Cynical Cinema

Alliance Films came out with the Blade trilogy on August 26th.  It’s a two-disc edition, with two of the movies on one disc and one on the other.  There are no terrific special features, it’s just a plain, bargain set of the three Blade films in a package that is conveniently the same size as every other DVD in your collection.  And if you don’t have these films already, this is one you should add to your collection.  Here’s why:

Blade (8/10):  The original Blade movie was terrific, a real breath of fresh air in the world of comic book movies.  Wesley Snipes was big, muscular, bad-ass and mean.  Kris Kristofferson was amazing as Whistler, Blade’s mentor.  And Stephen Dorff was terrific as the bad guy, a vampire who wanted to trigger the Blood Tide - an event that would, I think, turn everyone in the world into a vampire.  Or something.  The point is, this movie was awesome.  Sword fighting, guns, vampires disintegrating and great special effects, and Snipes as the most ass-kicking, toughest, meanest comic book character of all time.  There was even some good comedy - mostly provided by Donal Logue, who kept getting his arm chopped off.  And for the really cult comic book fans - some appearances by Traci Lords and Udo Kier.  Terrific!

Blade II (10/10):  By far, the best of the series.  Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), this film is as pulse-pounding and visually impressive as any comic book adaptation could aspire to be.  (Well, until 2008 when The Dark Knight came along.)  Snipes is now even more bad-ass, and he is given some awfully cool villains with which to work.  Luke Goss appears as Nomak, a new breed of vampire that preys on both humans AND vampires.  So now the vampires want a truce with Blade, because they are after the same enemy for once.  And Blade hooks up with the Blood Pack, a cheesily-named group of vampire bad-asses who have been training their whole lives to kill Blade, but now must work with him.  Ron Perlman, as the tough-guy leader of the Blood Pack, is amazing.  And even the secondary characters are cool actors - Norman Reedus as a stoner hippie helping Blade and Whistler, and Asian action movie legend Donnie Yen even shows up as a kung-fu fighting member of the Blood Pack.  And the vampire princess, played by Leonor Varela, is one of the hottest women ever in a movie.  Visually stunning, never-ending action, and some seriously bad-ass characters and actors made this movie not just a guilty pleasure, but the best in the trilogy.

Blade: Trinity (3/10):  One of the biggest letdowns I have ever had at a movie.  Del Toro is gone as director, replaced by David S. Goyer.  Kristofferson is gone early in the film, replaced by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel.  And I really like Ryan Reynolds - he even has some solid comedic scenes in this film.  But an action star?  Jessica Biel an action star?  I know she really wants to be, and she keeps trying and trying to be one, but she isn’t an action star.  Or a great actress.  She’s hot.  That’s about it.  I mean, stick to movies where you are hot.  Those, you can do.  Blade II had Ron Perlman and Donnie Yen.  Blade Trinity can only suffer by comparison.  But it isn’t just Reynolds and Biel that are the problem.  Snipes is the only genuine action star in the movie, but he is given just about nothing to do.  The script is dreadful, the concept just doesn’t work, and there are some really long, extended scenes that make absolutely no sense.  The other Blade films were genuinely dark, tough, gritty entries that could, on some level, be considered horror films.  This one is an absolute joke.  Not only that, Blade is now the co-star.  In his own film.  Because Biel and Reynolds are the real action stars.  Come on!  This one is total garbage.

 The two-disc Blade trilogy came out August 26th from Alliance Films.  Pick it up!  And ignore that third one.

Jet Li is still an awfully cool actor, and great martial artist. But he’s a little past his prime when it comes to the high-flying stunts and crazy kung-fu action. That prime came between 1991 (Once Upon A Time In China) and 2002 (Hero). And one of the best films in that span was Tai Chi Master, a 1993 movie directed by Yuen Woo Ping. Ping is one of the greatest kung-fu action directors of all time. He’s the visionary behind such fantastic films as Iron Monkey, Drunken Master, and Wing Chun. He’s also the fight choreographer on Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, and Kung Fu Hustle. And one of his best (and Li’s best) is Tai Chi Master, which comes out on DVD today, August 5th, from Alliance Films.

