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A triple dose of fantastic martial arts flicks make their breathtaking debut on Blu-Ray.

The Wuxia subgenre of films are definitely something to behold.  All of these stories take place in ancient China and involve a very exaggerated form of martial arts.  The skills each individual learn stem from real martial arts studies but in these fictionalized stories are all taken to the next level.  When you see someone running across water, flying between treetops or running up a large wall it is all to show the great skill the particular characters have because of their dedication to the craft.  Thanks to Sony Pictures there is now a triple feature set remastered in high definition on Blu-Ray to blow your mind all over again.

With definitely the most American success of any other wuxia film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the first of the three.  This multiple Academy Award winner is the story of Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) who is a great warrior leaving behind his life to focus on avenging his master’s death.  He decides to give his magical sword, the Green Destiny, to a friend and in transit is stolen by a strange masked avenger.  Now Li must go with the sword’s deliverer, and his longtime friend and object of affection Yu Shu-lien (Michelle Yeoh) to find the Green Destiny and give it to his friend.  They meet Jen (Zhang Ziyi), the daughter of an aristocrat who awaits an arranged marriage joins them looking for adventure.  They quickly learn that not only does Jen have great martial art skill, but she is the key to help solve all of their problems.. 

Up next is Zhang Yimou’s 2004 flick House of Flying Daggers where a rebel group known as the flying daggers are being hunted by the Tang Dynasty.  In order to do this they arrest a blind dancer named Mei (Zhang Ziyi) who is believed to be the daughter of the gang’s former leader and stage a rescue mission so they can follow her to the new leader.  A police captain named Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) plays the part of the rogue warrior Wind who is there as a Flying Daggers sympathizer and wants to help Mei on her way.  Meanwhile he is meeting with another captain giving information, but soon realizes the attacks are becoming increasingly not as staged as they should be and he finds the attraction between himself and Mei is growing as well. 

Lastly is Curse of the Golden Flower (also directed by Zhang Yimou), a look into a royal family during the Later Shu period of China.  Here there is turmoil within the family which stirs mainly from the male dominated time of China’s history, even Empress Liang (Gong Li) is affected.  Her husband, Emperor Ping (Chow Yun-Fat), returns back to the palace with dark plan on the horizon.  His wife has a sketchy relationship with her stepson, while one of her birth sons is a definite mama’s boy with a growing concern about the Empress.  The story is filled with betrayal, power struggles and lavish battle scenes.

Not that it should need to be written here but each of these films is amazing.  I would say everyone should have seen them by now, but I realize there are certain areas where they did not play the local multiplex or garner a large ad blitz for home video/DVD.  Now that we have evolved into this online film discussing society of movie watchers who have high def TVs and Blu-Ray players this is the best time to find these foreign gems and watch them.  Even those who have seen them, this is a whole new light.  Each of the three films has been remastered in a way which blows away any screening you have ever seen.  One of the great things about this subgenre in Chinese filmmaking is the wonderful photography and use of color.  There are scenes, especially with House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower, so full of bright complimenting colors with gorgeous set design that the sight practically takes your breath away.  This could detract from the story, but luckily the story, acting and martial arts are so engaging these films just work on every level. 

Aside from the mind melting visuals in full high definition each disc comes with a few extras (even though they are just ported over from previous releases):

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Commentary with writer/director Ang Lee & writer James Schamus, an interview with Michelle Yeoh.  There is also a twenty minute making-of where you see the wire work for the fight scenes and see that everything is practical and without the aid of CGI, except for erasing the wires of course. 

House of Flying Daggers - storyboard comparisons and a featurette on creating the visual effects are the lone extras. 

Curse of the Golden Flower - a look inside the Los Angeles premiere of the film with cast on the red carpet and a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Now that I have gushed over the films I must get to the bad part.  While it would have been nice to see some new features this is not the biggest gripe.  This set marks the debut of Crouching Tiger on Blu-Ray, while the others have previously been released.  What difference does this make?  Well, if you are a fan of these films and you have already bought House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower the only way to get Crouching Tiger is to shell out the money for this set.  Why could they not also release a standalone version of the film?  This kind of thing boggles my mind.  I cannot give a perfect score for these releases, which I want to, because of this shifty way to release Ang Lee’s film.  It’s also odd that two of Zhang Yimou’s wuxia films are here but they left out Hero for Crouching Tiger.  Why not make it a Yimou set, or just add it in there as well.  I guess I’ll never understand the studio’s line of thinking. 

If you have not purchased any of these films on the format then you are in luck and a wonderful set awaits you.  Everyone else might want to wait for either the (most likely) eventual standalone release of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or bite the bullet and try to sell your used copies of the other two films.  However you handle it, these are three great movies you should have in your collection.

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