Cine-Asia releasing DD titles in the UK..

[Shingster]

Subtitles say Fist of Legend at the end of the trailer chen, the dialogue translations in the trailer subs are the same as the ones used in the film as well I think (or very close to them).

[chenlung]

Subtitles say Fist of Legend at the end of the trailer chen, the dialogue translations in the trailer subs are the same as the ones used in the film as well I think (or very close to them).

Ah right, that's cool .

Just curiously, is it progressive (or suffer from blended frames)? I wondered how interlaced NTSC extras would be handled on their way to PAL land.

[Shingster]

I've just started a bitrate scan (which can take over an hour sometimes), but I'll check the format of all the extras in-depth tomorrow for you.

[chenlung]

I've just started a bitrate scan (which can take over an hour sometimes), but I'll check the format of all the extras in-depth tomorrow for you.

Thank you, I appreciate it !

[bradavon]

They (or DD) improved the subtitles on 'Fist Of Legend' on this release, so something must be possible at least. DD may have access to better materials, but didn't manage to get it right for their own DVD. I wouldn't rule it out anyway .

Isn't that a DD DVD and now BD. In other words DD fixed it for their BD but Cine-asia just got their first actually releasing it. It's still good though.

[chenlung]

Isn't that a DD DVD and now BD. In other words DD fixed it for their BD but Cine-asia just got their first actually releasing it. It's still good though.

If there's no subtitle improvements on DD's BD, it makes it seem more likely Cine-Asia fixed it exclusively for their products.

[Shingster]

Finished the bitrate scan, reading the report now and it appears that all the extras are 576i, 25fps....

[chenlung]

The BL Blu-Rays look to have horrible colours compared to the DVD.

Well i actually own them and in my opinion they look very good,far superior than the dvd,the Big Boss especially. No mono is out of order though,for the purists.

According to a few sites, the BLs all contain a horrible purple overcast (also turning hair green-ish) compared to the natural looking IVL DVDs. Possibly down to a studio that messes the levels during the conversion of the HD D5 (I believe) master Fortune Star provide.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/DVDCompare4/bigboss.htm

However, it is genuine HD, and I appreciate that . The muffled Cantonese mono on the DVDs is really shocking from clips I've watched (I have my initial HKL still).

Finished the bitrate scan, reading the report now and it appears that all the extras are 576i, 25fps....

Thanks mate, but I think that maybe the overall standard of the disc it's displaying (PAL MPEG-2) . To be more specific, are you able to watch the trailer and see if there's blended frames or interlacing?

I get it now about that looped line, after I was told by a friend - that's bad . They probably did it because it was the one English segment that wasn't well handled originally, so they just inserted Dimension's dub (which works hard at lip-synching). Quite sneaky.

It's looking like the subtitle thing (at the end) was a screw-up on DD's DVD, but the corrected work later sent to Cine-Asia, because apparently, the Spanish subtitles (on DD's disc) are based on the corrected work.

I'm just looking at YouTube clips and want to offer more about the subtitles:

They've ignored Chen's brotherly name of "Fifth Senior" and simply call him "Chen Zhen" whenever.

There maybe evidence to suggest that a translator was used and had the Chinese script to oversee the subtitles because from my limited Cantonese, there's little bits that are actually better than the theatrical subtitles. Examples include an unusual, but interesting and I suppose welcome change of the infamous "Sick Men Of Asia" sign that articulates it better - "Weak Men Of Asia". However, an example of where it seems to have went wrong during the final scene:

((BTW Shingster, I don't think it's Shandong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandong), but Dongshan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongshan_County).

東三省 is what's on the subtitles (East Three Province).
東山省 is what should be on the subtitles (Tungshan Province).

The Chinese subtitles seem to have got the middle character wrong! So ironically, when DD seem to have translated what was on that print's subtitles, it ended up a messed translation when the English one was correct!

Another thing, I'm not totally convinced about the dubtitles appearing only towards the end. I'm suspicious about them lifting lines on occasions - such as the professor telling the students to "Take your war elsewhere!" - which is what the Dimension dub says, whereas the originals say "Get out!". The only way to find out is a third-party translation of the Japanese and if they were working from the Chinese script, find out what the Chinese subtitle says.

