Enough has been said about Korean martial arts flick City of Violence in these pages that I don't really feel the need to run a full review of it again - you can find my earlier review here - but will say only that while I think the martial arts sequences are fantastic the story is more than a little thin and the 'buddy' dynamics shockingly flat, particularly when you consider that the stars - also the director and action choreographer - are real life best friends. However lots of people enjoy this film far more than I do and Dragon Dynasty have just released their North American version of the film and I wanted to say a word or about the release. Okay, two words. One of which is a contraction. And here they are: it's good.
Though the menu screens have been revamped - and greatly simplified - from the Korean edition the Dragon Dynasty lads have done the smart thing and simply ported over the complete set of Korean special features, adding English subtitles to the lot. Well done! If more companies did this - and it really is a low cost option - and did this in a timely fashion they could stop worrying about how to stop parallel importing because we'd all simply wait for the subtitled extras. And whether you're big on the film or not it's hard not to agree that this is one great set of features. The film itself gets a solid anamorphic transfer with what I believe are the same subtitles used on the Korean issue and a subtitled feature length commentary. The second disc is loaded up with deleted scenes, blooper reels, in depth interviews and - best of all for fight fans - complete break downs of the major fight sequences with choreographer Jung Doo Hong - easily the best in Korea - breaking down how exactly he lays out and prepares the fights. This is the sort of thing that DVD was made for and it's really surprising how few action films really take viewers behind the scenes to see how things were done. So while I've got some issues with the film itself I've got no quibbles with this release. For English speaking fans it absolutely is the best option out there.
