Review of Big Boss, The (Platinum Edition)

Introduction

Although he had played a part in many films in his youth, "The Big Boss" was Bruce Lee`s first major film role, and one that catapulted him to stardom upon its release in 1971. The story - which rumour has it, was inspired by the plight of Cheng Chiu-on, who battled against Thailand`s tyrants - was originally conceived as a vehicle for James Tien, an established Hong Kong film star, but Lee`s incredible charisma soon made the film his own.

"The Big Boss" (known in America as "Fists of Fury", not to be confused with "Fist of Fury"!) is the story of Cheng Chao-An (Lee), who travels to Thailand to work with his cousins. They work in an ice-house, which unbeknown to them, is part of a drug-smuggling ring, run by the title character. When two of his cousins are murdered, and others are missing, Cheng suspects the involvement of the "Big Boss" and seeks to find the truth.

Video

Video is presented in 2.35:1, anamorphic widescreen PAL, and is superb.

This transfer is taken from the high-definition Fortune Star master, and it really shows. Finding any print damage whatsoever is a difficult task, unless you want to count the few seconds of stock footage that were used by director Lo Wei. The transfer is also rather sharp, a pleasing fact since it was likely transferred from an NTSC original.

The image presented here is even an improvement on the original single-disc HKL release, which suffered from contrast issues, and poor efforts at retrospective colour correction.

This is a staggeringly-good transfer considering the age and heritage of this film.

Audio

Audio is presented in three different formats: Cantonese mono, Cantonese stereo, and English stereo. All three are Dolby Digital encoded. There is little to choose between the Cantonese or English, as both are dubbed in place of the original Mandarin.

Much to the chagrin of this film`s enthusiasts, the original Mandarin audio has not been included here. This is most likely because it would have to be taken from the near-mythical original cut of the film, which contains scenes that were removed almost immediately after its original release, never to make it to the international market.

The Cantonese track (the stereo of which is simply a cleaned-up version of the mono) was produced in the early 1980s using the score of Wang Fu-Ling (according to the commentary, at least, as this is disputed). Unfortunately, whilst the stereo track is much cleaner-sounding, it also lacks the atmosphere of the mono. In light of this, my preference was with the mono. (Note to Pink Floyd/King Crimson fans - see if you can spot familiar music in this score!)

The English stereo track was created in 1973, featuring the score of German composer Peter Thomas. The score is markedly different from the Cantonese track, an interesting difference in itself. As with many films of the time, the English dubbing can be distracting and prone to colloquialisms, but is not particularly off-putting.

Subtitles are available in English (although they do not match the English language track) as well as Dutch.

Features

The extras on this release of "The Big Boss" are superb, beginning on Disc One with the audio commentary. Andrew Staton and Will Johnston are surprisingly our hosts for this - the original Bey Logan commentary having been dropped for this release. Despite being in Logan`s oratory shadow, Staton and Johnston provide an excellent commentary, filled with facts about deleted scenes, Lee`s known thoughts on the film etc, as well as providing a narrative on exactly what we are seeing on screen.

On to Disc Two, we begin with a promotional gallery, featuring seven different trailers for the film. The most interesting, by far, is the "Rare uncut 8mm UK trailer", which features some footage from the original Mandarin print that did not make it to the international cut. There is also a nice music video, showing us some of the lobby cards originally used to promote the film.

From there, we have interviews with Paul Heller, Fred Weintraub, and Tom Kuhn, all of whom worked with Lee. Their interviews are respectively titled "Breaking The West", "A Rising Star" and "What Might Have Been", which give you an idea as to their subject matter. All three are very much worth listening to.

There is also an interesting fifteen-minute photographic retrospective on "The Big Boss", complete with voiceover, as well as a fascinating look at which scenes were deleted from the original Mandarin print. There is also a twenty-minute Bruce Lee biography, using some wonderful photos combined with a story-telling voiceover.

Conclusion

For its genre, "The Big Boss" is a very good film, with a good revenge plot and some excellent martial arts fight scenes. The acting is also of a very high standard, at least from Lee, James Tien, and Yin-Chieh Han as the title character.

The DVD is presented fabulously, and will never look better on conventional DVD. The extras are as complete as virtually anyone could wish, given that the original Mandarin print appears to be lost.

Overall, this is a must for any fans of this film, as is a worthy upgrade of the original HKL single-disc edition. Those with a beginner`s interest in Bruce Lee should take a peek too.