On Blu-ray This Week: May 26 to June 1

This week’s batch of releases for your Blu-ray home entertainment systems spell out action in big, bold, and bullet ridden letters. John Rambo’s in the spotlight and you know how most of his stories go: lots of bullets, arrows, and explosions. This week’s release also has the first two Dragon Ball Z movies, The Air I Breathe, martial arts flick Dragon Tiger Gate, and an operetta by Johann Strauss II. Click the link below for more info.

If you like action, martial arts, and overall manliness, then this week’s Blu-ray releases is for you. Last week’s central theme was all things Nicholas Cage, this week’s main man is Rambo. Yes, dear readers. It’s the one man army who was on the big screen even before Robert Downey Jr. donned the Iron Man suit.

Joining Rambo on this week’s batch are two more muscle men, Son Goku of the Dragonball Z series and the Wong Brothers of Dragon Tiger Gate. We also have the four emotions in crime flick The Air I Breathe (Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love) and Johann Strauss II’s operetta about a bat.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the titles, shall we?

  

Most gamers know the Saiyans and the other muscle bound denizens of Akira Toriyama‘s Dragon Ball universe and well, they all started in an old school anime. In this week’s batch of goodness for your Blu-ray home entertainment systems, the first two movies of the series get a bundle.

The first movie, Dead Zone, centers on the group battling against the evil Garlic Jr. after his gathers the Dragon Balls and inadvertently kidnaps Gohan. (Of course, Goku comes to the rescue.) In the second movie, another evil arises called Dr. Wheelo. Basically, he needs a body to transfer his brain into and decides that only the strongest person’s body would suit his purposes. Of course, that spells trouble for Goku and the others.

Dragon Tiger Gate is a tale of two bothers who, in a twist of fate, get separated. Dragon is an expert in hand to hand combat while Tiger prefers using his feet and legs. If you’re a martial arts movie afficionado, you’d know that trouble is bound to brew when a triad and lots of gangs are concerned.

He’s armed to the pinkies, has uber manly long locks and crazy crossbow/bow skills. John Rambo is a veteran soldier who basically is a one man army. In the first movie, Rambo suffers from a bad case of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and goes up against a town’s sheriff’s department. You probably know what happens next: State Patrol and the National Guard were called in and the rest is history.

The second movie in the series has Rambo going on a seemingly suicide mission to rescue POWs in Vietnam, while the third movie features him going on another solo mission to save his commanding officer, Col. Trautman. In the most recent flick, Rambo takes up the bow once again to rescue a group of missionaries from the Burmese Army. He truly lives up to the tagline: Heroes never die… They just reload.

Anyway, the other flicks in this batch of Blu-ray movies are pretty notable as well, with The Air I Breathe’s star-studded cast and the comedic revenge story of Die Fledermaus. Here’s the complete list of releases for this week:

• Rambo (Lionsgate Films)
• Rambo 1-3 Box Set (Lionsgate Films)
• Rambo: First Blood Part II (Lionsgate Films)
• Rambo III (Lionsgate Films)
• Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone / The World’s Strongest (FUNimation Entertainment)
• The Air I Breathe (Image Entertainment)
• Dragon Tiger Gate (Tai Seng)
• Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (The Bat) (Opus Arte)