In addition to Li, Tai Chi Master stars Michelle Yeoh, who became a massive international kung-fu superstar with Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in 2000. As kids, Junbao (Li) and Tienbo (played by Chin Siu-Ho) are inseperable. Although Tienbo is clearly a little bit of a bully, and takes advanatage of Junbao all the time, Junbao is too naive and good-natured to let it bother him. But it becomes clear early on that while Junbao will always be pure of heart and mind, Tienbo is headed for bad news. The two are in training at a Shaolin temple, and after a violent incident perpetrated by Tienbo, the two are booted out. Lost and adrift in the world, after spending their entire lives in the Shaolin temple, they are kung-fu masters with no idea how to live a regular life. Jet Li is playing the role he was born to play, the wide-eyed, innocent optimist who ends up having his world crash down around him and turns into the bad-ass who fights for truth and justice.

The two best friends soon split - Tienbo to join the government’s soldiers, with a plan to move up the ranks in order to make money. We realize right away, although Junbao of course doesn’t, that this path will make him into a really bad guy. Junbao, on the other hand, ends up becoming a member of a resistance force that fights against government corruption. Of course, we know the stage is set for an ultimate showdown between the two former best friends, but it’s the journey that is magnificent. As in every kung-fu film, there is some comedy, and although it is rare in Tai-Chi Master, the comedic scenes are very, very funny. Michelle Yeoh shows up as a kung-fu master whose husband has left her for an important official in the government, and she is drinking her sorrows away. Which leads to the inevitable drunken restaurant kung-fu showdown that is so standard in kung-fu films of the 80s and 90s. But rarely has it been done this well.

And it’s the kung-fu that makes this movie so great. There are some of the greatest, most adrenaline-pumping action fight scenes in oriental cinema in Tai Chi Master. The story isn’t classic, but it’s very good. The acting isn’t classic, but it’s very good. The comedy isn’t classic, but it’s very good. But the kung-fu IS classic. And that means that Tai Chi Master verges on being classic itself. It isn’t quite classic, but it’s very, very good.

Bruce Lee is one of the most revered actors in history, mostly because of a continuing cult following that keeps his name alive. And certainly he was a major movie star while he was here on this Earth. But in point of fact, he really only did one movie that was a classic. Enter the Dragon is justifiably called the greatest martial arts movie of all time. But the rest of his career was full of misfires and fairly bad films like Fists of Fury, and The Chinese Connection. Lee’s charisma and toughness and charm came through loud and clear in these films, but that was about all they had going for them. And there was no greater affront to the movie-going public than Game of Death. This is a film which Lee had begun when he suddenly died in 1973.

The idea was to make this movie a showcase for the martial art that Lee had just invented, Jeet Kune Do. And it remains kinda cool, if only because it features an amazing fight scene between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But there were only twelve minutes of Game of Death filmed when Lee died, and they went ahead and made the movie anyway. So it was a bunch of out-takes from Lee’s career, scenes from other movies spliced in, and then culminated with the big fight with Abdul-Jabbar, among others. Which made for an absolutely dreadful jumble of a mishmash of a collage of a movie. With a pretty cool fight to end it all.

Finishing the Game is a DVD that imagines a search for Bruce Lee’s replacement in 1973. It’s a mockumentary about a bunch of wannabe martial arts actors who are trying out for the part replacing the action hero in the film. There are aspiring actors, doctors, porn stars, and children’s mascots who try out for the role. There is also an action star named “Breeze Loo”, who is clearly the equivalent of “Bruce Li” in the 70s - a guy who basically mimicked Bruce Lee in every single way, and changed his name to a similar one in order to capitalize on Lee’s popularity. There are some funny moments, like the one involving the actor from a fictional 70s show called “Golden Gate Guns” who is now a vacuum salesman. But it goes on way too long.

The premise is funny, the set up is good, but then this movie does absolutely nothing for an hour. It just follows a bunch of characters around, and while there are some slightly humorous moments, the characters are not interesting enough to make this movie go. It does involve Ron Jeremy, and it does a decent job of sending up the B-movie film industry, it just doesn’t make for a good movie. But it’s still certainly better than Game of Death.

