Before Hollywood Knew His Name

Read Time:13 Minute, 23 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Jackie Chan's Breakout Hits [Limited Edition]
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Genre: Action, Comedy, Martial Arts, Crime, Adventure
Year Released: 1994–1998, 2026 Limited Edition 4K UHD Arrow Video
Runtime: 10h 42m
Director(s): Lau Kar-leung, Stanley Tong, Gordon Chan, Sammo Hung, Benny Chan, Jackie Chan
Writer(s): Various, including Edward Tang, Fibe Ma, Gordon Chan, Stanley Tong, Susan Chan, Lee Reynolds, Yuen Kai-chi
Cast: Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Ti Lung, Bill Tung, Françoise Yip, Anita Yuen, Jackson Lou, Annie Wu, Richard Norton, Michelle Ferre, Mirai Yamamoto
Where to Watch: available June 30, 2026, pre-order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: By the time Hollywood finally figured out Jackie Chan, he’d already spent decades making the argument that he was more than just a clone of Bruce Lee. JACKIE CHAN’S BREAKOUT HITS catches him in that strange, exhilarating stretch where the rest of the world was catching up, but he wasn’t waiting for anyone. These six films, gathered from the mid-to-late 1990s, don’t just show a star on the verge of larger American fame. They show an artist, stunt performer, comic actor, choreographer, and daredevil technician doing what he needed to translate himself for a global audience without surrendering the thing that made him different in the first place.

The set begins with DRUNKEN MASTER II, and that placement matters. A film that returns Chan to Wong Fei-hung and lets him move through classical kung fu with absurd comedy, astonishing precision, and a body that seems to understand before the camera does. The fights don’t feel built around impact alone. They’re built around escalation, embarrassment, recovery, timing, and physicality. Chan’s genius has always been tied to the moment after something goes wrong. He slips, ducks, winces, improvises, absorbs, and turns all of that into movement. DRUNKEN MASTER II is where that approach becomes almost musical, especially when Anita Mui storms into the frame and matches his energy without imitating him.

RUMBLE IN THE BRONX is a different kind of landmark, less elegant and more chaotic, with Vancouver standing in for New York so blatantly that the geography becomes part of the movie’s charm. The story is basically an excuse to move Chan from one collision to the next, but it has the spark of discovery for Western viewers who hadn’t yet seen action staged with this much personality. Every object in the frame feels like a dare. Shopping carts, refrigerators, alleyways, pinball machines, and hovercrafts become part of Chan’s toolset. The movie doesn’t have the control of DRUNKEN MASTER II, and some of its supporting material hasn’t aged particularly gracefully, but its momentum is impossible to fake.

THUNDERBOLT remains the oddest fit in the set, partly because it shifts Chan into a racing-movie structure that sometimes treats him as one ingredient in a larger package. The car sequences give it a different feeling, and there’s pleasure in seeing this era’s Hong Kong action stretch into another lane. At the same time, it’s the film here most likely to frustrate viewers expecting wall-to-wall martial arts invention. Chan is still Chan, and the set pieces have enough bursts of danger to justify their inclusion, but THUNDERBOLT works best as a snapshot of a star and industry trying to widen the playing field rather than as one of the essential showcases.

POLICE STORY 4: FIRST STRIKE has the opposite problem. It’s so eager to go bigger that it sometimes trades the urgency of the earlier POLICE STORY films for global chaos. The globe-trotting spy plot gives Chan submarines, snow-covered hills, and that famous ladder fight, and the best moments prove he could scale up without losing his instinct for comedy. The movie gets thinner whenever it leans too hard into espionage. However, the set pieces still have a practical madness that separates them from the safer action filmmaking that would eventually dominate the multiplex. Chan doesn’t look like a superhero in these sequences. He looks like a man constantly negotiating with disaster.

