Excalibur - Arrow 4K

Arrow Video is releasing Excalibur on 4K Blu-ray on February 24, and I got a chance to check out the film and its special features. Before I get into the specifics of this release, I wanted to write a bit about my personal experience with the film over the years.

Excalibur is one of those films that always seemed like one I should love: it has an insane cast, fantasy, nudity, gore, etc. I watched it a couple times over the years, and thought it was just okay. But it was one of those movies that stuck in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time when it would break through, and I would realize how awesome it was. Maybe it’s the 4K mania I’m currently in the middle of, but Excalibur finally clicked. 

Part of my original issue with the film is the source material. While I can acknowledge that Arthurian legend is the source of a lot of modern stuff I like (Stephen King’s Dark Tower series comes to mind), I’ve never been into it. I partly blame the 2004 Clive Owen film. That seemed like it was going to be so great, and it left me so underwhelmed that I haven’t cared about any adaptations since. Then The Green Knight came long. 

The Green Knight was not a direct King Arthur adaptation, as it dealt with the specific Sir Gawain story and Arthur was a side character. I loved the unique and trippy style of it, and it made me realize I could enjoy Arthur stuff in small doses. In that regard, Excalibur still shouldn’t work for me as it’s an attempt to tell the entire Arthurian legend from birth to death. But it’s because of that scope that it works. 

The main thing that puts me off King Arthur adaptations in the sword-in-the-stone stuff. It’s like a superhero origin story I’ve seen too many times. I need to see an hour plus buildup of Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone like I need to see Thomas and Martha Wayne gunned down again. But Excalibur doesn’t have time to dwell on that. We go from Arthur’s conception to him pulling the sword from the stone in less than half an hour. And why shouldn’t we? Only a very young child doesn’t know about that part of the story, and this movie is definitely not for children (unless you’re John Boorman’s children, but more on that later).

John Boorman deciding to tackle the entire legend meant he had to segment the film in such a way that it feels fresh throughout. This would be a tiresome movie if it was just dudes in shiny, clanking armor hacking away at each other for two hours. But we get the Merlin stuff, Morgana and Mordred, the Holy Grail, Lancelot and Guinevere's betrayal and redemption, etc. 

The speed of the story is best showcased when Arthur first meets Lancelot. By giving into his rage, Arthur breaks Excalibur on Lancelot’s armor. Normally, this would be a long chunk of the movie as Arthur comes to grips with what he has done and slowly redeems himself and earns Excalibur back. But in Boorman’s telling, he immediately acknowledges his mistake, and for this he gets a new sword within seconds of breaking the original. This fast-forward method can be off-putting and feel too simple in the character-development department, but I found it refreshing.

Because of this, Excalibur feels like many different films. There are the traditional fantasy elements, but also a bit of horror, relationship drama, religion, war, etc. If a segment doesn’t work for you, the next one might. And no matter the storyline, it’s hard to deny the aesthetic beauty of the film. From the sets to the famous armor to the excellent use of Wagner, Excalibur has always been visually and audibly stunning. I’m just glad that the rest of the film finally came together for me.

The Transfer and Special Features

I’m beginning to sound like a broken record in this segment, but this looks great. As I admitted earlier, I’m currently in a fog of 4K euphoria, so bear with me. But this feels like the type of movie meant for 4K. The softness of the picture has always been intentional, but it seemed too soft in the past DVD and Blu-ray releases. Here, it’s reined in, providing a nice balance of sharpness and softness to create an otherworldly look that is perfect for the film. The shiniest film about the Dark Ages has never looked better.

The special features are truly exhausting, and I mean that literally. After three days of sporadically watching all the new and archival features, I had had my fill. You can check the product page for a list of them all and take a look at the collectible material included. I just want to highlight some of my favorite elements. 

My favorite has to be the archival and rarely seen doc by Neil Jordan. It’s not Hearts of Darkness or Burden of Dreams or anything, but it’s in the same ballpark. Docs like this are so fascinating because a thousand new interviews with actors and filmmakers can’t recreate what an on-set documentary can. 

As for the new interviews, all of them are interesting, and it was great that they got Boorman himself for a new one, and his son, Charley (young Mordred, but not his voice), joins in halfway through. 

