Human Lanterns

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This special limited edition 2-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray set comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Wes Benscoter), includes a 40-page perfect bound book and is limited to 8,000 units. It is only available on our website and at select indie retailers. Absolutely no major retailers will be stocking them.

Equally wealthy Master Tan and Master Lung are both competing to be honored at the upcoming festival of lanterns. When Tan presents Lung with his ornately crafted lantern, Lung realizes that to best his rival, he must create an even more beautiful lantern. Lung engages the strange craftsman Chao Fang, imploring him to create the most sensational lantern ever seen. Fang agrees on the condition that his work be conducted in complete secrecy. Soon, panic sets in throughout the region as beautiful young women start to go missing, their skinned corpses discovered thereafter. Is Chao Fang, in fact, a deranged maniac, or has an even more diabolical plot been put into effect?

A cornerstone film in the Shaw Brothers’ unique approach in combining traditional wuxia and kung-fu filmmaking tropes with incredibly bloody, weird, and stylish 1980s horror, prolific director Chung Sun’s (Revenge of the Corpse) notorious 1982 shocker HUMAN LANTERNS takes grisly brutality to new heights as its squirm-inducing ‘skin peeling’ sequences still have the power to shock more than 40 years later. Starring action superstars Tony Liu (The Way of the Dragon), Chen Kuan-Tai (The Man with the Iron Fists), and Lo Lieh (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin) and featuring stunningly colorful scope photography by An-Sung Tsao (Sex Beyond the Grave), Vinegar Syndrome is delighted to bring this one-of-a-kind thriller to 4K UHD, newly and exclusively restored from its original camera negative and presented in its longest and most complete version ever on video, including extended gore sequences never before available on disc, along with a never-on-video alternate ending present only in the Cantonese export version!

directed by: Chung Sun
starring: Tony Liu, Chen Kuan-Tai, Lo Lieh, Ni Tien, Linda Chu, Hsiu-Chun Lin, Meng Lo, Chien Sun, Fei Ai, Susan Yam-Yam Shaw
1982 / 100 min / 2.35:1 / Mandarin, Cantonese Mono

Additional info:

• 2-disc Set: 4K Ultra HD / Region A Blu-ray
• 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
• Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
• Presented in its uncensored original Mandarin-language version, never before released on video, alongside a Cantonese-dubbed version featuring an alternate, shockingly different ending, also never before released on video. Both versions include newly translated English subtitles.
• Commentary with film historian Samm Deighan
• Commentary with Kenneth Brorsson and Phil Gillon of the Podcast on Fire Network
• "The End Justifies the Means" (24 min) - an interview with actor Lau Wing (courtesy of Arnaud Lanuque)
• "A Fairy in Hell" (15 min) - an interview with actress Linda Chu (courtesy of Arnaud Lanuque)
• "A Shaw Story" (14 min) - an interview with actress Susan Shaw (courtesy of Frédéric Ambroisine)
• "A Skinning Team: Peeling Back the Layers of Action" (10 min) - a new video essay by film programmer Kenji McGuire
• Trailer
• 40-page perfect-bound book with writing by Hsieh Chia-chin, Keith Allison, and Erica Shultz (limited edition only)
• Reversible sleeve artwork
• Newly translated English subtitles