French DVDs and Blu-Rays of Asian Movies

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 28 Mar 2006, 23:28

the alternate outtakes will be available for download all over the web.

Uploading them as we speak.

Here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/16673546/NPS.rar.html

Alternate outtakes for New Police Story.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 29 Mar 2006, 00:35

LOL! Has the DVD even been released? Thanks!

BTW, what do you think, Tom? How high are the chances that loads of emails or an online petition will make them add English subs to their releases?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 29 Mar 2006, 01:00

How high are the chances that loads of emails or an online petition will make them add English subs

They've already said that they couldn't do it.

"It is illegal for us to include english subs or removable french subs on films that don't belong to us (that we haven't produced)."
"It's part of the anti-import law (to prevent foreigners from buying french discs, which would make foreign DVD companies lose money)."

Nothing anyone can do about it. We're stuck.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 29 Mar 2006, 01:14

Damn it! And I thought it was some kind of narrow-mindedness. Does this only apply to France? Because there are German DVD companies who distribute Asian films with English subs.

Knetan · Post by **Knetan** » 29 Mar 2006, 04:44

hey,

The "Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy" will probably be released first (I'm thinking late 2006, early 2007).

Am pretty satisfied with my German box set. Fine transfers (blows FS out of the water) and even though it's 5.1 only, it's basically just spread out mono which is fine by me. No English subs but is that gonna stop me?

Right now, they gotta release "The Blade", "The Lovers" and "Love in a time of Twilight".

GREAT! Back on scheudle then, especially in regards to Love In The Time Of Twilight.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 29 Mar 2006, 08:07

Knetan wrote:hey,

The "Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy" will probably be released first (I'm thinking late 2006, early 2007).
Am pretty satisfied with my German box set. Fine transfers (blows FS out of the water) and even though it's 5.1 only, it's basically just spread out mono which is fine by me. No English subs but is that gonna stop me?

Hmm... Maybe I should get that release. I currently own the FS box set (didn't know about the fake mono when I bought it) and HKL for the first film.

EDIT: the image on the german release looks good, but rather grainy...

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 29 Mar 2006, 10:33

Drunken Master 2,

:shock:
Grrr... why does France get these beautiful DVD releases?

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 29 Mar 2006, 12:13

Knetan wrote:Am pretty satisfied with my German box set.

It's a beautiful box, isn't it? Have you checked out the special features DVD? It holds a HK cinema documentary with lots of behind-the-scenes footage of films such as "Prison on Fire 2" and "A Chinese Ghost Story 3".

Knetan · Post by **Knetan** » 29 Mar 2006, 15:31

hey,

I did scan through the doc, LD but as most of it was dubbed over, it didn't give me much. Nice to see the likes of Lawrence Lau interviewed though.

The Ching Siu-Tung interview and behind the scenes footage from part 3 could be understood though.

EDIT: the image on the german release looks good, but rather grainy...

I expect that on remasters of these HK films but would rather have that than some artificial method employed to take out the grain. If it's not highly excessive grain though...

ericf · Post by **ericf** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:25

About HK Video releasing the Swordsman Trilogy:

I have the R2 Optimum disc of Swordsman 2 and even though it's a DVD-5 I think it's a lot better than the R3 HK remaster. Why? 1 Better subtitles. Not at all great but still cleaned up. 2 more balanced image. The HK Remaster image is so contrast boosted that it's crazy. Light areas are burnt out and dark areas are without details.

The HK Remaster is sharp, it has that, but it doesn't have great authoring. It has too much compression artefacts.

There are some differences in color between the versions. The HK has a lot of golden light while the Optimum has more "natural" colors. But I wouls have preferred the ending scene to remain golden and not as bleak and grey as it seems on the Optimum disc.

I can't tell if a DVD is progressive when it's in PAL but when looking at it in the computer it looked like it wasn't interlaced. Can't say if that proves anything.

So, what the HK Video DVDs might be able to do is likely a less compressed image, more of the color filters that are on the HK DVD and possibly a correct amount of sharpness for PAL.

But since there won't be any subtitles I would go for the Optimum disc.

I actually made my own custom subtitles from the provided subs on the disc, the HK disc and the english dub. Hmm, why did I use the dub? Because in some cases it was so difficult to understand the point of what they were saying that the dub made more sense. Don't ask me if the translation is more accurate but it reads more smoothly.
I haven't posted these subs anywhere. They haven't been adjusted to go with any other DVD than the Optimum DVD but since DVDLab Pro is a bit of a problem I have had to move the timings forward from their correct positions.
If anyone wants me to post the subs on Kloofy's I'll do that as they are.

Thanks.
ericf

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:28

Hope this hasn't been posted yet, sorry if it has:

Into the Mirror French R2...

