Rating: 
Summary: A great buy, but image and sound quality over-hyped
Review: Just got my copy of the Bruce Lee Master Collection - great packaging, really feels like a collection, with a wide, gatefold sleeve revealing 5 matching discs. However, having read the other reviews, many of which excitedly refer to the wonderful quality of the image and sound, I was itching to get these discs on, with my big screen TV and AC-3 sound system. Having bought and enjoyed Enter the Dragon, remastered and with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, I was expecting more of the same. However, despite an adequate picture and sound, the audio/visual quality comes nowhere close to Enter the Dragon. The picture quality beats the pants off the old VHS tapes, and improves slightly from Fist of Fury through to Game of Death, but doesn't really live up to the hype of the other reviews. The dubbed sound, mono in all cases, is disappointing after reading the reviews, with the tinny music and voices that always seem too high or too low for their characters. Let's face it, the oldest of this movies is 30 years old, and some of the previous VHS/DVD releases have been [really bad], so by all means let's celebrate the fact that we can get good prints of these seminal movies in one boxed set but let's not kid ourselves that the picture is sharp and clear and the sound rings honest and true. Fox had done a good job, sure, but Enter the Dragon this ain't, and we shouldn't expect it to be. Don't get me wrong - this is a must have for Bruce Lee fans, but buy it for the right reasons - to get hold all Bruce's HK movies in one go. There are Collector's Editions of Fists, Way/Return of the Dragon and Game of Death (the last being a 2-disc set available in October) available on Region 2, with remastered anamorphic images, DD 5.1 sound and bundles of extras. It will be interesting to see how the two regions' discs compare in "hand-to-hand combat".
Rating:
Summary: GET THE HONG KONG LEGENDS VERSION!!!
Review: This Warner Brothers set is very good-I bought it, but it's annoying that these discs are not anamorphic and you don't get the original soundtrack. However, if you are a Bruce Lee fanatic, and you have a PAL converter, and a multiregion dvd player that can play Region 2 discs, you must get the Hong Kong Legends releases. This is a UK company. They put out the four Bruce Lee films, minus Enter the Dragon, in beautiful, restored, remastered, anamorphic widescreen versions with Dolby Digital sound. This is heaven for people with widescreen TVs. They are loaded with extras(Game of Death has 2 dvds!) and also have several soundtracks so you can watch the original Chinese with English subtitles, or the English dubbed version. It's amazing, but Region 2 really outdid Region 1 in this case. You can buy them from Amazon.com.uk. Hong Kong Legends has a website that lists all their releases, including many Jackie Chan and Jet Li films, all made to the same high standards.
Rating: 
Summary: Details of 5 DVDs: Bruce Lee - The Master Collection
Review:
If you love martial arts, Bruce Lee and his fighting attitude, this is a MUST SEE. All of these DVDs are great material to analyze the techniques of Bruce Lee.Why only 3 of 5 stars? First technically speaking: only English Mono, no original Cantonese (also available as Region 2 version, need region free player), films are very good remastered for wide screen, but no special bonus features or other languages or subtitles except English. Second, there are 3 original movies, 1 is a patch-work after his death + 1 biography of good quality (watch out, others are often rip-offs).
1) Fists of Fury (AKA: The Big Boss) [1971]
2) The Chinese Connection (AKA: The Fist of Fury) [1972]
3) Return of the Dragon (AKA: The Way of the Dragon) [1973]
4) Game Of Death [1979]
5) Bruce Lee: The Legend [1984] 1-4) Rated: R - Not for sale to persons under age 18.
5) Is not rated, I would suggest min PG-13, not for kids. 1) Fists of Fury (AKA: The Big Boss) [1971]
Details: average 3 of 5
Message: 2, (lack of) discipline, fidelity, revenge
Plot: 3, young country laborer comes to foreign city
Techniques: 4, good kicks, incredible attitude
Realism: 2, wired jumps, strange logic of plot
Humor: 2, not really funny
Blood: 1, too much
Nudity: 1, one scene of nudity, including drunkenness 2) The Chinese Connection (AKA: The Fist of Fury) [1972]
Details: average 3 of 5
Message: 2, revenge, racism, (lack of) discipline
Plot: 3, young student revenges murdered master
Techniques: 4, good kicks, jumps, weapon defenses
Realism: 3, hand/sword fights in restricted areas, psychology
Humor: 2, not funny
Blood: 0, far too much
Nudity: 1, one scene of nudity 3) Return of the Dragon (AKA: The Way of the Dragon) [1973]
Details: average 4 of 5
Message: 4, Family bounds, courage, NEVER give up
Plot: 3, cousin helps family restaurant in Rome against Mafia
Techniques: 5, awesome foot work, kicks (against Chuck Norris!)
