Eastern Condors: The Sammo Hung war film is set to have a Criterion Collection Blu-ray release

Sammo Hung’s martial arts ode to The Dirty Dozen gets an all-new 2K restoration and will be released by Criterion later this year.

Fans of the golden age of martial arts action is about to get a new exciting release from The Criterion Collection. The special preservation and remastering label has released Bruce Lee’s famous films in an amazingly crisp 4K restoration, as well as Jackie Chan‘s biggest films, including Police Story and Police Story 2. Fans of this era of Golden Harvest also have Sammo Hung’s My Lucky Stars, which also features Jackie, and Michelle Yeoh‘s Heroic Trio to view in incredible transfers.

Now, Criterion has announced that on December 17, Eastern Condors — Sammo Hung’s ode to The Dirty Dozen, which co-stars fellow Peking Opera performer Yuen Biao, will be available in an all-new 2K restoration with a new Blu-ray release. Criterion has also revealed all the special features that will be included with the release. You can pre-order the item here.

The description reads,
“Legendary actor-director Sammo Hung delivers a bazooka blast of pure adrenaline in this exemplar of Hong Kong action cinema at its most entertaining. Drawing inspiration from Hollywood war films like The Dirty Dozen, Eastern Condors follows a ragtag band of Asian American prisoners dropped into Vietnam on a secret suicide mission to prevent a cache of weapons from falling into the hands of the Viet Cong, who are more than ready for a fight. Propelled by a dynamic ensemble cast that includes the ever-charismatic Yuen Biao as a black-market trader and a superhuman Yuen Wah as a giggling martial-arts monster, this rip-roaring spectacle offers a nonstop barrage of turbocharged set pieces that defy death, logic, and gravity itself.”

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• PLUS: An essay by film critic Sean Gilman
• 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• New audio commentary featuring film critic Tony Rayns
• 2K digital restoration of the English-dubbed “export cut” of the film
• Meet the Filmmakers, a new interview with director Sammo Hung
• Interviews from 2001 with Hung and actor Yuen Wah
• Eastern Condors Live!, an onstage performance from the 1987 Miss Hong Kong Pageant
• Teaser and trailers
• New English subtitle translation

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.