MR. NICE GUY is one of the collection’s most focused crowd-pleasers, a Sammo Hung-directed blast that turns Chan into a TV chef and then treats the premise like permission to destroy everything around him. It’s ridiculous in the best sense, with Richard Norton bringing the kind of villainous presence that understands the assignment without swallowing the movie. The story is flimsy, and the Australian setting lends it a slightly synthetic flavor, but Hung knows how to arrange it into a unified explosion. The construction-site finale offers that wonderful Chan attribute. Chaos that looks dangerous, silly, and carefully engineered all at once.

WHO AM I? closes the set with Chan in full everything mode, chasing an identity, conspiracy, and spectacle across a broader display. Its amnesia plot is never as interesting as the physical storytelling around it. However, the movie has several images that stick: Chan stranded in a desert, Chan shouting into open air, Chan turning architecture into a playground, Chan sliding down the side of a skyscraper as though gravity is just another co-star. It’s lighter than the best films here, and the English-language material can feel stilted. Yet, it captures the transitional moment before RUSH HOUR made him a household name for viewers who knew him first as a new Hollywood presence rather than as an already established legend.

JACKIE CHAN’S BREAKOUT HITS is valuable because it doesn’t pretend Chan’s crossover was a single event or one titular moment. It was a process, messy and thrilling, shaped by dubbing, alternate cuts, retitling, international marketing, and the business of carrying Hong Kong action into a Western market that often wanted the spectacle without always understanding the craft. Arrow’s decision to include multiple versions is more than collector bait. It lets viewers see how these movies were shaped and reshaped for different audiences. A different cut can change the way a joke lands, how a fight breathes, or how much cultural texture remains around the action.

The extras also give the set a stronger sense of purpose than a simple nostalgia box set. New commentaries, featurettes, interviews, outtakes, archival material, lobby cards, a poster, and a substantial book position the release as a study of Chan’s global breakthrough rather than a greatest-hits playlist. That’s the right approach, because these films sit at a crossroads. They’re entertainment, absolutely, but they’re also documents of an action tradition built on labor, risk, rehearsal, and trust in the audience’s ability to read movement.

The 90s framing means the films vary wildly in story quality, supporting performances, and tonal control. DRUNKEN MASTER II can make the rest feel smaller by comparison, and THUNDERBOLT, in particular, may play like a necessary inclusion of the era rather than a personal favorite waiting to be rediscovered. The set’s greatest strength is also its built-in unevenness. It preserves a run of films that show a star expanding outward, not always gracefully, but always with nerve.

Jackie Chan changed action cinema by making pain legible. His stunts aren’t anonymous feats. They have setups, punchlines, consequences, and personality. He lets you see the plan, the mistake, the recovery, and sometimes the bruise. JACKIE CHAN’S BREAKOUT HITS honors that legacy by gathering the years when mainstream Western audiences finally started to understand what Hong Kong viewers already knew. Chan wasn’t just doing dangerous things on camera. He was turning danger into timing, timing into comedy, and comedy into a form of action filmmaking nobody else could duplicate.

Bonus Materials:
LIMITED 10-DISC 4K UHD COLLECTION CONTENTS
Brand new 4K restorations of each film from the original negatives by Arrow Films
Limited edition packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Sam Hadley
160-page perfect-bound book featuring an archive interview with Jackie by Craig D. Reid, plus new writing by Thorsten Boose, Peter S. Bruce, Matt McAllister, Elaine Chung, and Jialu Zhu
Twenty-four lobby card reproductions
Reversible poster with vintage poster artwork

DISC 1 – DRUNKEN MASTER II
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentations in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of three versions: the uncut 102-minute Hong Kong Cut, the 100-minute International Cut, and the American Cut re-titled The Legend of Drunken Master (102 mins)
Original lossless Cantonese, Mandarin, and English mono audio for the Hong Kong Cut
Original lossless English mono audio for the International Cut
Original English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio for The Legend of Drunken Master
Optional English subtitles and subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Brand new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto
Before the Breakout, a new featurette in which stuntman Wang Yao, academic Dr. Wayne Wong, and critics David West and James Mudge look back at Jackie Chan’s earlier career
Breakout! Part 1, a new featurette in which Wong, West, Mudge, and stuntman Mars look back at the film
Deadly When Drunken, a new interview with co-writer Yuen Kai-chi
Tipsy Tribulations, an expanded interview with stuntman Mars
Period Postures, a new interview with academic Dr. Lars Laamann on the historical context behind the film
Drunken Defiance, a new appreciation of the film by martial arts cinema expert Ricky Baker
Archive interview with Jackie Chan filmed for the American release in 2000
Alternate Mandarin drinking scene (contains standard-definition inserts)
Textless outtakes
Chinese New Year messages recorded by Jackie for the Taiwanese and Malaysian openings
Trailer gallery
Image gallery