It's certainly not top quality - segments dumbed-down, misinterpreted, not picked up (even when they're on the original subs), mis-translated - a bit sloppy overall. Plus, it's using Mandarin names - what the original subs based their translation on. Somewhat sub-standard, but not a train-wreck - it is tolerable. The lack of consistency suggests the subtitlist was pick and mixing from here and there to produce a weird sub-standard combination (dubtitles, both Chinese and English subtitles, whilst probably translating any on-screen text directly). To achieve the effort seen in a number of HKL's quality re-translations, they really need to replace whoever is wrecking their releases.

[Shingster]

Thanks mate, but I think that maybe the overall standard of the disc it's displaying (PAL MPEG-2) . To be more specific, are you able to watch the trailer and see if there's blended frames or interlacing?

Nah, when you do a full disc scan in BDInfo it goes through every video file on the disc individually and reports back what format and bitrate they are one-by-one, so if it says 576i for each individual video segment then you can trust the info. There was no obvious ghosting when I watched the trailer in PowerDVD on my 19" TFT last night, so I guess it's flagged right but I think there is some blurring, it's not an easy video to assess on a small screen as the trailer is all motion, pans, sweeps, all action, etc, but I checked in Vdub and there's ghosting and combing in there.

They've ignored Chen's brotherly name of "Fifth Senior" and simply call him "Chen Zhen" whenever.

IIRC all characters are referred to by name on the BD rather than their title (except for the Japanese brass of course). All Chinese names are in Mandarin (again IIRC).

((BTW Shingster, I don't think it's Shandong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandong), but Dongshan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongshan_County).

東三省 is what's on the subtitles (East Three Province).
東山省 is what should be on the subtitles (Tungshan Province).

The Chinese subtitles seem to have got the middle character wrong! So ironically, when DD seem to have translated what was on that print's subtitles, it ended up a messed translation when the English one was correct!

Yeah it's really confusing isn't it? I don't think there exists a Tungshan province, there's Dongshan/Tungshan County as you say but it's not a province, although it is in the right area to be somewhere where the Japanese may have occupied in WW2. Dongshan/Tungshan Province is right by Korea and would also have most likely been occupied by the Japanese.

Another thing, I'm not totally convinced about the dubtitles appearing only towards the end. I'm suspicious about them lifting lines on occasions - such as the professor telling the students to "Take your war elsewhere!" - which is what the Dimension dub says, whereas the originals say "Get out!". The only way to find out is a third-party translation of the Japanese and if they were working from the Chinese script, find out what the Chinese subtitle says.

So are you checking the Dragon Dynasty DVD subtitles off YouTube or something? If so could you post the link as that should be easier for me to go back and forth with the BD rather than using the DVD all the time.

While we're talking of translations, I've downloaded two subtitle files from kloofy.net, one is entitled HKVideo, the other are subs made by Spannick, and from a brief perusal they both seem to be the same translation (maybe there are some tweaks in spannick's). Are these translations considered accurate and am I right in assuming they've been taken from the English subtitles on the old MIHK VHS? (It's been years since I last saw that VHS).

My Mandarin and Cantonese may be pretty hopeless, but years of being a J-cinema obsessive means I'm not so completely usless when it comes to the Japanese dialogue, and I'd say that the HKVideo/Spnanick fansubs do a better job of translating what's being said when the Black Dragon students crash the Kyoto University classroom. The teacher orders them to leave: deteyuku nasai!!

[chenlung]

Nah, when you do a full disc scan in BDInfo it goes through every video file on the disc individually and reports back what format and bitrate they are one-by-one, so if it says 576i for each individual video segment then you can trust the info. There was no obvious ghosting when I watched the trailer in PowerDVD on my 19" TFT last night, so I guess it's flagged right but I think there is some blurring, it's not an easy video to assess on a small screen as the trailer is all motion, pans, sweeps, all action, etc, but I checked in Vdub and there's ghosting and combing in there.

It's more detectable upon movement. I suppose flagging doesn't matter if you can see blending, etc. They messed up.

