This film has everything going for it except the actual quality of the film stock it was shot on. I feel if this film was shot on the same quality film as contemporary hollywood films of the time, it would have been far less under rated. Even films such as 7 Deadly Venoms and Drunken Master had better film stock quality than this. The camera is also out of focus in some scenes which makes it come accross as blurry.
What do fans on this film think? Maybe I'm wrong and this was a huge international hit and a very successful in the marital arts niche in the USA. However I can't help to feel it's underrated because of the reasons stated above.
Well, films that are only available in bad quality (scratched print copy, faded colors, duplicate of a duplicate scanned and put on DVD etc.) are always a bit underrated I think.
A 35mm restoration of this film on Blu-ray (as long as they have the original negative or 1st or 2nd generation film elements) could look very good, perfect sharpness, right colors and contrast, damages could be eliminated thanks to digital movie restoration programmes.
The Shaw Brothers Kung Fu film restorations by Celestial Pictures are great for example, the films looks almost like new ones.
According to the disclaimer on the official DVD release, the original 35MM print is very badly damaged. And even after they restored it as best as they could it still doesn't look very good.
I think the way it looks on the DVD will be the best it ever will.
Yeah that is ultimately what I'm saying. The film could achieve a rebirth in the digital age, but because of the poor quality stock (aka existing film print) it can't do so till it get's remastered. I still have a feeling that the original stock wasn't so good, and the out of focus photography won't be fixed by a remaster. Drunken Master, Enter the Dragon still looked way better than this on old worn VHS tapes.
To any BluRay/DVD distribution company: please release No Retreat No Surrender sequels on BluRay!