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/ ... irror.html

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:31

Missed that one. Good find, Bisc.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:41

I'm not sure if Tom mentioned this already, but Wild Side is releasing Hanzo The Razor Collection on May 3rd. For some reason the box set only features parts 2 and 3 (The Snare & Who's Got the Gold). But it looks absolutely beautiful

Knetan · Post by **Knetan** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:42

hey,

looks too classy for Hanzo "spin it" the raxor.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 29 Mar 2006, 19:49

Hmm... Home Vision Entertainment's R1 box set is very good, but the first film is missing audio during two scenes (the soundtrack goes mute for about 15 seconds both times). Maybe that's why Wild Side skipped the first part.

ShaolinWolf · Post by **ShaolinWolf** » 29 Mar 2006, 23:03

ericf, will you be creating a script for the Blade? The MIA Region 2 disk has a good english translation, but the subs are burned onto the movie and will have to be copied manually.

BTW, I am looking to buy HK Video DVD's of Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, and The Blade, once it comes out. What's the best french site for an American buyer to get them? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 29 Mar 2006, 23:08

What's the best french site for an American buyer to get them ?

I'd say Amazon.fr .

http://www.cinemasie.com/en/vente/ are good (and they have an english site) but they're too expensive.

BTW: Welcome to Bullets. 8)

ericf · Post by **ericf** » 30 Mar 2006, 05:02

ShaolinWolf: I don't have the UK disc so I can't make a script. I only have the HK vcd. The subs on that are not so good.

Someone in the thread about Terra Cotta Warrior at the Asian DVD Guide Forum seemed to have thoght about doing it. But what you need to do to get the subs from hardcoded files is use a program like avisubdetector. Just convert the video into avi and adjust a few settings and you have a program that senses when there's been a change in the subs and pops up a window. Just write the text and the timings are mostly perfect. OCR is also available but not very stable.

ericf

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 30 Mar 2006, 18:06

Tom2681 wrote:"The real challenge is not to release these films, but to make sure that they will be the best dvd editions in the world"

Why can't ALL studios work like that?

HungFist wrote:Awesome. A Better Tomorrow is one of my all time favourite movies, yet there is not a single good dvd release available (Fortune Star was unwatchable due to the missing frames which, for some reason, caused the image to freeze for a moment every five minutes).

What's wrong with the R1? The drop outs are minor.

Tom2681 wrote:They've already said that they couldn't do it.

"It is illegal for us to include english subs or removable french subs on films that don't belong to us (that we haven't produced)."
"It's part of the anti-import law (to prevent foreigners from buying french discs, which would make foreign DVD companies lose money)."

Nothing anyone can do about it. We're stuck.

I find that really hard to believe when many, many DVDs have subs included not for the intending market.

Wouldn't the answer be to produce the DVD then? (It does say if they've not produced the DVD). Don't many French DVDs have Dutch subs? For the Belgian market.

thelostdragon wrote:Damn it! And I thought it was some kind of narrow-mindedness. Does this only apply to France? Because there are German DVD companies who distribute Asian films with English subs.

I'm sure it is some stupid French law. UK law doesn't stipulate this.

It belongs with the dumbass French law that prevents the volume of MP3 Players (etc . . .). ALL European MP3 Players and the like have their volume cut because the "French" government doesn't like it.

At least in this case for me anyway the volume is loud enough anyway but many are really pissed off by it.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 30 Mar 2006, 18:09

bradavon wrote: What's wrong with the R1?

The picture quality.

ShaolinWolf · Post by **ShaolinWolf** » 31 Mar 2006, 07:15

eric, I'll try that process once the disk comes out. Thanks for the heads up.

ericf · Post by **ericf** » 31 Mar 2006, 19:30

ShaolinWolf: I'll be looking forward to it.
ericf

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 31 Mar 2006, 22:09

Tom2681 wrote:http://www.cinemasie.com/en/vente/ are good (and they have an english site) but they're too expensive.

French DVDs are expensive generally. I'm not really sure why. It would make sense if they release far fewer DVDs than say the UK but they don't, they just like to rip people off it seems.

Sure before you say it many are very good but in honesty it's probably 30 or so max. that are miles better than the UK or USA version.

R1 and UK R2 e-tailors seem to have a monopoly on marking down at Sales time.

HK DVDs are cheap but they are from day one. Japanese DVDs are expensive and don't go down in price, so are Korean and so are Australian DVDs.

ShaolinWolf wrote:What's the best french site for an American buyer to get them?

I've used Amazon.fr and the usually a bit cheaper www.mediadis.com (formally DVD Zone 2).

I don't know if the latter ships to the USA but they probably do. They're actually Belgian but you'll find they sell Dutch and French DVDs.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 01 Apr 2006, 00:04

The Madman R4 boxset of Hanzo The Razor has all 3 films and they're all native film-PAL.

Tom, how were the reviews for the latest Luc Besson-directed film, "Angel-A"?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 02 Apr 2006, 10:31

how were the reviews for the latest Luc Besson-directed film, "Angel-A"?

It's considered to be an average film.

- Bad actors (Jamel Debbouze is really awful)
- Bad cinematography
- Bad dubbing for the main actress
- Bad ending
- No plot

I haven't decided whether I should watch this yet.

Bullets 'n' Babes

French DVDs and Blu-Rays of Asian Movies

hkvideo

the blade dvd