Invisible Target, out Tuesday from Alliance Films and Dragon Dynasty, fits almost all of the conventions of modern Hong Kong action cinema.  It opens with a gigantic explosion.  It involves a veteran cop, a rookie cop, and a “renegade” cop.  It pays lip service to themes of family and brotherhood.  The central motivation of every single character in the movie is revenge.  There are three hero cops, two corrupt cops, and three hundred and ninety-one dead cops.  And the final scene is a massive, insane, climactic shootout that lasts almost forty minutes.  So that’s the standarad stuff you find in just about every one of these movies.  Unfortunately, Invisible Target rarely rises above the level of average action fare in any other respect.

There are some cool stars here - Jacky Wu Jing, a fantastic fighter who recently appeared in the film Fatal Contact, is the cut-throat bad guy.  Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue are quite good as the veteran cop and the “renegade” cop.  But perhaps the biggest surprise is Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie Chan.  He plays the rookie cop in a remarkable performance.  He is quite convincingly wide-eyed and innocent as the young cop who gets swept up into the middle of a war between a couple of cops and a crazy, bloodthirsty gang of bad guys.  The world of Chinese cinema is populated with dozens of people who, for no good reason, will attack cops with machetes.  There are also the truly bad people, who will murder fifty cops in two minutes as part of a getaway.  These are the bad guys here.  As they are in every one of these movies.

The motivation to take down these evil gangs comes not from the fact that you’ve just lost fifty co-workers.  And the police department can’t get behind a massive effort to take out these mass murderers.  No, it usually comes down to just two or three guys who take matters into their own hands.  And they are motivated to take out this gang because their fiancee has been killed, or their brother.  So it is personal vengeance.  The kind that just can’t come from seeing all your co-workers slaughtered.  In this case, it’s fairly well done, with a few bothersome details.  First of all, in the kung-fu fight scenes, there are bizarre sound effects thrown in out of nowhere.  Like someone yelling da-da-da-da into a microphone.  It’s weird.  And the story is a little incoherent, in that it features what seem to be dozens of unintentional red herrings.

All of which adds up to a decent action film, but nothing special.  The fights are good and well choreographed, the bad guys are convincingly evil, and the plot holes can be glossed over with the suspension of disbelief that everyone who watches one of these movies must bring with them.

Fearless is directed by Ronny Yu, a man who has directed several Asian martial arts classics, but who has recently become corrupted by Hollywood. He is the man behind Freddy vs. Jason and Bride of Chucky, two of the better entries in otherwise terrible movie franchises. Fearless is said to be the last martial arts picture Jet Li will ever make, and this is a shame. Fearless succeeds only because Jet Li is fantastic. Not only is he a great fighter, but he is also the right type of actor for the role. He plays real-life martial arts legend Huo Yuanjia, the man who created the Chin Woo martial arts school in Shanghai at the turn of the century. Yuanjia became a hero in China when he fought a series of highly publicized fights against foreign fighters.

When I first watched Fearless, I thought this was the weakest in Jet Li’s impressive “wushu” kung-fu movie resume. It was good, and the fights were the best part of the film, and handled brilliantly, and the filming made Fearless a visual treat. Unfortunately, the film didn’t really get interesting until the very end. Now, however, Alliance Films is releasing Fearless: The Director’s Cut on July 8th, and it has all of a sudden become much, much better. 35 minutes of additional footage has been added, which fills out the story to such a degree that the entire movie is transformed. We are now far more invested in the character, seeing his transformation in greater detail.

Yuanjia is the child of a great wushu master, who is the champion of their village of Tianjin. His father forbids him from practicing kung-fu, so he must train in secret, with the help of his best friend Nong (Dong Yong). When he sees his father lose a match because he wouldn’t destroy his opponent, young Yuanjia vows to do everything he can to glorify the honour of his family, and vows never to lose a fight in his life. And he doesn’t. As he grows into an adult, fighting in these wushu competitions has become an obsession for him. Nong tries to warn him about the dangers, and begs him to relax and back off, but Yuanjua won’t listen. When a reckless fight leads to tragedy all around, Yuanjia is ashamed, and goes into self-imposed exile, and almost dies. He is found in the country and nursed back to health by a kind family with a lovely blind daughter. He learns a lot about life through this little country village, and learns even more about wushu and about himself.

Now on the right path, and fully understanding the potential of wushu to unify rather than to divide, he returns to civilization with the goal of establishing a school of martial arts. By this time, China has been taken over by Western influence, and the need for national unity is enormous. Yuanjia is determined to do what he can to help provide this national unity, and agrees to fight a series of highly publicized fights against Western fighters in order to defend Chinese honour. He is no longer out to promote himself, or his family name, he is now using wushu to defend and promote all of China.

