Bones are snapped, limbs are twisted, guns are fired, glares are glared and terrible puns are uttered in abundance in The Steven Seagal Collection 1988-1992, a box set featuring four of the sadistic one's best and most brutal flicks. Definitely superior to the follow-up box set (which is cursed with such dross as On Deadly Ground and Fire Down Below), this collection sees Seagal at his leanest and meanest, before he became a pudgy self-parody given to uttering trite Zen-lite philosophy as he despatched impossibly slow and moronic opponents whilst also preaching environmental awareness and (I swear to God) singing.

Under Siege is definitely the pick of the bunch, while at the other extreme Hard to Kill is hard to watch unless you're in a particularly undemanding mood.

The box set is presented in a nicely adorned fold-out cardboard package which suffers from being a fold-out cardboard package - that is, it's bound to get a little dog-eared and stained in the fullness of time. A cardboard sleeve containing four amaray cases would be preferable, but I guess it's no big deal. Not everybody is as clumsy and accident-prone as myself.

There is literally not a SINGLE extra to be found amongst these four films. Boo!

Still, fare like this hardly demands feature length documentaries or extravagant behind-the-scenes breakdowns. It's all about the heroically inflicted sadism and the fortune cookie existentialism!

We'll finish with Steve's Zen musing for the day: if a hero standing in a forest shoots a villain three times in the chest, pummels his ribs into splinters, wrenches his left arm out of its socket and breaks his neck with an abrupt twist of the arms - but DOESN'T ram a machete into his eye - is the villain really dead?

Not in Steve's world. And that's why we love the big goof!