Directors Albert and Allen Hughes (The Book of Eli) and screenwriter Tyger Williams (The Perfect Guy) were barely into their twenties when they sent shock waves through American cinema and hip-hop culture with this fatalistic, unflinching vision of life and death on the streets of Watts, Los Angeles, in the 1990s.
There, in the shadow of the riots of 1965 and 1992, young Caine (Panther’s Tyrin Turner) is growing up under the influence of his ruthless, drug dealing father (Pulp Fiction’s Samuel L. Jackson, in a chilling cameo) and his loose-cannon best friend, O-Dog (Love Jones’ Larenz Tate), leading him into a spiral of violent crime from which he is not sure he wants to escape, despite the best efforts of his grandparents and the steadfast Ronnie (The Matrix Revolutions’ Jada Pinkett).
Fusing grim realism with a propulsively stylish aesthetic honed through the Hughes brothers’ work on rap videos, Menace II Societyis a searing cautionary tale about the devastating human toll of hopelessness.
Extras
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration of the directors’ cut of the film, supervised by cinematographer Lisa Rinzler and codirector Albert Hughes, with 7.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • Original 2.0 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio • Two audio commentaries from 1993 featuring directors Albert and Allen Hughes • Gangsta Vision, a 2009 featurette on the making of the film • New conversation among Albert Hughes, screenwriter Tyger Williams, and film critic Elvis Mitchell
• New conversation among Allen Hughes, actor and filmmaker Bill Duke, and Mitchell • Interview from 1993 with the directors • Deleted scenes • Film-to-storyboard comparison • Trailer • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by film critic Craig D. Lindsey
