Before the awarding-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi made him a household name, Ang Lee was known for a trilogy of Taiwanese films, two of which were back-to-back Best Foreign Film Oscar nominees. The first of the trilogy, 1992’s Pushing Hands, about a Chinese tai chi master who comes to America to live with his son’s family, was not released in the U.S. until 1995, after the success of the first two.

Sihung Lung, who played the tai chi master in Pushing Hands also played the father of the protagonist in 1993’s The Wedding Banquet and the father of three women in 1994’s Eat Drink Man Woman, for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor. Eat Drink Man Woman has been given a brand new Blu-ray upgrade by Kino Lorber.

Taking place in modern Taipei, Lung plays a master chef who has lost his taste for food but still has what it takes to cook scrumptious elaborate meals at a large restaurant and to prepare Sunday dinner for his three unmarried daughters still living at home. The film follows the lives of Lung, his three daughters and a family friend, her mother and her daughter. During the course of the film, three of the four main characters will enter into happy marriages and the fourth will find contentment in the single life. Despite their differences, they will remain united in their love for food. Like the ending of The Wedding Banquet in which Lung’s character provides a major surprise, his character pulls off quite the surprise at the climactic dinner in Eat Drink Man Woman. It’s good to have this early Ang Lee treasure on Blu-ray. Now, where is The Wedding Banquet, an equally brilliant early achievement that belongs on Blu-ray?

Before he became an even bigger name with The French Connection and The Exorcist, William Friedkin made his mark with The Night They Raided Minsky’s and The Boys in the Band. The latter has pretty much fallen out of favor, though is still a remarkable piece of filmmaking in need of a Blu-ray upgrade. Instead, Kino Lorber has given us The Night They Raided Minsky’s, a flawed work that certainly looks and sounds good on Blu-ray, but isn’t really worthy of the upgrade.

The film winks at the old-time burlesque of 1925 New York without showing why we should care about it. Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom have one good song and dance number as comedians whose livelihood is in jeopardy, but most of their routines are repetitious and boring. Britt Eklund, who was nobody’s idea of naïve or Amish, plays a naïve Amish girl who accidentally invents the striptease. Only veteran Bert Lahr seems to have a real grasp of the material. Unfortunately he died during filming and most of his intended scenes were cut. The film has a good newsreel opening narrated by Rudy Vallee, but it all goes downhill from there.

Reaching further back in time, Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray upgrade of Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 film Hester Street features a lovely Oscar nominated performance by Carol Kane as an 1896 Russian Jewish immigrant. Centering on characterization, rather than plot, the film tells the simple story of a couple who were separated for several years when the husband left for the United States while his wife and son stayed behind. Reunited now, they find they have little in common. Fine performances are turned in by Steven Keats as the straying husband, Dorrie Kavanaugh as his new girlfriend, Mel Howard as the couple’s boarder, Paul Freedman as their son, and Doris Roberts as their landlady, but Kane is the standout.

Mill Creek has released stunning Blu-ray editions of Orson Welles’1947 film The Lady from Shanghai and Laslo Benedek’s 1953 film The Wild One.

The 4k restoration of The Lady from Shanghai is a big improvement over TCM’s recent release, albeit lacking the many extras that were featured in that two disc release. Welles and his then-wife Rita Hayworth starred in their only film together. The hall of mirrors finale remains the high point of this classic film noir.

The motorcycle gang melodrama, The Wild One, is making its U.S. Blu-ray debut. Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy and Lee Marvin co-star.

Shout Factory has released individual Blu-ray selections of Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, two of the sixteen films included in last year’s 16-film Herzog: The Collection.

Aguirre, about the self-proclaimed Wrath of God, was first released in West Germany in 1972, but didn’t reach the U.S. until 1977. Aguirre was a ruthless and insane conquistador who led a mid-16th Century expedition down the Amazon in search of El Dorado, the lost city of gold. The film, best known for its marvelous cinematography, features some excellent supporting performances, but Klaus Kinski as Aguirre doesn’t so much act as strike poses. He doesn’t, however, detract from the overall enjoyment of the film.

Released ten years later, the multi-award-winning Fitzcarraldo is Herzog’s masterpiece featuring a truly outstanding performance from Kinski as rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, called “Fitzcarraldo” by the Peruvian natives.

Fitzcarraldo is an obsessed opera lover who is determined to build an opera house in the middle of the rain forest and invite Enrico Caruso to sing at its opening. The film chronicles his efforts to move the marble and tiles needed to build it via riverboat. When the riverboat can’t make it all the way downstream, the local Indians help him carry it over a small mountain. The film, co-starring Claudia Cardinale, is Herzog’s ode to obsession. Both he and the film won awards at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

Criterion has provided a Blu-ray release of Robert Montgomery’s Ride the Pink Horse, long a hold-out on home video of any kind. An unusual film noir, Montgomery, who stars as well as directs, is a hard-nosed World War II veteran who comes to Santa Fe, New Mexico to confront his friend’s killer and ends up almost dead himself. Forced to rely on others, the film makes unusual for 1947 heroes out of a young Indian girl (Wanda Hendrix) and a Mexican bar owner (Thomas Gomez in an Oscar-nominated performance). This one was well worth the wait.

This week’s new releases include Unbroken and Into the Woods.