Eureka! has announced its November 2024 line-up for the UK and North America, which includes gritty crime drama Black Tuesday starring Edward G. Robinson; Richard lester's edge-of-the-seat shipboard thriller Juggernaut (we're especially thrilled about this one), featuring an all-star ensemble cast; a dazzling take on the classic wuxia adventure, The Sword; and three undercover classics from Shaw Brothers collected together in Super Spies and Secret Lies.

BLACK TUESDAY (USA 1954)

Blu-ray | 18 November 2024 | £17.99

Written by Sydney Boehm (The Big Heat) and directed by Hugo Fregonese (Man in the Attic), Black Tuesday is an explosive crime drama starring one of Hollywood’s most beloved tough guys: Edward G. Robinson, the star of Little Caesar, The Last Gangster, I Am the Law and Key Largo.

Vincent Canelli (Robinson) is a violent mobster serving time on Death Row – but he has no intention of going to the electric chair. Following a plan put together by his moll, Hatti (Jean Parker, Dead Man’s Eyes), Canelli orchestrates a jailbreak on the night before his execution and takes several hostages in the process. Canelli is joined by fellow Death Row inmate Peter Manning (Peter Graves, Stalag 17), and hopes to discover the location of a stash of stolen loot Manning hid away before his conviction. But is Manning willing to pay the price for freedom and look the other way as the psychopathic Canelli revels in murder and mayhem?

While the Hollywood gangster movie was at the height of its success in the early 1930s, it resurged in the 1940s and into the next decade as crime pictures found a new popularity in the post-war period. Standing tall alongside Key Largo, White Heat and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Black Tuesday is one of the finest gangster films to emerge from this later cycle – as old-fashioned wiseguys met with film noir sensibilities. The Masters of Cinema series presents this key crime picture of the 1950s on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from an astonishing new restoration.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:

• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K scan of the 35mm fine grains
• Optional English subtitles
• A brand new audio commentary with film noir expert Sergio Angelini, host of the Tipping My Fedora podcast
• From Argentina to Hollywood – a brand new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on director Hugo Fregonese
• No Escape – A brand new video essay by Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City 
• Theatrical trailer
• A collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Black Tuesday by critic Barry Forshaw and film writer Craig Ian Mann
• Limited Edition (2000 copies)

JUGGERNAUT (UK/USA 1974)

Blu-ray | 18 November 2024 | £16.99

Featuring an all-star ensemble cast in Richard Harris (The Guns of Navarone), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs), Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia), Ian Holm (Chariots of Fire), David Hemmings (The Charge of the Light Brigade) and Shirley Knight (The Counterfeit Killer), Juggernaut is an unrelentingly tense suspense thriller directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night, The Three Musketeers).

The cruise liner SS Britannic is travelling through the North Atlantic with over a thousand passengers on board. As the vessel drifts through the vast ocean, its owner – Nicholas Porter (Holm) – receives a call from a man who identifies himself only as “Juggernaut.” The ominous voice on the telephone informs Porter that there are explosives planted aboard the Britannic, and that he will sink the ship at dawn unless a hefty ransom is paid. A race against time then begins as Captain Alex Brunel (Sharif), Royal Navy officer Anthony Fallon (Harris) and police superintendent John McLeod (Hopkins) work together across land and sea in a desperate attempt to avert certain disaster and secure the safety of the ship’s passengers.

Inspired by a real-life bomb threat against the Queen Elizabeth 2 on 17 May 1972 and drawing on a popular taste in the 1970s for taut crime thrillers and disaster movies, Juggernaut is one of the most entertaining and suspenseful British films of the decade. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK from a high-definition restoration.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:

• Limited edition O-card slipcase
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray 
• Optional English subtitles
• Brand new audio commentary with British cinema expert Melanie Williams
• All Hands on Deck – Brand new interview with film historian Neil Sinyard, author of The Films of Richard Lester
• Down with the Ship – Brand new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on Juggernaut and the disaster film 
• Trailer
• Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Juggernaut by British film scholar Laura Mayne
• Limited edition (2000 Copies)

THE SWORD [MING JIAN] (Hong Kong 1980)

Blu-ray | 18 November 2024 | £17.99

Best known as a key contributor to the Hong Kong New Wave as the director of My Heart is That Eternal Rose and the editor of Wong Kar-wai’s Days of Being Wild and Ashes of Time, Patrick Tam began his filmmaking career with The Sword, a love letter to the wuxia genre starring Adam Cheng (Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain).