I enjoyed the lengthy talk with second-unit director Peter MacDonald quite a bit, as well. Don’t worry about the opening warning about video and audio quality; there are some hiccups, but overall it looks and sounds fine. It really gets into MacDonald’s entire career, and he’s refreshingly candid. My only quibble is that he didn’t discuss one of his directorial efforts, Legionnaire. I imagine he has plenty of great Jean-Claude Van Damme stories.

Overall, it’s very clear that everyone involved loved this film and wanted to make the definitive physical media release for it, and I believe they have. I can’t imagine any fan of this film being left wanting more from this release.

Random Thoughts

I didn’t take lengthy notes during my viewing, but there are a couple things I wanted to add.

First, I was very surprised when I learned that Igrayne was played by Boorman’s daughter, Katrine. Directing your daughter as she dances and sends Gabriel Byrne into an erotic frenzy is one thing, but to thing include a sex scene with nudity is fucking wild. In one of the archival doc, the interviewer asks about it, and she says she was fine because it was just acting.

Katrine isn’t the only Boorman child involved. Another daughter was the hand holding the sword in the lake. And Charley Boorman was young Mordred, but another Boorman daughter provided the voice because Charley was unavailable for ADR. In the new interview with Charley, he reveals that he didn’t know his dad replaced his voice until he saw the film at its premiere at Cannes. What a life.

She Shoots Straight - 88 Films

Thanks to 88 Films, my Hong Kong cinema education continues with She Shoots Straight (or Lethal Lady, according to the English credits special feature), available on 2/24/26. This female-driven action film from director Cory Yuen surprised me throughout, not just with great stunt work and action, but also with an insanely tragic dinner scene in the middle of the film. Films like this always deal with loss since a lot of them are revenge-driven, but in On the Run (another recent Hong Kong release from 88 Films) death is dealt with an acceptable coldness. There’s an attempt at that here, but the film instead dwells on the loss for a moment before jumping back into the action.

I imagine most people interested in this film are simply wanting a blu-ray version of a film they’ve enjoyed for years, but if not, here’s your SPOILER warning. Although the plot summary on the back of the case spoiled it for me, so I guess it’s fair game. I was just surprised by how long it takes for the major death to occur in the film. 

She Shoots Straight begins as an in-law drama as Inspector Mina marries Inspector Huang Tsung-Pao, and it’s clear that his sisters, who are also all cops, do not approve. This, of course, causes plenty of awkwardness at work, with the sisters primarily concerned that Mina is overshadowing Tsung-Pao. After his death at the hands of a kill-crazy Vietnamese gang, Mina and her in-laws put aside their differences for revenge. Having a common enemy is always a good way to bring people together.

Normally, a film about getting along with in-laws would bore me, but adding martial arts and gunplay made things much more interesting. The gun violence was okay, though a little light in the squib department for my taste, but the stuntwork is amazing. Most scenes are downright acrobatic. The action alone makes this worth watching.

The family drama provided an emotional depth that I usually find lacking in films like this, however. The standout scene is when Mina and Chai-Ling have to attend Mother Huang’s birthday dinner, and they decide to pretend Tsang-Pao is still alive until after the dinner. This is fucking insane, of course, but it makes for a dramatically-rich sequence in which the sister and sister-in-law struggle to maintain their composure, creating a fever pitch that ends in agony when the death is revealed. 

The fact that the film is female-driven is most likely why this scene is included whereas a male-driven revenge film typically doesn’t dwell too long in misery. But the female aspect is treated more matter-of-fact than a novelty. There is no question of any of the sisters’ ability as police officers, and they seem more capable than Tsung-Pao. Instead, the characters have made peace with the male-driven world they live in. Tsung-Pao is kind of worshipped by all of them since he’s the only son, and the need for Mina to become pregnant is given importance because of this, as well. 

Mina is only pregnant because Tsung-Pao poked holes in a condom, which is fucking wild. But I guess it’s a good thing he did? In any other movie, that act would be seen as a betrayal, not as a “good thing he did that” moment. Although, I don’t know how Mina could still be pregnant by the end of the film. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to ride roller coasters or jump on trampolines; they don’t even warn women about not chasing after gang members on a motorbike or getting into extended martial arts battles because it’s a given that you shouldn’t do those things while pregnant. But I’ll suspend my disbelief and assume the baby is just fine after all that.

Despite that narrative distraction, She Shoots Straight worked for me on every level. I look forward to continuing my journey though Hong Kong cinema, especially if there are more films like this out there.

Special Features and Transfer

As always, I’m no expert on the transfer stuff, but it looked great to me, and I thought the infrared sequences looked especially good. I feel safe claiming this is the best this film has ever looked.

