Movies you've just watched

[lilmanjs]

Project A (1983)

Forgot how wonky the production quality of a lot of these old HK movies are. A fun rump, but as with a lot of Jackie Chan's movies, if the fighting alone doesn't hold your attention it will be a long hour and 45 minutes.

What release did you watch this from?

[GaijinPunch]

Hell if I know -- felt like it might have been a Mandarin dub. Not familiar enough w/ the dialects, and the audio was skewed anyway. (And I watched it in the gym).

[lilmanjs]

Hell if I know -- felt like it might have been a Mandarin dub. Not familiar enough w/ the dialects, and the audio was skewed anyway. (And I watched it in the gym).

Well you knew enough to know it was the awful US release, so that's good!

[xxx1993]

Finally saw Creed II

[soprano1]

Venom (2018)
Who had the fucking bright idea to make a Venom movie without Spider-Man? Also, Eddie Brock isn't fucking Wade Wilson, the comedy bits between him and Venom were just cringe to watch.
Best part of the movie was probably the last end scene, Woody Harrelson might be interesting as a certain serial killer.

[lilmanjs]

A Fish Called Wanda
Arrow Video has done a fantastic job on the restoration for this. Everything about this movie makes it a classic accept for the second dog killing. Jamaican Ken doesn't do his job properly and all we see is his socked reaction. lol

[dan76]

Convoy (1978) seems to be on all the time at the moment. Pretty enjoyable in that Americana kind of way.

Fantastic interview with Peckinpah from 1976 with Barry Norman.

https://youtu.be/quT0SLvqQLY

[kaicooper]

Neo Tokyo (1987) 'anime film'
from the same director of Masterpiece of all time AKIRA
3 different stories and animations..perfect combination of Surrealism/Horror/Future/Time
i enjoyed it alot..

[garrz32]

The Iceman. Story based on contract killer Richard Kuklinski, possibly Hollywood's touch of realism thrown in

All I can say is, there are some bad MF**ers on this planet!

[GaijinPunch]

Hell if I know -- felt like it might have been a Mandarin dub. Not familiar enough w/ the dialects, and the audio was skewed anyway. (And I watched it in the gym).

Well you knew enough to know it was the awful US release, so that's good!

I guess deep down my nerd standards are high. Before I go getting into other vintage Jackie Chan affairs, are there any tricks I should know? Ideally I'd like the original Cantonese audio track.

[GaijinPunch]

Neo Tokyo (1987) 'anime film'
from the same director of Masterpiece of all time AKIRA
3 different stories and animations..perfect combination of Surrealism/Horror/Future/Time
i enjoyed it alot..

Otomo only did the last piece, which was quite good -- arguably better than his Memories shorts.

[drauch]

Hell if I know -- felt like it might have been a Mandarin dub. Not familiar enough w/ the dialects, and the audio was skewed anyway. (And I watched it in the gym).

Well you knew enough to know it was the awful US release, so that's good!

I guess deep down my nerd standards are high. Before I go getting into other vintage Jackie Chan affairs, are there any tricks I should know? Ideally I'd like the original Cantonese audio track.

Basically steer clear of any US releases. You're best off downloading or importing his stuff if you don't want it dubbed or edited.

[BrianC]

Also, AFAIK, Drunken Master doesn't survive fully intact and even some HK DVDs redubbed some scenes with new actors in Cantonese.


edit: Apparently, there was a new restoration, that AFAIK, is intact.

[GaijinPunch]

I would assume even DL versions are going to be of the shittier releases though -- hence, would need to look out for those.

[drauch]

Nah, I mean most of those releases available on the net are going to be imported versions or fan composites. Maybe of varying quality, but that's the name of the game sometimes to get the real deal, especially when dealing with stuff out of Hong Kong.

[lilmanjs]

For vintage Jackie Chan, you just have to wait at this time. Fortune Star paid a lot of money to have his stuff restored. Police Story and Police Story 2 have been release along with the Project A movies by Eureka in Region B, sourced from the restorations.

[GaijinPunch]

What about Drunken Master 1/2?

What versions was I seeing in the 90's? one guy in my local nerd crew had a Drunken Master 2 LD. Pretty sure it was NTSC out of Hong Kong. Wouldn't that have been more or less the best version when compared to the original in 35mm?

[drauch]

I haven't done a whole lot of research, but Drunken Master is also out on Bluray now through Eureka, and I'm not aware of anything botched in that. 2 was recently announced as well. Before that the best way was a fan composite, because a lot of versions changed voices and took out the ending where Jackie is tardin' out. Supposedly it's going to be uncut, but dealing with Fortune Star can be problematic, as Eureka can't alter much. I'm glad they're getting all these 2K and 4K transfers out, but it's aggravating since in the past a lot of these were just upconverts from Fortune Star. The final package at least should be nice through Eureka, who in my opinion is one of the best out there.

[GaijinPunch]

What a shit show -- how fucking hard is it to just transfer something and not butt fuck it?

So w/ all that said and done, what do the honkies have to put up with? Aren't most of their home videos subtitled in Chinese/English anyway?

