The Protector (威龍猛探) is a 1985 live-action theatrical United States/Hong Kong film directed and written by James Glickenhaus, and produced by Leonard Ho and David Chan, with distribution by Golden Harvest. The film starred Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello, Moon Lee Choi-Fung, Roy Chiao, Peter Yang Kwan, and Sally Yeh, with screenplay writer Edward Tang (for the Hong Kong cut), and music composed by Ken Thorne. The film was theatrically released in July 1985 for Hong Kong, a month prior in Japan and a month later in the United States.
Background:
“After the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman’s daughter, maverick New York City cops Billy Wong (Jackie Chan) and Danny Garoni (Danny Aiello) are sent to garner leads in Hong Kong, but the pair find themselves beset by the local police and crime boss, Harold Ko (Roy Chiao) who will stop at nothing in ensuring the continuity of his drug empire.”
Plot Synopsis via 88 Films, May 2026.
Before I got into Asian Cinema, I was familiar with Jackie Chan because of his career in Hollywood. Films like Around the World in 80 Days and The Tuxedo were ones that I watched first as well as being aware of his roles in both Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. It’s why visiting his catalogue through these UK releases have been a delight, because it’s discovering a whole bunch of hidden gems especially from his Hong Kong background.
The Protector was not Jackie Chan’s first entry into appealing towards the international market. He previously starred in Battle Creek Brawl, which wasn’t a massive success in the box office, and appeared alongside other Hollywood actors in The Cannonball Run films. It was more notable of the bunch due to being different in style to his previous entries. The film doesn’t feature many martial art action scenes but instead traditional police shootouts which are fine, but what sells the film to me was the buddy cop angle between Jackie Chan and Danny Aiello which was pretty good. There’s heavy amounts of nudity and a lot of swearing which was likely done to make it more appealing to the international audience.
The first time I watched The Protector was from 88 Films’ previous Blu-ray release released in November 2019, which was one of the first films in the 88 Asia range where the distributor took authoring and quality control more seriously as the other releases like Crime Story and Dragons Forever were gaining attention from the UK community. In that release I focused on the US/International cut which is the main version of the film, spoken in English as it was the main target audience. Jackie’s English was pretty good but you can tell he was still learning as the other English actors lines were more natural and faster.
I rewatched The Protector once again thanks to the 4K restoration that 88 Films delivered and the presentation has aged really well. Even if the film has faults, it looks really good and the action was still fun to watch. For a film aimed for the international audience I did think it was weird to simply bring the setting back to Hong Kong for most of the film though.
I was unaware of how long the production was, because according to the essay included in this release, the film was announced in 1981 and took years to make progress due to the script and finding the right director for the position. Jackie in the meantime was working on numerous projects in-between with Golden Harvest. I did know that Jackie also re-edited the film for the Hong Kong audience, because he wasn’t happy with the end product for the US/International cut. The Hong Kong version introduces a new sub-plot (with Sally Yeh joining the cast) and removes all of the nudity scenes.
Regardless, I think it’s great that a release like this preserves both versions as well as the Japanese extended cut that adds more footage, so that audiences can explore different ways to experience the film and they can pick and choose which one they prefer. In the end, the essay in this set concluded that the experience Jackie had with this film helped support the Police Story & Project A films which is nice to see.
Deluxe Limited Edition Contents:
88 Films released The Protector before in a first-print edition packaging years back, but with the 4K Ultra HD release they went with the deluxe limited edition packaging that offers more for the fans of the film. Because I pre-ordered the set from 88 Films’ online store, they also included an o-card slipcase that features two original US artworks (one of which was used as the front cover of the previous Blu-ray release before it was reprinted using the illustrated artwork).
This deluxe limited edition release is presented with a rigid box showcasing newly illustrated artwork by Sean Longmore, a 4K Ultra HD Amaray case housing the discs, a double-sided poster featuring newly illustrated artwork and the original Hong Kong poster artwork, and an 80-page perfect-bound book featuring two write-ups. The articles covered are ‘I fell in Love with Movies: An Interview with Cinematographer Henry Chung’ by Thorsten Boose, and ‘Gimme the F-king Camera: Cut, Protect, Repeat!’ by Will Blaik and Thorsten Boose.
