The Nightwatch Collection (Denmark, 1994, 2023, Arrow Video, 2 Blu-rays, NR, 226 min.). In his breakout role, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays a law student who starts working as a night watchman at The Department of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen in “Nightwatch” (1994, 107 min.). Meanwhile, his mad best friend gets him into a game of dare with no limits that escalates. Work is already creepy, what with the morgue and room containing body parts, but then a serial-killer's sex worker victims start piling up and he becomes a suspect.

Coster-Waldau (“Oblivion,” “Gods of Egypt,” TV’s “Game of Thrones”) plays Martin in writer-director Ole Bornedal’s exceptionally tense thriller. Martin is dating Kalinka (Sofie Gråbøl of TV’s “The Killing”). His best friend is Jens (Kim Bodnia of “Pusher,” TV’s “The Bridge”), a fellow law student who sets up the no-limits challenge – with the loser having to marry their girlfriend, which they would probably end up doing anyway though. Jens is dating Lotte (Lotte Andersen of “Oh Happy Day”).

Martin took the night watchman job figuring it would be easy money and he could study during his hours on duty, but he is extremely frightened of going through the morgue to key in his visit. Also, the former watchman, during their tour of the facility, tells him some disturbing details, such that his breath will become worse the longer he works there and that a previous watchman used to have sex with the corpses. In the morgue, there are pulls above the corpses that, should they mistakenly still be alive, the victims can yank, setting off a red alarm in the nightwatch office.

One night as the four friends are out drinking, the two girlfriends are subject to sexual harassment by two men, so Martin dares Jens to confront the duo, which he does, but not too successfully. Jens has told Martin he picked up a 17-year-old sex worker at a bus stop and he now dares Martin to also have sex with her. Importantly, Jens told the girl (Rikke Louise Andersson as Joyce) that his name was Martin.

Martin accepts the dare and Jens arranges a restaurant dinner, but he has paid Joyce to have sex with Martin, as Jens, during the dinner. In the restaurant encounter, the real Jens is very demeaning to Joyce, but Joyce reveals a friend of hers was a victim of the serial killer and she had to identify the body.

While there are bits of fun – Martin twirling around in his chair and arm dancing to music at work – the dark edge is always near. Martin seems befriended by the police detective (Ulf Pilgaard of “Body Switch,” “The Candidate” as Peter Wörmer) investigating the serial killer. He even tells Martin the unreported detail that the killer scalps his victims.

Among the highlights are the time the red warning light goes off, Martin seeing bloody footprints leading to a sitting corpse at work (still not sure whether it was real or an illusion), a murder victim’s feet becoming more and more bloody, and the exciting, suspenseful ending, when the killer has three of the leads immobilized.

Extras include audio commentary by Bornedal; a making-of featurette (28:13): a new interview with cinematographer Dan Laustsen (16:56); and an appreciation of both films by film critic and Nordic Noir specialist Barry Forshaw (14:09). The film was remade in 1997 with Ewan McGregor and Nick Nolte as the stars.

The second film is the sequel, “Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever” (2003, 117 min.), which is all about the aftereffects of the first film. The film again is written and directed by Bornedal, and is set 30 years later.

Martin (Coster-Waldau) is a shell of his former self, particularly after his wife Kalinka has hanged herself due to the weight of the previous film’s events. Martin has a daughter (Fanny Leander Bornedal, the director’s daughter, of “Journal 64,” TV’s “Carmen Curlers” as Emma), who is studying medicine and takes the same nightwatch job Martin had at the same institute. Meanwhile, married Jens and Lotte have split, with Jens moving to Thailand.

Going through her mother’s things, Emma finds newspaper articles full of information about the serial killer and Martin’s part in the investigation. She decides to bluff her way into seeing the killer, who is now blind and held in solitary at St. Hans Psychiatric Hospital. She hopes to tape the killer on her phone and then show her father how useless he is to help Martin move beyond the past.

Mirroring the first film, Emma has a boyfriend in Frederik (Alex Høgh Andersen of TV’s “Vikings”) and close friends in Sofus (Sonny Lindberg of TV’s “The Rain,” “The Legacy”) and Maria (Nina Teresa Rask of “Lovers”).

As he is restricted to the hospital, and blind, the killer has a fellow inmate who is released on weekends do his bidding. It (the pronouns it uses) is Bent Segenius Midjord (Casper Kjær Jensen of “The Shadow in My Eye”), whom we see being interviewed over his throat-slashing killing of a female vicar as the film starts. Bent says a force inside told him to do it.

Emma’s big mistake in seeing the killer is that he now knows she exists. However, Emma learns the killer also had a child. We learn later that this child also is obsessed with the past and seeking revenge for dad.

Jens (Bodnia) returns from Thailand and Lotte also is a returning character (although now played by Vibeke Hastrup of “Babette’s Feast,” “Headhunter”). Another returning actor is the first film’s killer.