There’s an interview with the screenwriter that provides some insight into Hong Kong cinema in general at the time. 

And this might seem trivial, but 88 Films make the best slipcovers. In the past, I’ve just thrown most slipcovers away. But as I’ve gotten more into collecting, they’ve been a nice addition to a release, but they are usually flimsy and pointless. Their slipcovers are much more sturdy than most, and I would be disappointed without them.

There’s also an audio commentary with Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng.

It has both the original Cantonese and English dub (I only watched the Cantonese version). 

And there’s reversible cover art.

Double Impact - MVD Rewind 4K

I wrote about MVD Rewind’s excellent blu-ray release of Double Impact a few years ago, but when they announced a 4K release (out this week), I knew I had to revisit it. And what better movie to double dip than Double Impact. 

Before I get into the specifics of the release, I wanted to get into the movie itself. This is one of my favorite Van Damme movies of all time; it’s up there with Bloodsport and Kickboxer, and that’s the highest praise I can give a JCVD movie. I feel like it gets forgotten as “one of the twin movies” by fans, since he went back to the well two more times (Maximum Risk and Replicant), but this was the first and best effort (and Maximum Risk shouldn’t count as much since his twin dies at the beginning, and Replicant is technically a clone movie).

The twin aspect is a big selling point for me. I like good guy Van Damme well enough, but anti-hero or, better yet, evil Van Damme is even better. The darker twin in this, Alex, is not evil, but he’s pissed off most of the time, and he has some problematic tendencies like drinking, jealousy, and violence. It truly shows Van Damme’s range, and he would go on to give some of his best performances when allowed to be the bad guy (The Expendables 2, Replicant). Double Impact allowed him to have a bit of fun with his image. 

Double Impact was also a chance to move beyond straight martial arts movies. Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and Lionheart are all great, but how many times can Van Damme simply fight in a tournament (a few more, it turns out, but oh well)? This was meant to be a blending of the martial arts genre and a straight action movie with plenty of gunplay and explosions. The poster promises as much: “One packs a punch. One packs a piece.” It turns out both twins pack both punches and pieces, but the intent was there. And the hand to hand fights are still the highlight of the film, but the bigger action set pieces do not disappoint.  

Revisiting this new 4K release just confirmed how I’ve always felt about this movie: two Van Dammes are better than one.

The 4K Release

First off, MVD Rewind knocked it out of the park years ago with the blu-ray release for this film. It looked great, and the special features were abundant, with the stand out being the lengthy two-part documentary. All of that is still included here, along with the 4K disc. 

This isn’t one of those night and day or at long last releases, but this is obviously the best this film has ever, and most likely will ever look. Any serious Van Damme fan should consider the upgrade. And if you don’t already have the blu-ray release, then going with the 4K is a no-brainer.

MVD Rewind knows their audience. Beyond the specific special features for the film, they cater to the nostalgia of the time. The disc begins with a faux-VHS intro, and the slipcover has an old poster look. (For those who prefer a crisp image, both sides of the reversible case cover are crisp.) It seems almost silly to have these VHS affectations for such a technologically advanced transfer of the film, but I like getting the best of both worlds. I’m not one of those people that embrace VHS (though I am more into vinyl than digital music, so what the fuck do I know?), but I do appreciate little nods to the world I grew up in while I enjoy the classics of my childhood in full modern glory.

Random Thoughts

Chad's clothes are hilarious. I know they were going for an opposite situation, but god damn!

Only Van Damme would take someone out “stealthily” by roundhouse kicking them in the face.

This was Van Damme’s attempt to move beyond just martial arts and into more gunplay, and it shows when he does the rolling-on-the-ground-while-shooting thing. Always happy to see that pulled off unironically.

You know you're evil if you party at a place called the Klimax Klub.

Van Damme even fucks in slow motion.

“Brother? Why, because he looks like me? I’m going to change that because I’m going to fuck up his face.”

That boat at the end had video game amounts of exploding barrels on it.

And who the fuck was the electrician on that boat? Just backing into a fuse box electrocutes you? Hong Kong was wild back then.

Say what you will about Griffith and Zhang, but at least they’re the type of villains to get their hands dirty and not leave things up to their minions. They want to be near the action. I mean, it’s stupid as shit on their part, but still, good for them.

Container ships are always a good choice for the ending of an action movie.

