{"id":45917,"date":"2024-12-20T18:00:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T23:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=45917"},"modified":"2024-12-18T23:22:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T04:22:27","slug":"men-of-war-1994-collectors-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/20\/men-of-war-1994-collectors-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Men of War (1994) [Collector\u2019s Edition] \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Now available from MVD\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man who thought he was done with war is pulled back in as part of a mercenary group brought to a Thai island for a greedy boss. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written by Stan Rogow, John Sayles, and Ethan Reiff, and directed by Perry Lang (with an assist from none other than Sammo Hung as second unit director), Men of War is an effect film about the damages of war and greed and how the two are often intermingled. The story here works well and listening to extras (and reading about the film), there were last minute rewrites with the addition of a new character at one point (one of the bad guys), but those doing the writing did these rewrites and additions so well, the viewer cannot tell where scenes were added, where characters were added, and what was not a part of the first script for this film, thus showing that hiring great writers pays off. In terms of the direction, the film makes the most of its script and cast under the guidance of Lang (and second unit director Hung). Bringing in action and martial arts directors here was the right more, allowing the film\u2019s action and fight sequences to shine. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The cast here is led by Dolph Lundgren as Nick Gunar, a reluctant mercenary who find more than money on this trip. His work here shows acting skills as well as fighting skills, bringing the character to life in a believable way. A quick online search shows that many consider this as part of his best work, something this reviewer agrees with (but in terms of favs, Showdown in Little Tokyo and all its cheese are still at the top). Joining Lundgren are a slew of folks on the mercenary side of things and on the island side of things. A few who stand out for good performances are Charlotte Lewis, B.D. Wong, Tiny Lister, and Catherine Bell. The characters here almost all work great in the story and it\u2019s nice to see a mid-1990s action film with ladies taking up weapons and putting up their dukes for a good fight, something not yet super common.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cinematography by director of photography Rohn Schmidt (credited as Ronn Schmidt) is lovely and makes great use of the natural beauty of the film\u2019s location while also making great use of the natural (and natural looking) lighting. This is a carefully planned and shot film when it comes to the look of it, and it shows really well on the new Blu-ray release at hand. The editing by Jeffrey Reiner is good here, giving the viewer a change to see the fights while giving the fights dynamics that work well. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Men of War is a strong action film with a touch of exoticism which doesn\u2019t fully age well. The technical side of things here is excellent and the cast works well together and with the script. The new release looks and sounds great on Blu-ray with 5.1 surround sound. The extras here are fun with some reused from a previous German release including the feature about the history of the film as told by Lundgren-specialist Judith-J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Harari-Damoiseau who shows their deep knowledge of the film and Lundgren\u2019s career through a casual talk. The film also includes a new introduction from director Lang, raw footage, and deleted scenes that are always fun to watch. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now available from MVD\u00a0 A man who thought he was done with war is pulled back in as part of a mercenary group brought to a Thai island for a greedy boss. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[58,302,824,1087],"class_list":["post-45917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectors-den","tag-action","tag-drama","tag-re-release","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45975,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45917\/revisions\/45975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}