Overall, the film is not as successful as the first, even as it repeats some things, such as Emma’s first welcome at the institute and the dead moths in the overhead light above her work desk. The one light moment has Martin and Jens sneaking into a soccer stadium and kicking some balls.

New extras include a look at how both films explore the horrors of adulthood, a video essay by film critic Heather Wixson (17:45); and public and private life in the Nightwatch universe, a video essay by film critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (22:23). Additionally, there are a double-sided foldout poster and an illustrated collector’s booklet with new writing on the films by Eva Novrup Redvall. Grade: Nightwatch 3.75 stars; Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever 3 stars; extras 3.5 stars

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

Sphere (1998, Warner Bros., Blu-ray, PG-13, 134 min.). This is a less-expensive re-release of the 2009 Blu-ray, with nothing extra added. It is similar to the novel “Solaris” by Stanislaw Lem, which was made into a 1976 film by Andrei Tarkovsky. In that film, a psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.

In “Sphere,” a team of four – psychologist Norman Goodman (Dustin Hoffman of “Midnight Cowboy,” “Tootsie,” “The Graduate”), biologist Beth (Sharon Stone of “Basic Instinct,” “Casino”), astrophysicist Ted (Liev Schreiber of “Spotlight,” “X-Men Origins: Wolfman”) and mathematician Harry (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction,” “Captain Marvel,” “The Hateful Eight”) – are sent, along with their handler Barnes (Peter Coyote of “Patch Adams,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”), to the remote Pacific Ocean, where a giant spacecraft, apparently buried for nearly 288 years, still emits a distant hum that suggests it is intact and could contain life.

Others in the Naval habitant assembled on the ocean floor near the spaceship are radio operator Fletcher (Queen Latifah of “Chicago,” TV’s “The Equalizer”) and two other Navy personnel. All are fodder for what is to come.

When the main five finally enter the spaceship, they find footprints, a humanoid skeleton and instructions in English. Also, a log shows dates of 2043 and 2047, leading them to believe it was an American spaceship that somehow came from the future.

The central item inside the vast ship, which is more than half-a mile long and several stories tall, is a golden sphere, which reflects its surroundings, but not members of the search team when they stand before it. At least it does not reflect them until they return as individuals.

Directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in “Rain Man,” and based on a novel by Michael Crichton (writer of “Jurassic Park,” “Westworld,” “Twister,” TV’s “ER”), the film has some decent action sequences as it appears people’s fears come to life and various things go wrong win the habitat, but the science fiction bits get muddled, as the blame is passed from one team member to another repeatedly.

The ending brings up a consideration of whether humans are mature enough to handle the secrets of the universe or whether fears and phobias restrict us. However, here the special effects fail the film.

Extras include audio commentary by Hoffman and Jackson; and a how-to about special effects by supervisor Jeff Okun (14:36). Interestingly, Stone received nominations for Worst Actress and Worst On-Screen Hairstyle for the film at the 1998 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. Grade: film 3 stars; extras 2.25 stars

The Tattooed Dragon (Hong Kong, 1973, Eureka!, Blu-ray, NR, 98 min.). Written and directed by Lo Wei, the man behind Bruce Lee’s international hits “The Big Boss” and “Fist of Fury,” “The Tattooed Dragon” is a less effective action film, with not-so-happy results for several characters. Most of the fights feature one or two versus 10 or more, which makes them pretty brutal.

Jimmy Wang Yu (“Master of the Flying Guillotine,” “One-Armed Boxer”) plays Dragon, who is noted for the tattoo on his back and his efforts to defend the defenseless. The film opens with him climbing through ruins and then attacking 10 bandits who have stolen international aid money. However, he has to run off – at least with the money – when his back is injured.

The same bad guys, who work for gangster Jun Lee Kwan (James Tien of “The Big Boss,” “Fist of Fury”), while still looking for Dragon, attack the Feng Hua School, where Dragon had ended up and was being allowed to recuperate. Dragon joins the fight and while the bad guys are repelled, he collapses in a field afterwards.

Xiao Yang (Samuel Hui of “Swordsman,” two “Mad Mission” films), a farmer who is raising ducks in a plan to eventually have enough money to marry his sweetheart Ah-xiang (Sylvia Chang of “Love Education,” “Slaughter in San Francisco,” “Tempting Heart”), finds the injured Dragon and brings him home, helped by his friend Ah-kun.

As Dragon once more recovers, the bad guys have learned that the nearby town of Qingmuyuan has precious minerals in its soil. To seize control of the town, they build a casino in the town and urge all the men to gamble, losing all their money and eventually turning over deeds to their land for loans. Ah-kun is one of the many who fall into the gambling trap. When Dragon learns of this, he wins all the money and deeds back in one gambling session – apparently, he can hear how the dice are landing.

In a portion I found objectionable, A-kun’s despondent wife, after learning he has lost all his money and their house, decides to drown herself and her three starving children. Another character gets beaten to death, and Dragon has yet another mass fight. This time, one of his opponents fights while on fire.

