For those of you unfamiliar with Come Drink With Me, it was produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers Studios, and one of the first to use martial arts after a long period of swordplay films influenced by Japan's samurai genre. Seldom seen in the United States, it nonetheless may be the most influential martial arts film of all time. Cheng Pei-Pei, the villainess of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, stars as a fierce warrior out to rescue her kidnapped brother from an unscrupulous gang. While not the first film to feature martial arts, Hu's stylish epic was among the first to marry Eastern fighting styles with Western cinematic conventions. Come Drink With Me also helped to firmly establish women as key heroic figures. The result was a film so influential, its shadows is cast over such contemporary classics as Crouching Tiger, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers.

When my copy of Come Drink With Me arrived, I was like a giddy school girl as I thought about how I was finally going to be able to retire my well-worn VHS bootleg. Sadly, my excitement was to be short-lived, and I quickly began to fear something was amiss at the first glance of the disc's poor packaging. To their credit, Cine Vu has put together a package that almost looks like something you'd find with a legitimate release. Unfortunately, the out-of-focus screen grabs on the front of the DVD case offer a warning of what awaits. On the back of the case you get misspelled words, poor grammar, and such a lack of quality that you can't help but wonder if a lobotomized monkey put this packaging together.

And then you get to the disc itself. Now, I don't know if it was just what they sent me, or if this is what the folks at Cine Vu are actually peddling, but I expect more than a burned DVD-R when I'm buying a legit title. But that's what I got, a DVD-R!!! Can you believe that?!?

Video:
Come Drink With Me is presented in widescreen, but make sure you set up your player for 16.9, otherwise you'll be watching a distorted image. Of course, setting up for 16.9 causes a loss in image quality (or at least it did with my disc). Overall, the picture is quality is decent, with a slightly cleaner image than the bootleg VHS I've been watching for years. But this certainly is not some remastered, pristine print.

Audio:
Come Drink With Me is presented in Dolby 5.1 surround sound with a language track that I believe is Mandarin. There are relatively small (not to mention poorly translated) English subtitles that share the screen with Chinese subtitles as well.

Extras:
You're kidding, right?

Final Thoughts:
This is nothing better than a bootleg. Diehard fans may want to swap out their VHS copies, the improvement will be negligible. Likewise, those who have never seen Come Drink With Me should check it out. If you can find a place that has this title for rental, feel free to have at. But give it some serious thought before you decide you plunk down your hard-earned cash to buy this film. In the meantime, I think we'd all be better served if we crossed our fingers and hoped for a better, more legitimate release at some time in the future.