Fong Sai-Yuk Dimens. R1 Vs D. Dyn. R1 Vs Universe Remastered

[Old Pang Yau]

grrrrrrrrrrRRRAAAAAHH!!! I'm tired of the "Dimenson hand me downs" basically just being the same half assed cuts with a new coat of paint thrown on! I pretty much pray DD doesn't get the rights back to Drunken Master II! Expect the same "Legend of Drunken Master" title, English opening and end credits, and no "blind brain damage" ending.

They manage to get their other releases 90%-95% correct (Fortune Star films, Celestial Shaw Brothers, newer Asian films), but once it's a former-Dimension-owned film, we're screwed! I guess we'll be getting "The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk 2" later, plus "The Defender: Ultimate Edition"... DAMN IT TO ALL FECKING HELL!!!

.................................................


Sorry, needed to get that off my chest... long day...

[grim_tales]

What's The Defender again? Sometimes I get confused with the US titles.

[Markgway]

Bodyguard from Beijing

[bradavon]

That odd line as well as some dialogue being spoken off-screen (like when people talk over one another) aren't translated. Subs are most likely based off the old English dub, which I imagine is much more accurate the Dimension's.

Thanks, not too bad I guess then.

What's The Defender again? Sometimes I get confused with the US titles.

What's IMDB again?

I pretty much pray DD doesn't get the rights back to Drunken Master II! Expect the same "Legend of Drunken Master" title, English opening and end credits, and no "blind brain damage" ending.

Good. I cannot stand that ending. The film is better without it. All the R1/R4 need is the original audio, they already have English subs (how good I've no idea). The quality is excellent.

That said, you equally have to ask yourself who would actually do a better job? Sure DD can be shite at times but I don't see anyone doing any better. I'd prefer a "better" release than no release.

[grim_tales]

Thanks Mark.
Brad,

[RickyTheDragonSteamboat]

For the hell of it, I watched Fong Sai Yuk in English today and I find it strange that the 5.1 dub is constantly out-of-sync. Some parts are completely OOS, like when Tiger Liu invites Vincent Zhao to eat kung pao chicken with him.

This kind of upsets me because it leads me to believe that they had access to something other than the Dimension cut. It's almost like they had the completely uncut version and did a poor job snipping it to match the precious Dimension dub. It's quite frustrating when you consider that visually, it's identical to the uncut French version but ultimately it's still the Dimension cut.

If this is what we can expect from their future Jet Li releases then there's no point in releasing them at all.

[Old Pang Yau]

As I basically mentioned before, until further notice, any previous Dimension owned films are going to be clusterfucked to the extreme... just varying degrees (Fist of Legend cut by a few seconds with a Cantonese option, My Father Is a Hero cut by minutes and dubbed only). How Crime Story made it through unscathed with a Fortune Star print while Supercop remained botched (despite also having an easily accessible Fortune Star print) is beyond me.

I wonder how the other Fortune Star remastered/Dimension owned films would fare (Armour of God films, Project A films, Dragon Lord, etc)

[bradavon]

If this is what we can expect from their future Jet Li releases then there's no point in releasing them at all.

Am I the only one who finds this sort of comment completely illogical? A cut version or NO version, not a hard one in my book. Sure it sucks, sure complain but at least it's "something".

No version is perfect (for some anyway), by that token are they (as in all studios who have released it) supposed to never release it? Like that makes equal sense.

p.s - I find it impossible to believe what DD said about no usable Cantonese "My Father is a Hero" soundtrack being available, "at all". Bollocks! Try harder.

[Old Pang Yau]

I've tried to collect the Dragon Dynasty discs after I got a bunch for free for helping them, and I was happy with most of them... but it seems like it was around Tai Chi Master that things slowly started to go downhill. Makes it harder to be a collector when their output is becoming, let's say, "less than stellar".

I still hope some of their other releases can improve, but I am willing to bet that Bodyguard From Beijing will be cut... and hell, probably be retitled:

THE DEFENDER
From Beijing

...or some shite like that.

[bradavon]

I bet it's just called The Defender. As long as it has the original language, I'll probably get it. AFAIK there are no remotely decent versions of Bodyguard from Beijing.

[Old Pang Yau]

I bet it's just called The Defender. As long as it has the original language, I'll probably get it. AFAIK there are no remotely decent versions of Bodyguard from Beijing.

You might be right about the title... and if that's the case, I'm getting the feeling it'll be "The Enforcer" all over again... "Oh, well, um, we tried, like, REALLY hard to find a Cantonese track, but, um, we couldn't, um, find one. But we do have a nicely dubbed English track!"

If that's the case, so much for a "remotely decent" version. But, I could (hopefully) be completely wrong.

[bradavon]

You reckon? All others have had the original language.