The new edition of Fearless comes in a two-disc set. The second DVD is the exact same disc that was released in 2006, the “unrated” edition, with the unrated version, the theatrical version, and a featurette called “A Fearless Journey”. The only thing that is new here is the first disc, the actual director’s cut. And that makes it completely worthwhile. The director’s cut transforms Fearless from merely being a decent entry into the kung-fu movie canon, into being a wonderful, heartfelt historical document that really resonates. Whether you’ve seen Fearless before or not, now is the time to pick it up on DVD.

Come Drink With Me is an absolute classic of the martial arts genre, filmed in 1965 and released on DVD tomorrow, June 24th, by Alliance Films. It stars Cheng Pei Pei, a legend of Chinese kung-fu films, who might be familiar to modern artists as Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Crouching Tiger, incidentally, is a film that owes a lot to Come Drink With Me, not just the involvement of Pei Pei, but also in tone and in the concept of the high-flying wire stunts that make up so much of the action. While it isn’t as visually incredible as Crouching Tiger (it WAS filmed in 1965), the costumes and set design were first-rate.

This really is one of the best kung-fu films ever made. Cheng Pei Pei is gorgeous, and incredibly skilled and convincing as a fighter, much like Zhang Ziyi today. She plays Golden Swallow, a martial arts expert and bodyguard for the royal family (who also happens to be the daughter of the king) who sets out on a mission to rescue her brother from the clutches of a group of bandits led by an evil kung-fu abbot. Along the way, she finds help from a local drunken beggar named Fan Da-Pei (or, Drunk Cat). His character is one that would become a staple of the Hong Kong martial arts movie industry - the old drunk who’s always singing and sloppy and messy and gross, but is secretly the leader of a lost clan of martial artists, and a ridiculously proficient fighter when push comes to shove. I think it likely that in the Hong Kong of the 1970s and 80s, it was quite likely that people left the drunks in the bars alone, for fear that hassling them might provoke a lethal barrage of kung-fu kicks and punches. And the drunks are always the good guys.

As the movie progresses, it relies on an impressive series of wire-aided fight scenes between Golden Swallow and the bandits, culminating with her showdown with the bandit leader Whiteface, while the drunken master takes on the evil abbot who is also his brother. Throughout, the film is part comedy, part musical, part drama, part romance, and all action. The story is very straightforward, while underlying themes run through the narrative. The major one, of course, is female empowerment. But it also touches on the idea of corruption through religion. This film is widely considered, in Asia, to be one of the best Hong Kong movies of all time, and it made a star out of Cheng Pei Pei and her drunken co-star, Yueh Hua. Their stars would continue to shine brightly in Hong Kong for years to come, and this film is as good today as it was when it was released.

Fans of kung-fu cinema might, just maybe, recognize Gordon Liu. Liu played Johnnie Mo, the leader of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill Volume One. He also played the role of Pai Mei in Kill Bill Volume Two. This was Quentin Tarantino’s way of paying homage to one of the great actors and martial artists in the history of kung-fu cinema (as was his decision to cast Sonny Chiba as Hattori Hanzo). Liu has had a long and storied career in martial arts movies, and it is in no small part thanks to the film Heroes of the East. Which I believe was an inspiration for Kill Bill itself. A classic in the genre, Heroes of the East was one of the first Chinese movies to portray Japanese martial artists with respect, as noble and powerful warriors. Until then, the Japanese were merely convenient punching bags for the “superior” Chinese fighters.

Of course, Heroes of the East does not go so far as to say the Japanese could actually be better. Kung-fu student Ah To (Liu) is forced into an arranged marriage with a Japanese woman. She is beautiful and feisty, but insists on practicing Japanese martial arts around the house. This leads to a series of confrontations between the couple, which threaten their marital bliss. When she returns to Japan, intent on training harder on her fighting skills with various Japanese masters, it is for the purpose of becoming better so she can beat her husband and show him that Japanese styles are better. When he sends her a note, challenging her in these various fighting disciplines, it is for the purpose of finally ending their dispute. However, all these things get misinterpreted by all those around the couple, and before long Ah To finds himself in a tournament, fighting the seven top martial artists in all of Japan.