Thanks.

Yeah it's really confusing isn't it? I don't think there exists a Tungshan province, there's Dongshan/Tungshan County as you say but it's not a province, although it is in the right area to be somewhere where the Japanese may have occupied in WW2. Dongshan/Tungshan Province is right by Korea and would also have most likely been occupied by the Japanese.

The last character says province, but the rest explains the place - known as Tungshan County, so that's fine . I would put Tungshan County.

So are you checking the Dragon Dynasty DVD subtitles off YouTube or something? If so could you post the link as that should be easier for me to go back and forth with the BD rather than using the DVD all the time.

Yeah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwuXuoyaciE (Dimension)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0OoqfdVX8o (Dragon Dynasty)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLiToXEcG-8 (Theatrical)

Just for curiosity :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFEhVTRjmeU (Thai dub)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs-GapheEHk (German dub)

Are these translations considered accurate and am I right in assuming they've been taken from the English subtitles on the old MIHK VHS? (It's been years since I last saw that VHS).

The MIHK and originals have differences, but are both faithful to the original. I'd go for MIHK as it's better.

My Mandarin and Cantonese may be pretty hopeless, but years of being a J-cinema obsessive means I'm not so completely usless when it comes to the Japanese dialogue, and I'd say that the HKVideo/Spnanick fansubs do a better job of translating what's being said when the Black Dragon students crash the Kyoto University classroom. The teacher orders them to leave: deteyuku nasai!!

Ah, brilliant !

Marvellous .

[Markgway]

I asked if it had been postponed and he said it has been dropped full stop.

Bugger.

I wonder why?

[DangerousLeeHandsome]

I'm not surprised that Cine-Asia has dropped TCM BD because DD's release was quite a mess. For starters, the Cantonese 5.1 sound like crap. The mono is actually a downmix of that crappy 5.1. And the transfer is very inconsistent. In other words, its not fit for Blu-ray.

[bradavon]

Crikey! You'd think they'd fix it instead.

[saltysam]

Hope Cine-Asia aren't cutting back on their blu releases.

[grim_tales]

That re-done title card for FOL looks dreadful IMO.

[bradavon]

Is there anything you guys won't critique when it comes to HK movies? Sure it looks poor but come on, it's a bloody title card.

Hope Cine-Asia aren't cutting back on their blu releases.

Me too.

[RickyTheDragonSteamboat]

Can anybody definitively say if Fist of Legend is an upconvert or not?

[Shingster]

Thanks for the links chen, should come in usefeul, I've gone through the extras now and there's no noticeable ghosting in any of them Aliasing: yes, ghosting: no.

Here are some examples of dialogue taken from the CA BD subtitles, they show how wordier the subs are on the BD than in the HKVideo/Spannick translations:

After Chen visits his master's shrine:

Zhen: I am going to look for Jiechuan
Ting: Chen Zhen, follow the rules, you should send him a challenge proposal.
Zhen: I'm going there in person. I don't need a proposal
Nong: Hong Kou Arena belongs to the Japanese, even the police can do nothing with them. If anything happened to you, what would become of Jing Wu Men? Even your dad couldn't beat them.
Ting: Uncle, I
Nong: Listen, your dad asked me to take care of you, I cannot let you make a mistake.

The start of Funakochi's duel with Chen:

Funa: Tell me, what should be the most powerful punch?
Chen: It's about focusing the body's energy to one single point, that's it.
Funa: It's really powerful. But I've never seen the rock that would hit back a human being. How can you name that the most powerful punch?
Chen: Whatever you say, shall we try it now?
Funa: So, tell me what is the best defence?
Chen: It's offence. It's better to use the energy to attack rather than waste it to defend, and to punch the opponent powerfully with the shortest time.
Funa: According to what you said, the Huo Fist is the same as Karate. They are the hard core style.
Chen: You are just saying it but not understanding it? Energy is wasted if there is no softness in the hard core, and attack is inefficient with hardness in the softness. Power won't exist without both elements.
Funa: Sir, what have you taught your disciples? Has your master ever taught you about controlling your anger in a match? Kid you are going to suffer a lose if you act like this.
Chen: My master never talked as much as you. Are we ready to start yet?

