Ultimate Dolph

Can anyone tell me when these two films are released in the uk?
I have looked on ebay and Amazon to see if I can these films and it seems they are not out yet.

the defender is at blockbusters (rental only im afraid), and us poor brits wont get to see retrograde just yet unless we want to mail order from abroad. i now just where your coming from.

Seagal churns out crappy DVD after crappy DVD in the UK (although, respect to Urban Justice), but Dolph gets hardly any releases. No DVDs for anything past Universal Soldier up Til Bridge of Dragons, Last Patrol, and Sweepers, then nothing til Direct Action and Detention - and even then rental only - and then nothing again. That's why i think it's odd to push MM now, especially after mechanik was passed over. Does anybody think they will release that if MM is a success?

The bad UK distribution in the UK has always been beyond me, even when Dolph had theatrical releases (UK must be one of the only markets where Red Scorpion was DTV, and The Punisher and Dark Angel were not wide enough so it didn't make as much as it could have, on the other hand I heard MOTU did good business there)...

And yet the UK fan base seems pretty strong, and the site gets many visitors from there...

Unless "The Defender" and "The Mechanik" are held for legal issues I hope MM will open the door for their releases (if Lionsgate UK has room to unleash Nu Image's Black Hole then there should be room for a bloody Mechanik!)...

(PS you can get The Peacekeeper and Hidden agenda too on British discs, although it's full screen, and I guess an ex-rental copy of Storm Catcher, but yeah this like famine...)

It's tricky to get hold of them, to be sure. I mean, so far i have most of the ones released aside from rental only films (Hidden Agenda and Stormcatcher are impossible these days); A lot of them have changed distributors since the days of rental VHS. Silent Trigger, Agent Red, and Jill Rips were all under Hollywood Video, a section of Buena Vista and Disney, which they discontinued. So I can understand why they fall through the cracks. However, a number of earlier titles (Men Of War, Joshua Tree, etc ) were under EIV in the UK, who keep the rights to all their old films (they are currently rereleasing 80's/90's films like Death Machine, Star Kid, Space Truckers and Slipstream, never huge titles in their day. So THAT'S wierd. And also, Defender and The Mechanik are distributed by Sony, who keep the rights for generally all major territories.
It's just odd, thats all. I'm a HUGE Dolph fan, always have been, yet I'm STILL to see Agent Red, Defender and Identity. Very poor.

Jox wrote:you can get The Peacekeeper and Hidden agenda too on British discs, although it's full screen

I wouldn't call it full screen. My screen has two thick bars on the sides when I play those DVDs.

I've only just begun dipping my toe into the world of import DVD, so I'm a novice when it comes to some unreleased and limited release Dolph titles, so am wondering what true opinions of a few more obscure and little seen in uk films are ( as IMDB and DVDcompare aren't exactly the last word in recommendations);

Agent Red
Retrograde
Defender
Diamond Dogs

Also, what is the recommended DVD versions of these?

Many Thanks!

Well first of I suggest you take a look at my sheet here
http://gmrmedia.com/dolph/dolph-in/dvd2.html
it might not be the most comprehensive but yet it lists the best editions of Dolph movies. Editions here will be listed either on their technical or extras features merits, usually both.

So otherwise I say
- Agent Red US region 1 DVD (make sure it's the one with audio commentary because I believe another cheaper version came out later)

- Retrograde Region 2 you can go for either German, Dutch, (both easily findable on ebay or amazon), Japanese or French (although this one's less easy to find)

-The Defender Region 1 US (original aspect ratio but not 16/9), or Region 2 German, French, Greek, Italian...

- Diamond Dogs Region 2 German

if you need more help finding these you can ask, I tracked and imported DVDs from all over the world!

WOW! Comprehensive...!

Many thanks for that, I'm also worried about quality. Apparently Retrograde is quite poor, but i'll give it a shot. However, Agent Red get's such a bad rap, apparently it's the worst action film ever made (according to IMDB...lol) surely it cant be THAT bad? If it IS, though, i don't want it!!!

Strange one this but if you have a large Tesco near you they are selling Storm Catcher on dvd for £3.

Geoff wrote:Strange one this but if you have a large Tesco near you they are selling Storm Catcher on dvd for £3.

They also used to have BOD and Sweepers in the 97p specials.

Retrograde was a failure despite its good intentions and partly due to bad circumstances and unscrupulous producers, Agent Red is indeed one of the worst movies (imagine a really bad Under Siege or watch Counter Measure with Dudikoff and think it's the same in much worse even), and as for Diamond Dogs is failure too (I'd wait to see if there isn't a new version coming though).

So if you really want quality only, I'd just get The Defender out of those four...

I also have a question Jox, is DD likely to come out on Region 1 US dvd in the near/distant future? Thanks

Well Sony picked up distribution rights for US territory, so unless they want to loose money on it (which sometimes distributors do!) they should release it at some point but when is a still a mystery to me... (if you want my opinion I don't think it would be good to have it out soon after MM)

Okay, thanks