“What about my father?” What about your mother, too, Alex? You know, she did take a fucking shotgun blast to the face in front of her infant children.

As Zhang falls to his death, you see a regular worker watching. Dude must’ve been showing up early for day shift and walked into chaos. Imagine just showing up to work to run a crane or whatever and some random twins just fucked up your entire workplace seeking justice for royalties on a tunnel. Do you get royalties for tunnels? What were they entitled to, again?

Hellfire - Old Man Rambo

Hellfire, the latest from DTV stalwart Isaac Florentine (most famous for Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing), is sure to please fans of the genre. It’s basically old man Rambo with a western twist. The cast was the selling point for me with Stephen Lang as the nameless savior, Dolph Lundgren as the corrupt sheriff, and Harvey Keitel as the drug lord holding the entire town hostage. The film handles all the basics just fine, and there are a few deviations and quirks that make it stand out.

For the basics, the plot sets up the perfect simple story of good guys and bad guys. It’s 1988, and the small town of Rondo, Texas, is being terrorized by a drug lord and his son. He uses the local brewery as a front for drug smuggling and forces the entire town to help. If they fight back or try to inform on Keitel, they get hurt or even killed. Bar owners Lena (Scottie Thompson) and her father, Owen (Chris Mullinax), are especially threatened since Keitel’s son has taken a liking to Lena, a widow who lost her husband in Vietnam. The film’s cold open ends with her praying to him, asking for an angel to be sent.

That angel is Stephen Lang, a Vietnam vet drifter just making his way through town. As you can imagine, he gets told immediately and constantly that outsiders aren’t welcome, and he needs to move along. If you can believe it, he doesn’t move along, and violence ensues.

From a pure action/revenge standpoint, Hellfire is fine. It moves along quickly, and some of the fights are decent (though the sound effects, especially for punches, are distractingly bad). There’s a lot of basic bad guy shit going in this, but things ramp up to unexpected brutality in the final third. It makes the film stand out, for sure. 

The cast is still the strong point here, and Lang does a fine job as an elder Rambo. He isn’t too severe about it, but he still effortlessly conveys that he can beat anyone’s ass at any given moment. And it was nice to see him in a non-blue role. Keitel can play a dirtbag in his sleep, so he’s fine. And a toned down villain is kind of nice since it wouldn’t make sense for a mad dog-type to get away with the shit he’s doing. But Dolph Lundgren stands out for me. It’s clear that they only had him for a few days as his role is woefully small. His conflicted sheriff was the most interesting character, and Lundgren pulled it off when I was initially worried about a Swede playing a Texas sheriff. I think the film would have been much more compelling had they saved some money by going with a smaller name for Keitel’s part, allowing Lundgren to work longer and beef up the role.

Most people aren’t coming to Hellfire for conflicted villains, though. If you just want to see an old man take on drug smugglers, then you’ll have a good time with this. This isn’t going to blow anyone away, but there’s something to be said for films like this. It reminded me of the kind of movies Burt Reynolds used to make, like Malone. Nothing groundbreaking, just some decent action with a compelling plot. Hellfire has that and a little more.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

My biggest issue with stories like this usually boils down to “Why do the bad guys keep sparing the people against them?” Hellfire doesn’t have that problem. Once it’s clear Lang is going to be a problem, they try to kill him. When the town rallies around him, every one of them is slaughtered, and Lang only gets away because they thought he was already dead, and he sneaks out while they’re getting rid of the bodies. This movie gets dark fast at the end. It truly shocked me when the first townsperson was shot.

A real issue I had was with the time setting of the film. Lang just looks too old to be a Vietnam vet in 1988. I get that they wanted to avoid cell phones and whatnot, and they did a decent job of keeping things period accurate (with the exception of Lundgren’s cop car), but it took me out of the movie trying to do the age math. If we’re being generous and calling Lang 60 (he’s 73, but was probably 70 when it filmed [more on that later]), then that puts him at least in his mid-40s during Vietnam. It’s not unheard of, but it’s rare enough that I wish they just had a line of dialogue to explain it. 

The film also presents the possibility that Lang truly is an angel or something because he literally disappears as he walks away during the credits. If that’s the case, then he’s a shitty angel as he got the whole town killed. Ignoring the disappearing aspect, it is revealed that he was under Keitel’s command in Vietnam, and Keitel’s orders led to the death of a lot of soldiers. So was Lang always just on a revenge mission, and the angel shit was just a coincidence. If so, once again, it’s pretty shitty that he got the whole town killed (except for Lena) for a personal vendetta. Just show up and shoot Keitel, dude. No need to Count of Monte Cristo this shit and fuck up everybody.