The box art is clean with no ratings/information on all sides (except for one of the sides of the o-card slipcase which has the BBFC rating). The artwork on the Amaray cases (both covers) do include information and specs on the back. The deluxe limited edition 4K Ultra HD release retailed for £39.99 SRP, and the previously released Blu-ray from years ago is still available (but is based on the 2K restoration). A standard edition 4K Ultra HD release will likely appear once this deluxe limited edition sells out.
I pre-ordered this alongside The Amsterdam Kill and God of Gamblers II from the 88 Films store.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Slipcase featuring illustrated artwork by Sean Longmore
- O-Card Slipcase featuring original US theatrical artworks (88 Films Store Exclusive)
- 4K Amaray case packaging
- Double-sided fold-out Poster
- 80-page illustrated book featuring new and archive articles by Will Blaik & Thorsten Boose
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: 88 Films
Released: 4th May 2026
The deluxe limited edition release for The Protector contains the film on two 4K Ultra HD discs and two Blu-ray discs. All the discs were encoded and authored by MJM Multimedia on behalf of 88 Films.
The previous 88 Films Blu-ray release was based on a 2K restoration, but here we have a brand new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negatives for not just the 95 min original US/International cut but also for the 92 min Hong Kong cut (which is Jackie Chan’s personal edit) and 97 min Japanese extended cut, the latter of which was previously not featured in the older release.
The first 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray discs are focused on the US/International cut, which is presented in English audio with optional English SDH subtitles. The second discs are focused on the Hong Kong cut, which is presented in Cantonese audio with optional English subtitles, and the Japanese Extended cut, presented in English audio only.
The 4K Ultra HD discs feature Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range. The white subtitles are unlockable during playback and the 4K Ultra HD disc is playable to 4K players of any region. The regions for the Blu-ray disc however are locked to players set to B.
4K Ultra HD Specs:
| Languages | US/International Cut & Japanese Cut: English Hong Kong Cut: Cantonese |
| Audio | US/International Cut: English Linear PCM 2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Hong Kong Cut: Cantonese Linear PCM 2.0 Japanese Cut: English Linear PCM 2.0 |
| Video | 2160p Ultra High Definition format 1.85:1 aspect ratio Dolby Vision HDR |
| Region | All Region |
| Subtitles | US/International Cut: English SDH Hong Kong Cut: English Japanese Cut: None Available |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 2 BD-100s |
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | US/International Cut & Japanese Extended Cut: English Hong Kong Cut: Cantonese |
| Audio | US/International Cut: English Linear PCM 2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Hong Kong Cut: Cantonese Linear PCM 2.0 Japanese Cut: English Linear PCM 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition format 1.85:1 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | US/International Cut: English SDH Hong Kong Cut: English Japanese Cut: None Available |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 2 BD-50s |
4K Ultra HD On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 2: Hong Kong & Japanese Cuts
- Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng & F.J. Desanto (Hong Kong Cut)
- Audio Commentary by George Clarke & Mike Leeder (Hong Kong Cut)
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 1: US/International cut
- Mars Cheung on The Protector (15:46 runtime)
- Hard Edge: Interview with Writer/Director James Glickenhaus (24:23 runtime)
- Follow the Puck: Interview with Cinematographer Mark Irwin (33:45 runtime)
- A Tale of 2 Movies with Steve Lawson: A Side-by-Side Comparison of the HK Cut and the US Cut of the Film (18:21 runtime)
- Hong Kong Teaser (05:12 runtime)
- Hong Kong Trailer (04:06 runtime)
- International Trailer (03:58 runtime)
- Japanese TV Spot (00:26 runtime)
- Japanese Trailer (01:21 runtime)
Disc 2: Hong Kong & Japanese Cuts
- Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng & F.J. Desanto (Hong Kong Cut)
- Audio Commentary by George Clarke & Mike Leeder (Hong Kong Cut)
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
The Protector is available to purchase on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray by 88 Films in the United Kingdom.
The deluxe limited edition 4K Ultra HD release can be purchased across different retailers including 88 Films, Amazon UK, HMV, Terracotta Distribution and Zavvi.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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