Product Description

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all fourteen films, including thirteen new 2K restorations by Arrow Films from the original negatives, and a new 4K restoration of One-Armed Swordsman by Celestial Pictures
Original uncompressed Mandarin mono, plus Cantonese and/or English (where applicable) lossless mono options
Newly translated English subtitles for each film
Illustrated 60-page collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by David West, Jonathan Clements and Dylan Cheung, plus cast and crew listings and notes on each film by Ian Jane
New artwork by Tony Stella, Ilan Sheady, Tom Ralston, Jolyon Yates, Kung Fu Bob and Chris Malbon
Hours of illuminating bonus features, including feature commentaries on each film, several cast-and-crew interviews from the Frédéric Ambroisine Video Archive, and the rare alternate Korean cut of Killer Constable
Exclusive CD of music from the De Wolfe Music Library, as heard in The Avenging Eagle and other Shaw Brothers classics
RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 26 2024

In my previous Shaw Brothers reviews, I mentioned that Arrow Video secured 26 titles from Celestial Pictures and they’ve exhausted all 26 titles in two “Shawscope” boxsets and a few single-only release like Come Drink With Me (which was not part of Shawscope Volume 1 or 2).

It would seem that the Shawscope sets were successful enough for Arrow that they’ve gone back to Celestial and licensed more titles. They’ve announced Volume 3 for release in November 2024, and perhaps a fourth volume is coming in November 2025.

Shawscope: Volume 3’s headlining title is the One-Armed Swordsman trilogy, the film that made “Jimmy” Wang Yu a star and solidify Chang Cheh as the main the director at Shaw Brothers Studio. The first One-Armed Swordsman was so successful, that almost all movies that came after followed that Cheh “Kung Fu” new style formula. Unfortunately, Jimmy Wang Yu had a falling-out with Shaw Brothers and broke his contract and went over to Golden Harvest and other smaller studios… that’s why David Chiang was brought to close out the One-Armed Swordsman saga.

Personally speaking, although I think One-Armed Swordsman is good, it’s probably not one of my favorite films to return to when I think of great Shaw Brothers-style movies. I would have to confessed that the best One-Armed stories (at least the most entertaining ones) was with Jimmy Wang Yu for One-Armed Boxer (from Golden Harvest) and its sequel Master of the Flying Guillotine (aka One-Armed Boxer vs the Flying Guillotine). Unfortunately the greatest One-Armed films weren’t done under the Shaw Brothers studio, so it’s not going to be included in Shawscope… but man, I would love a remaster of Master of the Flying Guillotine. I bought two version of the DVD, with the latter longer International or “Uncut” version had spliced in previously unseen footage. That version was hard to watch, because the longer version did not have the English dub and the video quality was not good.

Anyway, the rest of Shawscope: Volume 3 seems to be focused on wuxia films: Ho Meng-hua’s Lady Hermit, Cheng Kang’s The 14 Amazons, Taylor Wong’s Buddha’s Palm and Lu Chun-ku’s Bastard Swordsman … and lots of Chor Yuen’s wuxia films: Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, The Magic Blade, Clans of Intrigue, Jade Tiger and The Sentimental Swordsman.

The only good titles that I see is Sun Chung’s The Avenging Eagle and Kuei Chih-hung’s Killer Constable (this one is fantastic!).

As you can tell, I’m only interested in the Kung Fu titles, basically four titles in this set… so I’m not really excited for Volume 3. Am I still getting it? Yes, of course, I’ll be buying Volume 3, but I’m in no hurry. Maybe I will wait for a sale or when I have extra cash, I just have no urgency to get this set.

It was certainly nice to save money after I last purchased the Shout Factory’s Shaw Brothers Classics: Volume Four (literally “a grand” total of about $1,000).