[drauch]

It's surprising how much transfers get fucked up, for real. Collecting home media is a nightmare if you like anything outside of mainstream. Sometimes directors get involved (Friedkin notoriously fucked up the color in The French Connection), sometimes the elements suck, and sometimes whoever is in charge of color just goes nutty or they do a piss job on the transfer. Also deterioration and loss of materials, tracks, etc. If you collect and care I think you've gotta do a lot of research, that or not mind double-dipping.

China is the land of the bootleg, so I imagine a lot of the population isn't too concerned, sadly. Back in the day it was even worse, as there's sometimes longer Taiwanese versions floating around on VHS and shit, and everything had hard subs burnt in, with a lot of the times the subtitles not fitting on the screen. Martial-arts films in general never get the attention they deserve. It's always been a real shitshow.

[lilmanjs]

The Hong Kong Rescue stuff I've mentioned in the past, they've sourced their on restorations from Japanese Extreme editions which are taken from release prints, and not really cleaned up. But are true HD masters, unlike Hong Kong, which until recently was doing all they could to screw everything up. Upscales, remixed audio in 7.1 only, or even worse, saying original audio, when just downmixed surround sound. Hong Kong Rescue is currently the best way to get a lot of movies, but Janus Films has the rights to Police Story 1 and 2, so we could be getting those on Criterion. Eureka is actually listening to the fans and trying to make the best possible releases, and going out of their way to find dubs and get rights to cuts and such. Police Story 2 was originally only going to be the extended version in HD, and a bunch of bonus materials. Fans made sure the Theatrical Cut was included, even though it is only SD.

[GaijinPunch]

All that above makes me not so mad that we're in a trade war w/ China, except that it'll probably fuck my retirement fund.

[emphatic]

I have the Hong Kong Legends DVD release of Drunken Master as well as their release of Snake In The Eagle's Shadow and haven't bothered to find decent Bluray releases as I'm not a movie collector anymore, but I've always looked at dvdcompare.net to find out what release to get when in doubt. Here's their verdict on Drunken Master http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/f ... ?fid=38266

[BrianC]

I wish Eureka blu-rays weren't region locked. At least the shout factory release of Police Story 1 and 2 was cheap and has the Cantonese audio and subtitles.

[drauch]

Really worth it to go Region Free if you buy many movies. I bought a modded player years ago for about $100, so probably even cheaper now I'd imagine. Way too many great labels now to stick with Region 1/A.

[eckart]

Thanks Dan about the info! Bought two movies from this director.

Your Name
Saw it yesterday in my little homecinema. The 4k version looks awesome. Guess i have to watch it a view times more till i get it. But i guess i like it, even the music was a bit to much for my taste.

Hotel Transilvania 3
Also the 4k version, and it looks stunning. For the film and his jokes on the same stair as part two would i say.

[BrianC]

Really worth it to go Region Free if you buy many movies. I bought a modded player years ago for about $100, so probably even cheaper now I'd imagine. Way too many great labels now to stick with Region 1/A.

I'm a lazy bum that watches moves on my PS4, but I might consider it. I still think it's crummy that even US made movies are getting these EU locked exclusives, though. And companies like Twilight Time only making limited releases of certain movies.

I do like how Amazon made some EU blu-rays more available, though. Got a nice deal on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, a region free release.

Kino is one of the more frustrating companies out there. I like them, but they often mess things up in frustrating ways like with their Blu-ray release of Nosferatu that is missing frames. Still have some nice releases under their belt and I like their release of the Kolchak movies. I did go with the nice BFI release of Phantom of the Opera (region free BD, region locked documentary on DVD), though.

[drauch]

Yeah, it just depends on the rights whatever company gets to lock or not, so sadly not up to them. Now Twilight Time on the other hand... I just hate them. I think they're full of it. They claim the limited runs and prices are due to a lack of demand to the movies they release, yet they frequently release huge things and have even reprinted multiple things now. I seldom buy from them, and only on a sale if so, especially with all these other competing companies releasing films from the same studios in nicer packages without all the "limited" hoopla.

Yeah, Kino is really hit or miss. I would up getting the Eureka versions of most Murnau, as they're quite consistent in their quality, as well as cheap with free worldwide shipping, so ya can't beat that. They've gotten better over the years, and their Studio Classics line is great, but I usually have to read pretty extensively before I buy something big due to their dubious history.

[lilmanjs]

I wish Eureka blu-rays weren't region locked. At least the shout factory release of Police Story 1 and 2 was cheap and has the Cantonese audio and subtitles.

Those are upscales though, so that's a waste of money no matter how much you spend!

[BrianC]

I wish Eureka blu-rays weren't region locked. At least the shout factory release of Police Story 1 and 2 was cheap and has the Cantonese audio and subtitles.

Those are upscales though, so that's a waste of money no matter how much you spend!

I disagree there, especially if you don't already have the DVDs (I'm aware they are upscales). I don't feel money is wasted when the movie itself is good. The Shout Factory release seems to be OOP currently and I certainly wouldn't recommend it at a higher price or over another Blu-ray release, though. There are millions of worse releases out there that don't even have the movies unedited with subtitles. It's not like I'm outright recommending them or recommending them over a better release.