Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar (The Criterion Collection) [Half a Loaf of Kung Fu/Spiritual Kung Fu/The Fearless Hyena/Fearless Hyena II/The Young Master/My Lucky Stars]

After purchasing many versions of Jackie's movies these are the most clear and complete as you would expect from the good folks at Criterion. This makes it a must for Chan completists. If you are looking to purchase these films because you've liked his later stuff....be prepared for something different. These are early Jackie before he found his niche. If you like Jackie's American releases you may want to first try the Shout Factory collections first. These are very much the old-style Kung-Fu Theater type movies that would play on UHF channels of Saturday afternoons (not that there is anything wrong with that). Plenty of extras and upgraded subtitles make this collection a great replacement for the other discs you may own.

Llego rápido y en perfecto, lo recomiendo.

I see some reviews criticizing this set for not having some of Jackie's more popular films, but I'm just glad that this doesn't share any duplicates with volumes 1 and 2 of the Shout Select sets.

Christmas gift for family member.

Excellent service

The only movie worth watching is fearless Hyena. Fearless hyena 2 might not be the best but it's still better than half a loaf of kung fu and the lucky stars movie -despite fearless 2 is being a rehash of the first one with stock footage.

Great movies, sadly they all seem to skip, wonder whether they were repackaged

This package tries to bill itself as a document of the rise of Jackie Chan, but really, it's a handful of films that Fortune Star licensed to Criterion that feature Jackie. And that would be fine if it was a strong collection, but at the end of the day, there's really only 2 or 3 films worth watching. Half a Loaf of Kung Fu is a fun little jaunt. Structurally speaking, it's one of those films where a story kind of emerges and you just accept that the plot points kind of happen. But there's enough humor and fun fight scenes that it is worth it. On the other hand, Spiritual Kung Fu is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The movie has bizarre jokes, a bizarre setup, twists that make no sense, and no plot ever really comes together. It's just... bad. Fearless Hyena feels like the first glimpse of the Jackie Chan we would know and love. A goofy character who is a bit of a troublemaker, but when the time comes, he knuckles down and stands up for righteousness. Classic Jackie all around. Fearless Hyena II deals with Jackie leaving the film partway through by replacing him with a stunt double, and using footage of Jackie from Fearless Hyena and Spiritual Kung Fu. The final fight in the field is hilarious as all of the footage of Jackie is clearly just taken from some other shot and doesn't match at all. It's like a more tasteful Game of Death, but without at least the promise of classic fight footage to make it worth watching. I wasn't as impressed with the Young Master as others. It just felt boring to me, but hey, maybe I need to give it another try. Finally, we have My Lucky Stars, the second of the Lucky Stars trilogy. Shout has the other first and third in their second Jackie Chan set, but this one makes the most sense for a Jackie Chan collection since it features him the most. But it's also a Lucky Stars film. Which means you got a lot of random scenes of comedy tied together with the thinnest of plots, and occasional kung fu scenes come together. At least this one has some extensive Jackie Chan fight sequences in an amusement park, and it's quite fun to watch. The problem is that the rest of the comedy is mostly pretty weak, and the kind of sexist humor that aged like spilt milk. Overall, there's just not enough here to justify the cost. There's not a lot of great extras, there's not a lot that's really interesting or fun. It's just a handful of Jackie Chan films, and a lot of them feel like lesser entries.

La colección es un compendio muy random de películas, desde los primeros papeles comédicos de Jackie Chan hasta la segunda parte de una trilogía que no está incluida en el set Realmente solo Fearless Hyena y The Young Master valen la pena, hay pocos extras que llamen la atención Para compendio de Jackie Chan recomiendo mejor el volumen 2 de Shout Factory, tiene mejores películas