Nico Mastorakis goes Bollywood in the "poor man's ROMANCING THE STONE" comic thriller BLOODSTONE, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

The Bloodstone – a ruby that once belonged to Princess Lafla who died in an accident in the eleventh century and whose father cursed the jewel to bring happiness to those with goodness in their hearts and disaster to those with evil in their minds – has disappeared from a British museum. The thief Paul Lorre (Jack Kehler, THE BIG LEBOWSKI) is not as clever as he thinks, however, as the police in the form of bumbling Inspector Ramesh (SILK STALKINGS' Charlie Brill) and long-suffering Inspector Maniam (Dhanushkodi) are waiting to intercept him before he can get the jewel to wealthy "collector" Van Hoeven (Christopher Neame, HELLBOUND) in Bangalore. Lorre slips the ruby into the baggage of an American honeymooning couple – ex-cop Sandy (Brett Stimely, CANNIBAL WOMEN IN THE AVOCADO JUNGLE OF DEATH) and textile heiress Stephanie (Anna Nicholas, HOT RESORT) – who make short work of the thugs Van Hoeven sends after them even though they have no idea what they men want. Little do they all know that the ruby has fallen out of their bag into the trunk of shifty cab driver Shyam (Bollywood superstar Rajinikanth) who wants to become wealthy "by Indian standards" but must team up with Sandy when Stephanie is kidnapped by Van Hoeven.

Boasting some scenic free production value in the teaming India cities, countryside, and the use throughout of the striking Bangalore Palace, BLOODSTONE should be a breezy little comic adventure, but it ends up being quite a slog. Neame is underused until the climax, Brill is supremely unfunny as a "brownface" Inspector Clouseau clone (he even takes a pratfall by leaning on a spinning globe), and Stimely's square-jawed hero is played too straight to be funny or charismatic (it does not help that Stimely's entire performance is redubbed), with only Rajinikanth and Kehler being remotely entertaining. The first hour is pretty much going through the motions of stalking, pursuit, and missed connections, as well as the usual market chases and knocked over fruit carts. Things pick up in the third act with a botched exchange set against the incredibly picturesque and perilous-looking Banglore waterfalls, the banter between hostage Stephanie and host/captor Van Hoeven, and the climactic action. The curse of the ruby fails to bite anyone in the behind at the end, and the film concludes with a dreadful theme song. Director Dwight H. Little later helmed HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS, the Robert Englund version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for Menahem Golan's 21st Century Film Corporation, Steven Segal's MARKED FOR DEATH, and more recently episodic genre television like NIKITA, SCORPION, and BONES. Mastorakis' co-producer was Ashok Amritraj who hopped on the DTV erotic thriller bandwagon of the late eighties and early nineties with NIGHT EYES series and several non-series titles including TROPICAL HEAT which was shot in India.

Released direct-to-video in the U.S. by Forum Home Video (SCARECROWS, EDGE OF THE AXE), BLOODSTONE was one of several Mastorakis films to end up on budget DVD from Simitar Entertainment at the dawn of the format utilizing the existing tape master before Mastorakis remastered the film and it was reissued by Image Entertainment in an anamorphic transfer. Arrow Video's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a brand new 4K restoration that looks beautiful for the most part with vivid greenery, saturated colors in the wardrobe and décor, and detail that enhances ones appreciation of the location shoot. There are some flaws originating with the original photography, like some underexposed night and backlit scenes where blacks get a little noisy or milky but the film looks better than it has before. Audio options include an LPCM 2.0 stereo rendering of the Ultra Stereo soundtrack and a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track from the remix created back in 2003 for the original digital remaster. Mastorakis – who had a hand in the post-production mixing – always fully exploited Dolby Stereo and Ultra Stereo, and the mix is pretty busy throughout, with the discrete surround version seeming to have a bit more depth than the matrixed option. Optional English SDH and Greek subtitles are included.

Michael Felsher moderates a new audio commentary by director Little who discusses his earlier credits in television, documentaries, and second unit, landing his directorial debut in KGB: THE SECRET WAR for producer Sandy Howard who offered him the opportunity after seeing the title sequence he shot for TRIUMPHS OF A MAN CALLED HORSE. He landed BLOODSTONE because he was a non-union director, and mentions that he got HALLOWEEN 4 because producer Moustapha Akkad wanted to shoot a film in India and wanted to hear about his experiences. Little discusses the challenge of casting non-union actors for the American roles, working with Rajinikanth who was followed to every location by fans and onlookers (his presence in the film lead to multiple promotional events in India during the production), and the challenge of working with dual American and Indian crews including two production manages, two assistant directors, the difficulty of keeping in contact with Mastorakis who was in Los Angeles the entire time, and his safety concerns about the stunt shoot. Felsher reveals that David Soul (SALEM'S LOT) redubbed Stimely's entire performance (Soul would make a special appearance in Mastorakis' IN THE COLD OF THE NIGHT two years later), and Little reveals that he had nothing to do with the film's post-production mixing.

A second audio commentary by film journalist Bryan Reesman seems at first to be filler, but Reesman extensively interviewed both Nicholas and Kehler in preparing the track and relates a lot of their experiences including Nicholas' hellish forty-hour trip from Los Angeles to Bangalore or Kehler taking a day off to see the Taj Mahal and returning only to discover that the production had pulled up stakes and relocated without telling him because of a strike where they were shooting. He also provides background on some of the other performers, including Stimely who first film role was in BLOODSTONE but had had an extensive commercial career in Europe before it and later credits in soap operas, playing John F. Kennedy four times in large mainstream films (including TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON), and more recently produced, adapted, and starred in the award-winning Ray Bradbury adaptation KALEIDOSCOPE. There is some filler here, with some information on the Indian locations and how they look today, but overall it makes up for the lack of involvement from any of the cast.

While the Image DVD had the first section of the multi-part "The Films of Nico Mastorakis" self-produced documentary, Arrow has already included the entire two-and-a-half-hour video piece as an extra on their release of ISLAND OF DEATH. Mastorakis instead appears here in the "selfie interview" "Keeping It to Myself" (28:31) that has some iffy video quality during the self-filmed interview but is worth enduring because Mastorakis dug out a bunch of outtake footage from the U-matic video dailies. He recalls being in production on GLITCH when the opportunity came to make film in India through Indian distributor Sunanda Murali Manohar who had a hit with Mastorakis' SKY HIGH with the promise of American girls in bikinis for the Indian audience. Mastorakis recalls starting pre-production during break periods on GLITCH, working with Little and casting the American roles, and the difficulty of keeping up to date through Telex and not getting to see the dailies until a week after the shooting days. He speaks warmly of the cast, including redubbed Stimely – whose house he would use as a location years later on .COM FOR MURDER – getting Soul through his then-wife and GLITCH star Julia Nickson, bringing in American girls for Van Hooeven's harem including Laura Albert (THE UNNAMABLE) and Marjean Holden (NEMESIS), as well as bringing Rajinikanth to the United States to redub his performance with the help of a dialogue coach.