There isn’t a whole lot to report on the home video front this week, but we’ve still got a handful of notable choices. They include a wry mockumentary from New Zealand, an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, a martial arts actioner starring Donnie Yen, and a handful of other selections. Read on for details:
Jemain Clement and Taika Waititi co-wrote, co-directed, and co-star in this hilarious Certified Fresh mockumentary centered on four vampire roommates and their eccentric lifestyles. Bonus features include deleted scenes, snippets of making-of footage, a collection of in-character interviews and short scenes (including the original short film that inspired the movie), and more.
Nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category this year, this Certified Fresh drama tells the story of two Estonian tangerine farmers in Georgia who stay behind to harvest their crops as the 1992-1993 War in Abkhazia breaks out. After a heated battle leaves only two soldiers — on opposing sides — alive, the farmers take them in and nurse them back to health. Only available on DVD.
Donnie Yen (Ip Man) stars in this Hong Kong actioner about a disgraced police self defense instructor who agrees to help a detective track down a murderer who’s begun killing retired martial arts masters. The Blu-ray comes with a handful of short featurettes (each about 2.5 minutes long) on the making of the film.
Mario Bava’s horror anthology film features three stories — each with an introduction from Boris Karloff, who also stars in one of them — and was recut and redubbed in English for American audiences. That’s the version you’ll find available this week, though the original Italian version is still available. Special features include a commentary track with film historian Tim Lucas and a couple of trailers.
Want to see a cheesy early ’90s action flick starring Dolph Lundgren as an expert martial artist and Brandon (son of Bruce) Lee in his feature debut as Lundgren’s partner? Want to see them duke it out with a Yakuza boss played by Cary Tagawa (Rising Sun, Mortal Kombat) and rescue a lounge singer played by Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World, True Lies)? This release doesn’t come with any special features, but the movie itself is its own kind of special.
And lastly, from the Criterion Collection, we have Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette, starring Gordon Warnecke as a Pakistani man living in London with hopes of running a successful laundromat and Daniel Day-Lewis as the childhood friend who helps him out and with whom he begins a secret love affair. Previously available on DVD, Criterion is releasing a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack that includes a restored transfer, new interviews with the writer, producers, and cinematographer, and a conversation between Frears and producer Colin MacCabe.