Realism: 4, no wire jumps, but VERY patient Mafia boss (?)
Humor: 3, serious & funny scenes
Blood: 3, not too much
Nudity: 4, cut out in this collection ("Friendly Native" scene) 4) Game Of Death [1979]
Details: average 2 of 5
Message: 4, courage against evil, NEVER give up
Plot: 2, young action star against the Mafia
Techniques: 3, Bruce Lee's = 5 (about 20 minutes), doubles = 1
Realism: 1, film was cut together from unfinished scenes
Humor: 1, not funny, mostly tragic
Blood: 4, very few scenes
Nudity: 5, none 5) Bruce Lee: The Legend [1984]
Details: average 4 of 5
Message: 5, What makes a man GREAT: vision, attitude, dedication, hard work, humility
Plot: 5, life is often the most impressive plot
Techniques: 5, including slow motions
Realism: 3, mixture of film characters with real life
Humor: 3, funny and sad parts (death)
Blood: 3, few scenes
Nudity: 5, none As a part-time martial artist (Judo, Ju-Jutsu, Karate, Aikido, now Hapkido) for over 10 active years, I despise violence, especially blood shedding and normally don't like R-rated movies. My admiration for Bruce Lee grew thanks to my Ju-Jutsu trainer in the '80s who had cut together the fight scenes for training videos that helped us greatly.
Rating:
Summary: All but One of Bruce Lee's Greatest
Review: What can I say. I love this box set. It features information on Bruce Lee including a disc that contains the biography of his life. It has Fists of Fury, Chinese Connection (which has the best nunchaku scenes in my opinion), Return of the Dragon, and Game of Death (which really only the ending has Bruce Lee in original footage. If you look close you'll notice alot of other scenes are taken from other movies when Bruce Lee is actually Bruce Lee). Considering it lacks Enter the Dragon which was probably Bruce Lee's best movie. And that none of the movies have extra features or the original chinese audio tracks, I stil give this box set a 4! I think it is an excellent buy!
Rating:
Summary: GET THE HONG KONG LEGENDS VERSION
Review: The Warner Brothers set is very good-I bought it, however it's annoying that these dvds are not anamorphic and they don't have the original soundtrack. However, if you are a Bruce Lee fanatic, and you have a PAL converter and a multiregion dvd player that can play region 2 discs, you MUST get the Hong Kong Legends versions.This is a UK company. They released these four films,minus Enter the Dragon, in beautiful, restored, remastered anamorphic widescreen transfers. This is heaven if you have a widescreen TV. These discs are loaded with extras, plus they have several soundtracks, so you can watch the original Chinese with English subtitles, or the English dubbed version. It's amazing, but Region 2 really outdid Region 1 in this case. You can order these from amazon.com.uk. Hong Kong Legends has a website where you can check out all their releases. They have many titles available, including some Jackie Chan and Jet Li films, all with the same high quality.
Rating: 
Summary: Seriously deficient DVDs; crappy transfer and no bonuses.
Review: Every couple of years we get a batch of Bruce Lee re-releases, and none of them has ever impressed me. Thanks to the thoughtless original distributors who had handled the films on their first run in the U.S., American audiences have never been able to get official releases of Bruce Lee's films in their original language. Even modern companies like Dimension (with their disgraceful dubbing on Jackie Chan's films) have been disrespectful to kung fu films by never including the original dialogue tracks and credit sequences, meaning fans of Bruce Lee will still hear a fourth-rate voice actor on these films rather than Bruce himself. That was to be expected. What was not expected was how bad the quality of these transfers was. I don't know how much work they did in picture restoration or colour timing; judging from the picture quality, my guess would be: None. The three Hong Kong films -- Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection and Return of the Dragon -- have too much contrast and unnatural desaturation, making the characters pasty-faced and the lighting seemingly too dark. Whether that was the original intent of the filmmakers is unknown, but I know that even the old VHS editions of these films I bought 10 years ago didn't have the number of scratches, bad sprockets and picture jumps I see here. These *are* letterboxed, (...) though it's small consolation for the number of frozen frames I see before cuts. Even the Transformers DVD collections have a better restoration job than this, to say nothing of the impressive array of Shaw Brothers films that Celestial Pictures has been releasing. This set is a disgraceful treatment of the master Bruce Lee's films. The thoughtlessness continues into the fact that there are absolutely no bonus materials on the DVDs of the films. No commentary tracks -- it should have been easy enough to get some kung fu film experts here, even if they can't get Raymond Chow, James Tien, Nora Miao, Linda Lee Cadwell or Lee's Hong Kong contemporaries; no trailers (again, an easy dig through the archives); not even film stills or essays. You just get the film, subdivided into overlarge chapters that don't reflect the structure of the films: The *entire* Colosseum scene in Return of the Dragon, up until the graveyard scene, is one big chapter. Are you kidding me? The documentary Bruce Lee: The Legend is a curiosity. While it has some major faults -- the horrible dubbing on Bruce Lee's very early films as a child actor, factual errors and omissions -- it also has a wealth of archival footage that is a joy to behold. If the DVD distributors had done this kind of homework! This documentary is definitely worth seeing for Lee fans, though I would tell them to just get this single DVD and skip the rest. Compared to the Shaw Brothers re-releases and the bonus materials for the excellent DVD edition of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, these DVDs are shameful -- another quickie repackaging of Lee's films for some quick cash, with no thought. (...) (...)