Now, this guy is a kung-fu student. A very good one, but still just a student. The idea that he could best all seven of these fighters - the best in their disciplines - judo, karate, katana, nunchaku, yari, sai, and ninjitsu. It’s fairly ridiculous. But at the time (1979), Chinese movies would not accept that their various styles (jian, three-section staff, Qiang, Butterfly swords, rope-dart and the always popular drunken style of kung-fu) could be defeated by even the most powerful of Japanese adversaries. These fight scenes are played for drama, for comedy, for action and for really cool stunts, all of which are expertly handled.

The standard themes in these films are explored - Ah To is emasculated by his martial artist master wife, there is comedy to be derived from looking at women’s boobs, there are sound effects at nothing, like when swords go through the air and make a metallic “swooshing” noise. The various styles matching up against the other styles. And the always-popular and influential “drunken boxing” style of kung-fu, a style which Ah To has to learn overnight, in a scene that is as funny as anything in a kung-fu film. Heroes of the East is a classic most of us here in North America have never even heard of, and it will be released on DVD June 24th by Alliance Films.

          When Fatal Contact opens, Jacky Wu Jing, touted as the next big thing in Asian kung-fu movies, is performing with a painted face in a sort of Chinese Cirque Du Soleil stage show.  He is Hong Kong’s Kung Fu champion, but must make ends meet during the off-season.  When he is approached by some gangsters to fight in an underground-boxing gambling racket, he turns them down.  He doesn’t want to participate in anything illegal, and he doesn’t want to fight anyone he doesn’t have to.  But he is starting a relationship with a girl performing in the stage company with him, and she manages to convince him, remarkably easily, to show up at this underground fight and join up.  There is a lot of money to be made, see, and right away we know this girl is the femme fatale that will lead him down the garden path to destruction. 

          The thing is, I don’t think we’re supposed to know that.  I think we are supposed to be surprised when, later in the film, we discover her true motives.  So I think in this case it is just bad handling on the part of the director, telegraphing the final act in the first one.  The main portion of the movie takes place in this free-for-all illegal fighting operation, one we have seen many times in many similar movies.  Ong-Bak, Unleashed, Bloodsport, the list goes on and on.  And in every one of these movies, the set-up, denouement, and payoff are virtually identical.  Except in Fatal Contact.  The ending is rather surprising.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.  The bulk of the action is taken up with this fighting in the ring.  And although it’s pretty good fighting, it doesn’t really leap off the screen and grab you by the stones the way it does in Ong-Bak, or even Cradle 2 The Grave.  It’s just well-done, decent one-on-one kung-fu. 

          There are two things that are very good about the middle part of Fatal Contact.  First of all, Jackie Wu Jing looks like a nine-year-old.  Which means that we are constantly identifying with him as a kung-fu expert who is still somehow out of his element.  And secondly, this isn’t one of those contrived, cage-with-spikes modern-gladiator fight-to-the-death type illegal fighting operation.  It’s more like one of these would really look, just a space cleared on a floor above a bar, with wooden chairs pushed aside and a guy at a desk with a calculator and ledger book taking bets.  It gives this operation more of an air of authenticity than any other similar operation in other movies.  Most of which look like they are channeling the spirit of Mad Max and the Thunderdome. 

          Also, the other fighters.  Wu Jing doesn’t have to fight bigger and bigger guys as time goes on, or meaner and meaner fighters.  And there is no final, in-the-ring showdown with the bad guy of the piece.  Which is a refreshing ending to a movie like this.  However, the ending doesn’t really work.  I don’t want to give it away, because Fatal Contact is worth watching, but the ending to this movie is remarkably incongruous with the rest of the film.  It’s like in the middle of a Dean Koontz book, the story takes a 90 degree turn and becomes a Shakespearean tragedy.  What?  And to be fair, the end IS surprisingly moving, given how badly it jars with the rest of the film.  And more than that, at least it isn’t expected and obvious.  There’s a greenhouse roof there - I wonder if that guy’s going to go through it and die…oh.  He doesn’t?  Really?  Hm.  How unexpected. 

