Media Blasters Jumping In To The Shaw Brothers Pool …

That Media Blasters were soon to become the third company - after Dragon Dynasty and Image - releasing North American versions of films from the freshly remastered Shaw Brothers catalog has been known for a while now but today we got a first look at the cover for their debut release, Chang Cheh’s Heroes Two, and the full spec sheet that makes it clear they’re treating these titles right.  Here’s the word:

Alexander Fu Sheng & Chen Kuan-tai headline the first Media Blasters release in their new Shaw Brothers Kung Fu collection. “Heroes Two” hits the shelves on April 8th, as a fully remastered Anamorphic 2:35:1 feature from HD master. The disc features the film with a choice of Mandarin or English soundtracks and subtitles. Among the films bonus features are an audio commentary by the late Asian Film Historian Barry “Linn” Haynes. Remastered “Three Styles of the Hung Fist” alternate intro, available for the first time on DVD. (In Mandarin with English subtitles only) as well as the English version of the “Three Styles Intro” from unremastered video.The films original Mandarin language trailer, as well as the original English language export trailer, an all new interview with star Chen Kuan-tai and stills and additional trailer gallery.

The subsequent releases from Media Blasters will include “The Master’, “Challenge of the Masters”, “Five Element Ninja”, “Black Magic 2”, “Flag of Iron”, “The Brave Archer”, “Ten Tigers of Kwuntong”, “Martial Club”, and “The Deadly Duo”.  The special features for the range have been put together by Linn Haynes and Hong Kong based writer/consultant Mike Leeder of Impact magazine http://www.impactmoviemagazine.co.uk

The releases will be dedicated to the memory of Linn Haynes, and Mike Leeder and the team at Media Blasters will do everything they can to make the range worthy of his memory.

Very nice to see some quality new features on this and good on them doing right by Linn Haynes, as well.