DISC 2 – RUMBLE IN THE BRONX (HONG KONG CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless Cantonese/English (sync-sound) stereo audio and English (export dub) mono audio
Optional English subtitles and subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Brand new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto
Breakout! Part 2, a new featurette in which stuntman Mars, stuntwoman Kathy Hubble, martial arts cinema expert Ricky Baker, and critics David West and James Mudge look back at the film
Rumble Recollections, an expanded interview with Hubble
Alternate footage
Textless outtakes
Image gallery

DISC 3 – RUMBLE IN THE BRONX (INTERNATIONAL CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original English-dubbed lossless stereo audio and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Electronic press kit interview with Jackie Chan
Two scenes were added for the network TV version, with dubbing unique to this version.
US trailer and TV spots

DISC 4 – THUNDERBOLT
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of the uncut 110-minute International Cut
Original lossless Cantonese/English (sync-sound) stereo audio, English (export dub) stereo audio, and English (US dub) DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
Optional English subtitles and subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
97-minute Japanese Cut with lossless Cantonese/English sync-sound stereo audio (high-definition only)
Brand new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto
Breakout! Part 3, a new featurette in which stuntman Mars, critics David West and James Mudge, and dubbing supervisor Paul Clay look back at the film
A Thunderous Presence, an expanded interview with Clay on his collaborations with Jackie Chan
Alternate English export credits
Textless outtakes
International trailer
Japanese trailers
Image gallery

DISC 5 – POLICE STORY 4: FIRST STRIKE (HONG KONG CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless Cantonese/English (sync-sound) stereo and Mandarin (dubbed) stereo audio
Optional English subtitles and subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Brand new commentary by martial arts cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto
Breakout! Part 4, a new featurette in which critics David West and James Mudge look back at the film
Textless outtakes
Image gallery

DISC 6 – POLICE STORY 4: FIRST STRIKE (INTERNATIONAL CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original English-dubbed lossless stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Striking Back, a new interview with martial arts cinema expert Frank Djeng
Scenes added for the US network TV version, with dubbing unique to this version
US trailer

DISC 7 – MR. NICE GUY (JAPANESE & HONG KONG CUTS)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and lossless stereo audio for both cuts
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Brand new commentary by critic James Mudge
Breakout! Part 5, a new featurette in which stuntman Mars and critics David West and James Mudge look back at the film
Nice Thoughts, a new appreciation by martial arts cinema expert Frank Djeng
Alternate English credits
Textless outtakes
Original trailer
Image gallery

DISC 8 – MR. NICE GUY (INTERNATIONAL CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
US trailer

DISC 9 – WHO AM I? (HONG KONG CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Brand new commentary by critic James Mudge
Breakout! Part 6, a new featurette in which critic James Mudge, actor Glory Simon, and second unit cinematographer Ray Wong look back at the film
From Drunk to Slam Dunk: Jackie Chan in the New Millennium, a new featurette in which Mudge, Simon, Wong, stuntwoman Kathy Hubble, stuntmen Wang Yao and Mars, critic David West, and others look at Jackie’s career in the years since
The Making of Who Am I?, a three-part archive behind-the-scenes featurette
Alternate English credits
Textless outtakes
Original trailer
Image gallery

DISC 10 – WHO AM I? (INTERNATIONAL CUT)
4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
Original lossless English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and lossless stereo audio
Optional English subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing
Who, When & Where, an expanded interview with Wong
Jostling with Jackie, an expanded interview with Simon
US trailer

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