Overall, the fighting is pretty basic and much of the rest of the film involves people gambling. This was rising star Wang Yu’s first film for Golden Harvest, after he made a few with Shaw Brothers. The cinematography is by Cheung Yiu-tsou (“Police Story”) and the stunts were coordinated by Simon Hsu (“The Flying Guillotine”).

New extras include two audio commentaries, one by East Asian expert Frank Djeng and martial artist/filmmaker Michael Worth, and the other by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema; and an interview with martial arts cinema expert Wayne Wong on the career of director Wei (16:12). The film can be viewed with an English dub and there are alternate English opening credits (2:54). The collector’s booklet has an essay by film writer and critic James Oliver. This is the film’s first Blu-ray release anywhere in the world and is from a new 2K restoration. It is limited to 2,000 copies. Grade: film 2.75 stars; extras 3.25 stars

Detonation! Violent Riders aka Bakuhatsu! Boso zoku (Japan, 1975, 88 Films, Blu-ray, NR, 86 min.). This is the North American Blu-ray debut of the Japanese motorcycle cult classic, “Detonation! Violent Riders,” in a limited edition featuring a high-definition transfer and bonus content. 

Iwaki (Kôichi Iwaki of “The Doberman Cop”) is a motorcycle mechanic with a dream to become a professional racer. He gets a bit distracted when he falls for the lovely Michiko (Tomoko Ai of “Terror of Mechagodzilla”). Her brother Tsugami (Sonny Chiba of “The Streetfighter,” “Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2”), a former professional motorcycle racer, has a temper and does not approve of her dating Iwaki. At one point, he takes Iwaki on a wild ride.

Mitsuda, the leader of the former outlaw Red Rose Gang (Yusuke Natsu of “Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo”) decides to go after Michiko, after his girlfriend Mayumi (Junko Matsudaira of “Bullet Train”) seduces Iwaki. Mitsuda rapes Michiko.

Iwaki is followed by 16 riders, who finally get him to agree to lead their Black Panthers gang. Then Mitsuda eggs on the large Crusaders gang against the Black Panthers, resulting in a melee of 300 versus 17, with 100 being injured and many arrests.

Directed by Teruo Ishii (“Horrors of Malformed Men,” “Shogun’s Joy of Torture”) and written by Ishii and Isao Matsumoto, the film has a dumb ending. Throughout the film, there are lots of motorcycle riders weaving through traffic. The beginning has some nudity as the Red Rose Gang hangs out in a club, dancing and partying. Iwaki and Mitsuda have a duel to see who can drive blindfolded closest to the edge of a cliff. Mitsuda goes to 50 centimeters, but Iwaki stops with his front wheel partially over the edge.

The good-looking Iwaki actually was a leader of a motorcycle club and thus was able to do his own stunts, which helped save the filmmakers some money. Extras include audio commentary by Ashley Barrow and Jonathan Greenaway of The Horror Vanguard podcast; a new visual essay by Nathan Stuart (19:50); and an image gallery (2:58). It comes with an individually numbered OBI strip. The 16-page illustrated collector’s booklet has an essay by film critic Michelle Kisner. Grade: film 2 stars; extras 3 stars

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volumes One and Two (Warner Bros., 3 Blu-rays each, NR, 357 and 365 min.). These are reissues of the 2011 releases. Both sets contain 50 remastered theatrical shorts.

Volume One contains Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Pepe Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn and Speedy Gonzales on disc one. Disc two includes one-shot classics and complete collections from Marvin the Martian, the Tasmanian Devil, Witch Hazel, Marc Anthony and Ralph Phillips. Disc one has 23 audio commentaries, while disc two has 14. Some have music-only tracks and 11 have behind-the-scenes featurettes, totaling 95 minutes.

Disc three contains the documentaries "Chuck Amuck: The Movie" (1991, 51 min.), a Chuck Jones documentary from writer John Needham; "Chuck Jones: Extremes & In-Betweens, a Life in Animation" (85 min.), a history of Jones' career, including his groundbreaking Looney Tunes work; and "Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood" (26 min.), with Peggy Stern tracing the origins of Looney Tunes and Jones' early years. There also are an assortment of Jones-animated odds and ends, many of them political in nature (86 min.).

Finally, there are nine bonus cartoons (72 min.), a pencil test for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and the animation-live action hybrid “The Door.”

Volume Two has the first disc centering on the core characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, while disc two has more one-shot classics and the complete collections of Cecil Turtle, Nasty Canasta, A. Flea and Beaky Buzzard. There are 19 audio commentaries on disc one and 18 more on disc two. Eight have music-only tracks, while two have music and effects tracks.

There are more than eight hours of content that celebrates the animation legacies of Tex Avery, Fritz Freleng and Leon Schlesinger, including rare footage and more than 30 bonus shorts. This set also has a 28-page booklet with rare images and a cartoon guide by historian Jerry Beck. Grade: both sets 4.5 stars