Rating:
Summary: Bruce Lee -- Region 1
Review: So, here it is, the latest collection of DVD's featuring all of Bruce Lee's Hong Kong movies (Fists of Fury aka The Big Boss, The Chinese Connection aka Fists of Fury, Return of the Dragon, Game of Death, and an additional documentary Bruce Lee, the Legend) in one pretty package. Note that Enter the Dragon, made by Warner Brothers and considered by many to be Bruce's finest (and certainly his most polished) film, is not included in this boxed set. Likewise, the version of Game of Death offered is the original 1977 release, without any of the recently unearthed and restored footage featured in A Warrior's Journey. Also, these are English-dubbed, edited (for the western market) versions of the films. All in all though, this is probably the best collection of Bruce's films available in the U.S. Of course, 30 years after Bruce's death, these movies are a bit campy now -- with Fists of Fury only a few steps up from Sunday afternoon 'action theater' crapola, and Game of Death (pieced together after Bruce's death with an actor double, clips from old movies, and even a cardboard cut-out to make up for his absence in all but the final fight scenes) an unmitigated travesty -- but the charismatic screen presence and fighting skills of Bruce will always satisfy die hard fans (which are the likely target consumer for this boxed set). After all, you don't really watch this genre of movie for plot, but for the fighting, which was innovative at the time (differing from both the usual chop-sockey shenanigans as well as today's wushu-style 'wire-fu'), and to see the man who started it all and has attained an almost Elvis-level deity status. Okay, so here's the bad news... These U.S. Region 1 DVD's pale in comparison to the versions available in Region 2 put out by the Hong Kong Legends company (http://hongkonglegends.co.uk/ -- see for yourself). They have just released a 30th Anniversary boxed set of these movies -- their editions (which can only be viewed on DVD players that can play Region 2 movies) feature the original Cantonese language versions of the movies (as well as the English), the uncut/unedited versions (in which mild nude scenes or corny comedic sequences are left intact), with lots of additional features (critical commentaries and other extras). There simply isn't any comparison and it is a crying shame these are not available in the U.S. (though apparently some HKL titles are beginning to come to the U.S. market). Any serious Bruce Lee fan will want the HKL versions instead -- as for me, I'm off to buy a region free DVD player.
Rating: 
Summary: The Dragon is Back!
Review: This DVD collection is a must-have for your home. It's well done and hard core!
Rating:
Summary: ALWAYS stay with ORIGINAL
Review: Why American production make HK movies look so cheap? First of all, they cut off so much scene, second of all ruin it by making look acting so dumb by English Dubb. For ANY of HK movies, ALWAYS stick with ORIGINAL LICENSED HK RELEASE. Be careful with cheap imports, boots though. THREE STARS for BRUCE.
Rating:
Summary: Captain Amazo and The Dragon: Rockin' The House In Style!
Review: I've always been a huge Lee fan, and these DVDs were possibly the single coolest thing I have ever seen, and unless The Lone Ranger and Fonzie plan to ride past my house on Batmobiles trailing winged gorillas dropping tacos, probably the coolest thing I ever will see. The picture quality is superb compared to other Lee DVDs, and they come with subtitles, which come in handy when you miss something. Lee's fighting is, of course, excellent as always. I don't care what my friend says, Jackie Chan could never be a match for Lee, no matter how many household objects he throws at him. Lee doesn't fool around when you throw a lamp at him, he puts his foot through your face. It's an excellent set for any action movie fan, or anybody who wants to see a master in his medium. Look for the masterful fights in the Colisseum and for foot-knife deflecting antics on the part of Lee. All in all, I give it a solid GROOVY.
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