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| Special Features: |
"Behind The Punches" - behind-the-scenes featurette hosted by choreographer James Lew with special fighting tips from Jean-Claude Van Damme
Audio commentary by martial arts director Tsui Hark
The Ultimate Rumble Party Mix -A high-energy original techno party mix scored to the beat of every fight
Name That Frame - Interactive game with over 100 still frames to test your movie knowledge
FlixFacts -behind-the-scenes tidbits, movie trivia
"How Did They Do That?" - Fight master James Lew's blow-by-blow, behind-the-scenes audio commentary
Fighter Profiles - The real stories behind the fighter legends
Fight Cards - The "low-down on each show-down" with key stats on every fight
My Top 5 - Programmable scene selection
Hidden "easter eggs"
DVD-ROM Features:
Downloadable Fight Sounds
Skullcrusher Trivia Game
Internet access to www.ultimate-fights.com
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| Video Format: |
Various Aspect Ratios
[SS-DL]
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| Languages: |
English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
English (Dolby 2.0 Surround)
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| Subtitles: |
English, Spanish
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| Captions: |
Yes
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| Casing: |
1-Disc Keep Case
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Following the footsteps of their first successful DVD release, Boogeymen: The Killer Compilation, a collection of some of the most memorable and terrifying scenes in the history of the horror genre, comes “Ultimate Fights: From the Movies,” Flix Mix’s first foray into the action genre. In any other medium these scene compilation collections would probably fail miserably, but thanks to the technological wonders of DVD, 16 hand-picked fight sequences are bound together in a solid and entertaining package that's perfect for party background visuals or those days when you just want to see someone getting their ass beat.
Pretty much every action genre is covered. Within sword fighting there’s “Gladiator,” and “Blade.” For bare-knuckle brawls there’s “Snatch,” and “Crossing the Line.” Within martial arts there are the classics “Fist of Legend,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Legend of Drunken Master,” and “Dragon.” For lead-laden shoot ‘em ups there’s “Scarface,” and “The Killer.”
The only real problem action fans might have with the disc are some of the action sequences chosen for the given films. For example, with regards to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” I would have rather seen the sword duel sequence in the school sparring room, between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi, rather than the nighttime fight sequence at the film’s opening (a spectacular sequence in context, but not as fight intensive as the sword duel). Still, for those who can’t afford to buy all 16 movies, “Ultimate Fights,” with its convenient scene access and a handful of pretty interesting extra features (over five hours worth), makes a nice addition to the action fan’s DVD library. For more about the film’s extra features, read below.
A list of all 16 films featured:
Rumble in the Bronx, Blade, Fist of Legend, Snatch, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Scarface, Legend of Drunken Master, Crossing the Line, The Players Club, Gladiator, Timecop, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, They Live, Black Mask, First Blood, The Killer.
A fairly creative disc with enough extra features to keep you busy for several hours. Excellent sound and video transfer as well as a nicely laid out menu system makes this one of the better put-together discs on the market.
Picture Quality: 8/10
A very nice video transfer from Flix Mix. Though only as good as the film quality they've taken from.
Sound Quality: 8/10
Again, the film toggles between multiple audio sources depending on the film and it's original sound transfer, but the tracks blend it seemlessly. The 5.1 Processed Dolby Surround is fairly well isolated, with little bleeding around the multiple channels, and the Dolby Surround (two channel), when used, is also fairly strong.
Menu: 9/10
An excellent menu system that is very easy and convenient to navigate through, which is very important for a disc like this, where you'll be frequently changing scenes or toggling between footage and other extra features. Nice work.
Extra Features: 8/10
"Ultimate Fights" depends heavily on its extra-features -- the box says "over 5 hours," but much of that is redundant. Still, the features are very effective on the disc and are worth going through, at least once.
The "Behind the Punches" featurette, which is a superficial "how-to" of the process choreographers and stunt coordinators go through to set up movie fights, is fairly interesting, as is the Tsui Hark commentary track. For those who don't know, he's the famous Hong Kong director/producer behind such hits as "The Killer" (directed by John Woo) and "Black Mask." The FlixFacts feature -- which pops up trivia for every scene on the disc -- is nice, and the "Fight Cards" fight stats is worth a gander.
The Final Word:
While there's no real substitute for owning all the movies featured on this disc, the reality is that not too many
people can afford to go out and purchase 16 DVDs just for the fight sequences. For you folks who are on a tight budget,
yet still big fans of fight sequences, or even people wanting something nice to play on your tube in the background at parties,
"Ultimate Fights" is worth a gander.
Stephen Wong
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