[Old Pang Yau]

You reckon? All others have had the original language.

Ehhhh... I mean, weren't there multiple Cantonese language DVDs for My Father Is A Hero available and DD couldn't use them for a source? Bodyguard From Beijing had a half-assed late 90s (I think) Mei Ah DVD... and I'm fairly certain that's it. I don't know, I could be wrong about DDs work on it, and I would like to be... but I'll wait and see. I would certainly hope they would've learned after the "Enforcer backlash" not to release a dubbed only DVD. Either original language, or no DVD at all. Otherwise, it's just the old DVD with a Bey Logan commentary thrown on it.

Now that I think about it, what other Jet Li films did Dimension release? I know The Master was one (at least that one kept its title... since it already started with "The", I suppose), Swordsman II (retitled, of course, as The Legend of The Swordsman... ugh...) and of course Fong Sai Yuk II (The Legend II). Oh yeah, "Born To Defense" as well. Oy, Dragon Dynasty may have a field day [re]raping the remainder of the Jet Li films after all.

[ericf]

It looks like the DD disc has the same problems that the Royal Tramp DVDs had. They have somehow added noise to the image. While the colors are okay the contrast is way too harsh. The French DVD is a bit blueish and the black levels aren't that good but there's no sign of that noise.
ericf

[eon]

My R1 DD DVD arrived today finally, and I sat down to sample it this evening, only to watch it all the way through.

I've seen FSY probably about 6 or 7 times over the years - on video here in Australia a couple of times, one time on TV, and then a few times on my appalling Universe Laser DVD...

Now it's been a good couple of years since I last watch the Universe DVD, but from watching it again, there wasn't anything that really stood out to me as being cut - may be a line or two here or there, or a very chinese joke or something, but I didn't notice anything, and am pretty happy about that. I was actually quite happy with the video quality - having it full screen & anamorphic, with a reasonable picture, is the best I've ever seen it - so much so there was some bits of the movie I didn't even remember seeing before (perhaps because it was too much of a blurry mess on the Universe DVD).

I still probably rate this as my favourite Jet Li movie, yes better than Fist of Legend and OUATIC2... the action is awesome (yes ridiculous at times, but that adds to the character of the movie), and it's really quite funny at points... all that with an interesting story, and a good cast, and you can't go wrong.

[bradavon]

Thanks Eon. This is one DD I plan to get. Despite not being perfectly it's easily the best "English subtitled" version we're ever likely to get. Agreed, the Universe "so called" Remastered DVD is a disaster.

Unlike PS3 and DM2 did Dimension ever cut this? Nothing is mentioned here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106936/alternateversions

Bring on FSY2!

[chenlung]

It is cut, but I can't remember exact details.

[bradavon]

Thanks. Are we talking seconds, a minute or minutes?

For example I'd consider PS3 cut loads at 4-9 minutes (I cannot find a definite answer) but films cuts by say 2-3 seconds don't bother me as I never spot it anyway.

[chenlung]

I can't remember exactly as the page detailing the changes isn't there. Overall, I believe it was a few scenes and one or two snippets.

Of course, no DVD is fully ideal, so you might have to obtain a custom somewhere if you were very bothered. For someone with the knowledge and software, the best thing would be to take the uncut and anamorphic Japanese or French video and colour-correct it to match Dimension's video, line it up with the Cantonese soundtrack (also the original English dub, if you can find it) and include improved subtitles.

Funnily enough, DD's Youtube page uses the superior Dimension video for their film clips, instead of their own.

[bradavon]

Funnily enough, DD's Youtube page uses the superior Dimension video for their film clips, instead of their own.

.

Thanks for the info. At least with PS3 I have some idea what's cut so it would annoy me getting that one.

[chenlung]

Funnily enough, DD's Youtube page uses the superior Dimension video for their film clips, instead of their own.

.

It also seems odd they would use the frowned-upon English dubs.

[Markgway]

Apparently around 10 mins were cut from the HK version.

Maybe that statement was ambiguous? What I meant was Dimension's version is 10 mins shorter than the HK original.

[eon]

Wikipedia has some of the cut details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fong_Sai-yuk_%28film%29

The Dragon Dynasty version is missing the same bit missing from the Dimension release - FSY's mum having her hair caught on fire when FSY is curling her hair.

All those scenes listed in the Mainland China release are missing too - though I think that's the only version with those scenes intact.

[chenlung]

I've updated that article as it had a few errors.

[bradavon]

10 minutes is quite a lot. What a shame, at least PS3 has an "acceptable" English Friendly IVL DVD. With FSY you'll have to own the shite Universe DVDs or the DD, if you want English friendly.

"The Universe re-mastered DVD is the HK version (with removable English subtitles), but is slightly cut."

The Wikipedia link doesn't say what's cut?