie Chan fight scene with Alex Chung and Justin. Alex doing Jackie from Police Story from memory was pretty cool too. Especially since it was shot at a public park, I was expecting some WTF? looks from passerbys but it was a deserted that day or they were edited out lol. Enjoyed the commentaries as well with Will Sloan, the aforementioned Alex and Carl (I knew he was into anime but didn't realize he was a fan of HK cinema especially the girls with guns genre).

Looking forward to the next release in the Eagle Claws imprint series!

The bonus content sounds pretty cool on this release.  How do the films look?  I know it says “unrestored” on their site, but are they really bad? 

[Yihetuan]

3 hours ago, massa_yoda said:

The bonus content sounds pretty cool on this release.  How do the films look?  I know it says “unrestored” on their site, but are they really bad? 

Some are better than others. Dance with the Drunk Mantis is the best of the bunch followed by Hell'z Windstaff with Cub Tiger from Kwan Tung being the worst due to print damage (the same quality as the Rarescope print). The other films (Dance of Death, Master of Cracked Fingers, 36 Crazy Fists, Method Man, Two Wondrous Tigers, The Incredible Kung Fu Master) are fall somewhere in between but all are watchable and none are horrible.

[JDecloux]

Howdy all, 

Just wanted to give any interested party a heads up that I'm currently crowdfunding for a bunch of upcomin Gold Ninja Video releases that will be new scans - including a Taiwanese martial arts fantasy film! I don't mention the title just because I wanted to keep one under wraps, but it is fairly well known in these circles, and has never gotten a DVD release. Or even VHS I believe! 

The most interesting perk to the curious may be the fact that you can grab some of our older releases which are long out of print for a very limited time, like THUNDERING MANTIS, KUNG FU ZOMBIE or WOLF DEVIL DIRECTOR: THE FILM OF PEARL CHANG. 

Here's the page with a lot more info: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gold-ninja-video/x/21271#/

 

 

 

[thundered mantis]

Great announce @JDecloux. Hope your venture ends up in a successful way and lead to more filmic restaurations.

Apart from the HD scannings, do you plan to make some restoring of the files obtained? @TheKungFuRobber has done some astounding work on restoring/cleaning/color correcting films. Maybe you could hire him or any other technician.

On the 80s Taiwanese martial arts fantasy film, may it be one of the Child of Peach series? Only two of them were released on DVD I think, the other being only released on VCD by Joy Sales... 

Beg your pardon for asking the title, but this is a kung fu aficionados forum, so the majority of the people here might be only interested on the martial arts release, so it would certainly help to decide the people to join.

What would happen if the campaign doesn't get to the desired/needed amount? Do we get one or two films? None of them? In which order? Or do we get a reimburse? Thank you for your time and effort

[ShawAngela]

1 hour ago, thundered mantis said:

Great announce @JDecloux. Hope your venture ends up in a successful way and lead to more filmic restaurations.

Apart from the HD scannings, do you plan to make some restoring of the files obtained? @TheKungFuRobber has done some astounding work on restoring/cleaning/color correcting films. Maybe you could hire him or any other technician.

On the 80s Taiwanese martial arts fantasy film, may it be one of the Child of Peach series? Only two of them were released on DVD I think, the other being only released on VCD by Joy Sales... 

Beg your pardon for asking the title, but this is a kung fu aficionados forum, so the majority of the people here might be only interested on the martial arts release, so it would certainly help to decide the people to join.

What would happen if the campaign doesn't get to the desired/needed amount? Do we get one or two films? None of them? In which order? Or do we get a reimburse? Thank you for your time and effort

Martial arts fantasy...The magic ring, maybe...

[thundered mantis]

15 hours ago, ShawAngela said:

Martial arts fantasy...The magic ring, maybe...

Wow, if it were THAT, it´s too serious business. He should say it straight, I am sure he would rise the funds soon enough. Anyway, I think it´s just fair to clarify what film it is. He´s free to manage his campaign as he considers it better though

Nah, it can´t be the magic ring as he said it´s an eighties movie...

[One Armed Boxer]

On 7/15/2021 at 10:14 AM, JDecloux said:

Just wanted to give any interested party a heads up that I'm currently crowdfunding for a bunch of upcomin Gold Ninja Video releases that will be new scans - including a Taiwanese martial arts fantasy film! I don't mention the title just because I wanted to keep one under wraps, but it is fairly well known in these circles, and has never gotten a DVD release. Or even VHS I believe! 

This is great news @JDecloux, I've purchased a few of your titles in the past! Have to agree with @thundered mantis though and say the trigger for me to contribute as an Asian movie fan would be a perk that involves the Blu-ray of the Secret 1980's Taiwanese Action Film, then my money is yours! I already have the titles you've released that I'm after, and 'Freaky Farley' doesn't float my boat, so please offer a perk that appeals to your established Asian cinema fanbase, then my bank account is at your service!

[JDecloux]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! Boy, I wish it was THE MAGIC RING! Has a copy of that ever even surfaced?

The one I'm putting out is film that I feel like everyone here would regognize by the title, and it's not a shapes or basher film, but more fantasy orientated - and like I said - it's never had a DVD release. Hopefully I can announce it before the campaign ends, but I want to make sure a few more things are locked in place, as to not dissappoint anyone. 

I would love to do the CHILD OF PEACH series, but I believe someone still holds the rights to those, hence their release on VCD and DVD in Taiwan. 

[Yihetuan]

@JDecloux, you mention in your latest update video that The Dragon Lives blu ray has 3 easter eggs. I've only managed to find 2:
 

Spoiler

 

Enter the Game of Death

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu

 

Can you tell me the 3rd and how to find it?