          There are two other major problems with Fatal Contact.  First, there is a character played by Ronald Cheng (a Hong Kong pop singer).  He is Wu Jing’s friend and confidante, and his character seems to be growing through the whole movie.  We learn halfway through that he is in fact an incredible kung-fu master, maybe even as good as his friend.  But then…nothing is done with it.  When his character departs the scene, toward the end, we wonder why he was ever in the movie at all!  And the resolution at the end of the movie takes SO long to happen!  We already know what they reveal really slowly, and a lot of it, as I said earlier, was telegraphed from the first scene in the movie! 

          All in all, Fatal Contact is fairly decent, and any serious fans of Hong Kong Kung-Fu cinema will not be disappointed.  It does have a surprising (and surprisingly powerful) ending, some good fight scenes, and a pretty cool star in Jacky Wu Jing.  Wu Jing is being labeled the “next Jet Li” (at least by Dragon Dynasty, the Hong Kong distributors of the DVD), and in fact he actually makes specific reference to that during the film.  But for casual martial arts fans and action movie lovers alike, this one can be skipped.  You’re better off with some other Dragon Dynasty titles, like Flash Point, Hard Boiled, Dog Bite Dog, or The City Of Violence.  Fatal Contact comes out in Canada courtesy of Alliance Films tomorrow, June 10th. 

This is the tagline for A Force of One, a Chuck Norris movie from 1979:  “He hears the silence.  He sees the darkness.  Only he can stop the killing.”  That isn’t even a joke.  I didn’t take it off the Chuck Norris list website.  It is really printed on the cover of the DVD, just like that. 

My thirteen-year-old step son has just discovered that Chuck Norris stuff on the internet.  You know, “Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep.  He waits.”  And, “Chuck Norris’ tears can cure cancer.  Too bad he’s never cried.”  And such like.  So he asked to see a Chuck Norris movie.  And I realized that with the exception of Return of the Dragon and Burn Hollywood Burn, I had no Chuck Norris movies at all.  The first is a Bruce Lee movie that happens to involve Chuck Norris in the climactic fight scene, and the second is just a poorly done comedy where Norris stars as himself.  But I didn’t have what could reasonably be considered a “Chuck Norris Movie”.  Like Missing in Action, or Missing in Action II.  Or, Missing in Action III.  I’m not sure what else he did.  I don’t like Chuck Norris.  I’m a Seagal man.  In fact, I’m not sure Norris has worked in years - last I saw, he was backing Mike Huckabee for the Republican presidential nomination, starring in infomercial reruns, and basically existing on that list on the internet, which was funny one year ago but really irritating now.

So when I saw A Force Of One for just six bucks at Rogers Video, I decided to experience Chuck Norris, just one more time, with my curious step-son.  I warned him ahead of time.  You know those Seagal movies that I watch a lot?  This might actually be worse.  But he has (through me, I think) developed a similar appreciation for irony to mine, and loves a truly bad movie almost as much as I do.  So we were very excited for this film.  Chuck Norris, you see, is a…karate expert…of course.  He needs to teach the cops how to fight, because a serial killer is knocking them off.  And there are drugs somehow involved, and eventually, his adoptive son is killed by the mysterious karate-expert serial killer.  This is so he can go on a vengeful tear, which of course culminates with the big final fight scene between the two karate fighters.

But here’s the thing - A Force of One wasn’t bad enough.  It mostly made sense.  It featured some average acting performances from the supporting cast.  The fight scenes were halfway-decent.  This was not what we wanted!  We wanted terrible!  Local-car-commercial-level acting!  Nonsense plot!  Inane dialogue!  A false sense of it’s own excellence!  The earmarks of Seagal fare.  But no.  This movie defied all odds and made a little bit of sense.  It was difficult to make fun of A Force of One.  Sure, there were cliches and idiocies, but not nearly enough.  And so the movie just became boring, and that made me sad.  Both of us, in fact.  We wanted abysmal.  Oh well, better put on Alone In The Dark.

But then - wait!  I checked out, on a whim, the special features.  And there it was!  A documentary on American Cinema, the company that put this movie out!  And it was all about - how “American Cinema”, the company, changed Hollywood and the movie industry in general.  And they were serious!  And here it is - this is how they changed Hollywood forever - they made a star out of Chuck Norris!  This was not tongue in cheek, it was totally serious, THIS is what the movie itself should have been.  Totally inflated with an undeserved sense of self-importance.  But even with this gem of a special feature, this DVD is still not worth six bucks.