Lundgren’s character surprised me when he basically decided enough was enough. Normally, his character would’ve been treated as a mini-villain to be taken care of before the main fight. But he gains a conscience, which immediately earns him some bullets to the chest. It’s realistic, but it left me wanting more from him. 

For whatever reason, this has been shelved for over three years. I don’t understand why, though the eight or nine production company logo sequences at the beginning certainly made sense once I found that out. I figured the three big names alone could have sold this sight unseen. But I suppose names don’t mean as much these days.

The Rules of Attraction - James Van Der Beek Tribute

The Rules of Attraction was a very important movie for me back in 2002. To date, it is the only movie I have ever watched in a theater on back to back nights. This nihilistic look at young relationships at a fictional college spoke to me. (I was an eighteen-year-old college freshman at the time.) As someone who was perpetually miserable when it came to romance until I met my wife years later, I identified with Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek) and (idiotically) fancied myself the dark, “emotional vampire” that he claimed to be. Of course, the big difference was that both the character and actor had a natural charm that I lack, and the character was far more fucked up than I ever dreamed of being. This guy was a coke dealer with a serial killer older brother; I hadn’t even developed a taste for beer at that time and was still almost exclusively drinking screwdrivers made with Kamchatka vodka and Sunny Delight (not that I want to, but to this day I can’t drink Sunny D without getting grossed out, but perhaps that’s for the best). But I realized all this years later. At the time, this film felt like it was made just for me.

If this ever gets a good 4K release, I’ll devote way too many words about every aspect of the film: the music that I still love, the camera work, the cast of TV stars trying to break bad, the unreleased Glitterati film that would have gotten Kip Pardue canceled back in 2002 instead of 2019 (which also would have been for the best), the Casper Van Dien as Patrick Bateman deleted scene, Roger Avary’s unfortunate career since this film, etc. I still love it all, even though I don’t identify with it any longer. Instead, it’s a nostalgic snapshot of the time, and a reminder of who I thought I was back then. But that’s for another time, hopefully. Instead, I wanted to focus on James Van Der Beek in light of his recent death, as this is by far my favorite performance of his career. 

I never watched a single episode of Dawson’s Creek, and I never saw his later TV work, but James Van Der Beek made a huge impact on me with just two film roles: Mox in Varsity Blues and Sean Bateman in The Rules of Attraction. I rewatched Varsity Blues right after I heard the news of his passing, but, with all due respect, I like that performance ironically (you know, the “I don’t want YOUR life!” of it all). But with Sean Bateman, Van Der Beek was perfectly cast.

You might not immediately think of James Van Der Beek when you hear “emotional vampire,” but thankfully Roger Avary did (after initially wanting James Franco for the role and then deeming him wrong for the part). Van Der Beek has plenty of fun with the role, seeming to enjoy getting to play a dick with a couple catchphrases (“Rock ‘n’ Roll” and “Typical”).

He’s a scumbag drug dealer, but since it’s Van Der Beek, he’s still likeable. There aren’t many actors who could make a suicide attempt funny (especially when said scene takes place just minutes after a serious and disturbing suicide scene), but Van Der Beek could. It’s the way he portrays frustration and anger. He spends a lot of the film pissed off, and it’s funny because of his facial performance. 

Van Der Beek, much like Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, makes an amazing disgusted face. You can tell that most moments and people sicken him, and it adds to the dark comedy of the film. He has no right to be mad at anyone but himself, but it doesn’t matter because you can tell that he believes he is in the right. This is something Van Der Beek confirms in an interview from a few years ago as he claims he sees Sean more tragic than irredeemable. 

Because of this, it’s easy to still be on his side even though he punches Jessica Biel in the face and says shit like, “Since when does fucking someone else mean that I’m not faithful to you?” It takes a truly charismatic actor to portray that kind of dick and remain at least partially likeable. 

It’s sad that James Van Der Beek died so young, and it’s unfortunate that he wasn’t given more dark roles like Sean Bateman after The Rules of Attraction. But at least Roger Avary saw the potential, and we were blessed with this one. I might not identify with this character any more (thank Christ), but I can still enjoy him, and that’s thanks to Van Der Beek’s great performance.