Shaw Brothers Classics: Volume Five

For those of you that want to find better known Shaw Brothers films, there are plenty of boxed sets out there. This one has harder to find films, and I am quite happy about that! They are quite enjoyable, with The Fastest Sword being my personal favorite.Looking forward to Volume 6, which will have more films that many of us haven't seen five times already.On a side note, I had no problems getting the cases out of the box.

I agree that they're wasting time and money by releasing films that most people aren't interested in watching.Films from the late 70's to early to mid 80's were the best Shaw Brothers ever made in my opinion.Hopefully some other company will be smart enough to create a boxset with the best of the best.I don't understand why they want to milk some people out of their money by adding one of the good ones once in a while when they'll sell a lot more sets if they put the best films on one set.I would definitely be a customer of those!

Shaw Brothers Classics Vol. 5 has two of my all time fave ShawBrothers movies, The Fastest Sword and A Taste of Cold Steel.The Fastest Sword is the sort of sword fighting film that will appealmost to those well versed in the genre, as it subverts expectationsby having a lead who tries not to fight because he's too good and istired of killing. It is more a character study than an action film,but is well worth your time as it rewards familiarity with genretropes.A Taste of Cold Steel is extremely tense, with unusually nasty badguys, and a lot of handheld shooting -- something that was not commonat the time. The film is a sequel to Rape of the Sword (also in thisset), but you'll miss little if you hadn't seen that one. A Taste ofCold Steel features three intense swordswomen, which is interestingbecause the very same year, Shaw Brothers released a film namedSwordswomen Three that has women fighting in a much less excitingmanner.The star of 1970's A Taste of Cold Steel, Chang Yi, is more commonlylauded for his role in the same director's film of 1968, The Bellsof Death (a film that is in Shaw Brothers Classics Vol. 1),which many consider to be a classic, but the 1970 film is much moreviolent and has higher stakes. It's one that will stay with you longafter you've seen it.The Jade Faced Assassin, which is also in this set, is a way aboveaverage, exciting film with a good plot, likeable characters andinteresting twists. It helps that it stars Lily Ho in one of her bestswordfighting roles. She doesn't radiate the intensity of her titlecharacter in Lady with a Sword (released the same year), but then, inthat film, she is on the level of Cheng Pei-Pei and Angela Mao when itcomes to looks that kill.I have over 400 of the Shaw Brothers films Celestial released variouslyin China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand between 2003 and 2007 on VCDand DVD, and I have a ZiiEagle, so I am quite familiar with the classicsof the genre as well as gems like Dragon Swamp (in Shaw BrothersClassics Vol. 1 ), Duel for Gold, The Long Chase, and Black Tavernthat only came to light with Celestial's remasterings.

I've bought all of the previous volumes of Shout's Shaw Brothers Classics series and this is the first time that I have had this issue: like many other people who have left reviews have noted, the box is way too small for the movie cases. I literally had to wedge two screwdrivers into the top and bottom of the box, gently pry the ends of the box apart to give the jewel cases room to move, and then shake it for half a minute to get these movies to slide out of the case. The movies are great, but the packaging is unacceptable for a collection at this price point.

I would highly recommend not ordering this set until Shout has issued some sort of replacement fix. Just received my set and the box the cases is in are entirely too small (much like with their Golden Harvest Vol. 2 collection) and impossible to get out of the box. Really terrible quality control and because of it we are unable to watch the movies since we can't actually get them out.

What a waste of titles to release of the classic Shaw Collection!! These are all mediocre. Won't be getting this