Believing that he is in possession of a cursed blade, the legendary swordsman Hua Qian Shu (Tien Feng, King Boxer) has retreated from the martial arts world to live in peaceful seclusion. However, his retirement has done nothing to dampen his reputation; a young warrior, Li Mak-jan (Cheng), wishes to challenge the master in order to test his own sword-fighting skill. But as Li searches for the reclusive Hua Qian Shu so that he might face him in combat, he finds himself entangled with old lovers and new rivals. Soon, it becomes apparent that the old master’s sword really might be cursed – and will, perhaps, bring nothing but tragedy to those who seek to wield it.

After a period of dormancy, wuxia films resurged in the 1980s as the likes of Duel to the Death, Bastard Swordsman and Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain rejected the realist approach adopted by kung fu cinema in the previous decade. Eureka Classics presents Patrick Tam’s The Sword – one of the earliest and best pictures to emerge from this wuxia revival – for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK from a brand new 2K restoration.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:

• Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Grégory Sacré (Gokaiju)
• 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray from a brand new 2K restoration
• Original Cantonese audio and optional English dub tracks (original mono presentations)
• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
• New audio commentary by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
• New audio commentary by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
• Andrew Heskins on The Sword – A new interview with film critic Andrew Heskins (easternKicks)
• Forging Ahead – A new interview with martial arts cinema expert Wayne Wong on The Sword and the wuxia genre
• Original theatrical trailer
• A Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring an archival interview with director Patrick Tam and a new essay by East Asian cinema expert Leung Wing-Fai
• Limited edition (2000 copies)

SUPER SPIES AND SECRET LIES

Blu-ray | 18 November 2024 | £24.99

Following the enormous international success of Dr No and From Russia with Love, Bondmania swept the globe and initiated a cycle of Bondsploitation movies. Studios all over the world sought to capitalise on James Bond and the concept of the super-spy – including Hong Kong’s venerable Shaw Brothers, who began producing tales of intrigue, espionage, and grand theft in the mid-1960s. Eureka Classics presents three of their best in this special-edition set: The Golden Buddha [Jin pu sa] (1966), Angel with the Iron Fists [Tie guan yin] (1967) and The Singing Thief [Da dao ge wang] (1969).

In The Golden Buddha, businessman Paul (Paul Chang Chung, Police Story) finds himself in the crosshairs of the Skeleton Gang after he picks up the wrong briefcase on a flight to Singapore – one containing a small golden Buddha that might just play a part in a vast criminal conspiracy. In Angel with the Iron Fists, a mysterious woman (Lily Ho, Lady with a Sword) arrives in Hong Kong carrying a cache of stolen diamonds and quickly becomes embroiled with the infamous Devil Girl's Gang. Finally, in The Singing Thief, a master cat burglar (Jimmy Lin Chong, Tropicana Interlude) makes the decision to go straight and pursue a new career as a singer – that is, at least, until he becomes a suspect in a series of jewel heists.

Directed by studio regulars Lo Wei (The Big Boss) and Chang Cheh (The One-Armed Swordsman), The Golden Buddha, Angel with the Iron Fists and The Singing Thief filter a craze for films centred on super-spies and master criminals through the inimitable style of the Shaw Brothers Studio. All three films are presented on Blu-ray for the first time from HD masters supplied by Celestial Pictures.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:

• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling
• 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures
• Original mono audio tracks
• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
• New audio commentaries by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema
• International Super Spies – A new interview with James Bond expert Llewella Chapman on global Bondmania in the 1960s
• A new interview with Hong Kong cinema scholar Wayne Wong, editor of Martial Arts Studies
• Reversible sleeve featuring individual sleeve artwork for each film
• Original trailers
• A limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on all three films by Iain Robert Smith, author of The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema
• Limited Edition (2000 Copies)