REVIEW: ‘The Art of Fighting’ (DVD – CJ Entertainment)

This Two-Disc Limited Edition DVD release of Korean action comedy THE ART OF FIGHTING, starring Baek Yun-sik and Jae Hee, came out in 2006 and is limited to 5000 copies so there probably are not too many left in circulation. It’s not much of a loss for non-Korean speakers since none of the bonus content is translated into English.

Disc one contains a crisp looking movie with Korean Dolby 5.1 or DTS audio tracks and two audio commentaries, one by director Shin Han-sol and cinematographer Im Jae-su and another by one of the producers and cast members.

Disc two contains six similar featurettes of lengths ranging from seven to 25 minutes all totaling close to an hour. Most of them contain behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. The second video is a little different. It is a breakdown of the film’s fight scenes with side-by-side comparisons of different angles used to shoot the same scene. This is the kind of stuff that is great to see and yet is rarely seen outside of Korea. CJ Entertainment and other Korean studios generally do a great job of chronicling the making and marketing of their films.

The last few bits on disc two include trailers, a TV spot and premiere footage.

Format: Region 3 NTSC DVD
Aspect Ratio: 16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: Korean Dolby 5.1, Korean DTS
Subtitles: Korean, English
Length: 98 minutes
Release Date: 2006.03.17