[Shingster]

One question for fans of the film who have been following every DVD release of this film: The HKVideo DVD is considered to have the original non-remastered or remixed Cantonese audio, correct?

[saltysam]

Just watched Fist Of Legend BD-it's a very solid presentation and i imagine a significant upgrade on any dvd this film has had before.it's not perfect but i'll be surprised if we ever get this movie looking any better.Couple of minor irritants- a black line appears down the right hand side of the screen around the 58:25 mark and is there for around 40-45 seconds: also the subs stay on for the small amount of english dialogue spoken in the film,something that's a bit of a pet hate of mine.Also i'm no frame rate expert but my oppo displayed this as being 24hz,the majority of blu-rays i've seen are 23.976?

[Shingster]

Seems noone knows how the original cantonese FOL soundtrack is supposed to sound so why are some fans seemingly confident that the DD DVD used a downmix? I assume the Cantonese on the HKVideo release is accurate and untampered (certainly sounds that way) and if so then neither the CineAsia BD or the DD DVD has a downmixed cantonese 2.0 track - they both sound the same as the HKvideo save for the bizarrely looped dialogue for the English Judge's verdict half way through the film.

Sallty: Most BDs are indeed 23.976fps but I think all CineAsia BDs are 24fps aren't they? I don't think the difference means anything in motion though and some films are shot at 24fps I believe.

The A/V on this release is good enough to warrant a purchase if you own the film on DVD and are looking for a HD presentation; you can see the improvement over the DD DVD straight away even on a 19" computer monitor (more vibrant colours and sharper image), but there are 3 major annoyances:

1. Ugly fuckin US title cards
2. Looped dialogue on the Judge's Verdict (seems he no longer has to go watch the cricket)
3. Last shot of the film is missing and so is the expository line at the end which states that the Jing Wu Men continued to flourish after Chen Zhen left (note: this line is still there in the DD DVD subtitles).

Brightness flickering may also be an issue for some viewers who are sensitive to that, another nuisance that sensitive viewers may have is that the impact sound effects go very fractionally out of synch for a few seconds during the fight between Chen Zhen and Ting'en. We're talking milliseconds here and it seems to only happen from the moment that Chen finally starts fighting back, continuing for around 15-20seconds.

[grim_tales]

The German DVD is a port of the French DVD right? (Except with English subs). So that one should have the original Cantonese track too.

[chenlung]

Seems noone knows how the original cantonese FOL soundtrack is supposed to sound so why are some fans seemingly confident that the DD DVD used a downmix?

People got the wrong idea about suspected bird noises (and it spread), when in actual fact, they were there originally. I have since responded.

I assume the Cantonese on the HKVideo release is accurate and untampered (certainly sounds that way) and if so then neither the CineAsia BD or the DD DVD has a downmixed cantonese 2.0 track - they both sound the same as the HKvideo save for the bizarrely looped dialogue for the English Judge's verdict half way through the film.

Yep, that should be correct.

Just talking about it, it's been reported the HKVideo DVDs of this and 'TCM' have inconsistencies in audio speed, so the DD may actually be in a better state. There is the Japanese discs, but they're said to be in a shit state, so the LD's are next!

The German DVD ports it and adds subtitles.

1. Ugly fuckin US title cards

I hate those fucking cliché credits too.

2. Looped dialogue on the Judge's Verdict (seems he no longer has to go watch the cricket)

He saw sense, it's boring !

Few other annoyances:

1) Subtitles are sub-standard.
2) Reported frame-issues.
3) Colours don't look consistent as Dimension's (some shots seem good, whilst others are inferior).

It would have been good to see Billy Chow's interview that never made it onto the DD disc.

It is however, HD. I'm sure a custom version could alleviate some of these annoyances.

[Shingster]

Reported frame issues Chen?

[chenlung]

Reported frame issues Chen?

Yeah, both 'TCM' and 'FOL' had them.

From this page (http://kungfucinema.com/forums/showthre ... 10&page=21), there's discussions about them.