tofu

I'm interested in getting either of these. I've pretty much heard only bad things about Martial Angels (but from only 2 people) and I've heard mixed reviews about Accidental Spy. For those who don't know, Accidental Spy is the latest Jackie Chan movie and Martial Angels is another HK movie with Shu Qi and a bunch of other model-actresses. Thanks.

Cardiac161

I haven't seen Marital Angels and I probably won't considering the very bad reviews it has received. Film is out on vcd and will be on dvd anytime soon.

Accidental Spy is an average Jackie Chan film. In other words, like his previous mediocre films, it seems like a Hollywood wannabe. Lots of explosions, international locale, funny English dialogue, international cast and like Mr. Nice Guy, a so-called "edge-of-yr-seat" finale. I don't know if you liked Who Am I but the only salvation for that film was the fight at the end. This film only had very few fights including:

1) in the mall very much like Mr. Nice Guy
2) in the Turkish baths which is quite ingenious but nothing
spectacular

The ending is very, very much like Speed while you might find some scenes to be like Mission Impossible 2's motorbike scenes.

So to conclude, I would think this film rates lower than Who Am I.

By the way, you might want to pick up Tsui Hark's Time & Tide vcd (dvd comes out 2 months after). Saw this film and kinda liked it. Sum of the parts are a lot better than the whole film but man, can Tsui Hark film an action scene!!! Made me forget all the crap he made like Knock Off & Double Team.

codefree

Is there an R1 release of Accidental Spy planned? I enjoy all of the 90s JC flicks!

nemein

I haven't heard anything yet, but it supposedly just closed in the HK theaters a couple of weeks ago so getting the DVD this soon isn't too bad W/ the popularity of Jackie they may try this as a domestic release before doing a R1 DVD so it might be awhile. Then again even if they do they have yet to do one right (original sound track and uncut) so personally either way I'd probably end up buying (in fact it should already be on it's way ) the R0 version.

axolotls return

Nemein's right, heck I got a bunch of Accidental Spy R0 DVD's arriving next week. E-mail if you want editon details.

Still haven't confirmed whether it has an English dubbed track on it. But it's also DTS encoded. Wow!

Peep

According to http://www.dddhouse.com/ , it has Cantonese, Mandarin and English audio tracks and also English subtitles. Great! And it came out yesterday. I've yet to order my copy of the DVD, although I have a very bad quality VCD.

tofu

http://www.pokerindustries.com also has accidental spy coming in today i think. its r0 and $19.99 (i think)

thanks for the opinions

ipkevin

Acccidental Spy is the only HK-made Jackie Chan flick that successfully imitates the "Hollywood style". The previous Hollywood-esque Jackie flicks were always too goofy or strange (not that that's bad) to pass for Hollywood. But Accidental Spy has the production values, cinematography, and pacing to pass for a Hollywood film, more or less.

The only thing it lacks is a big show-stopper of a fight. If you took the fight from Who Am I and put into Accidental Spy, then it would be the best HK Jackie film made in many years.

codefree

Thanks nemein.

I emailed DDDHouse to ask if this DVD was by any chance 16X9 widescreen, this was their response:

DTS, All Code, NTSC, Letterbox

What wonderful customer service!


I realize the HK releases are nonanamorphic but since this release includes DTS (for the first time as far as I'm aware), I thought maybe they gave it a great transfer to.

axolotls return

There have been other dts titles from HK recently (at least 3).

The only ones I have are the dts version Accidental Spy DVD (well in a couple of days) and the dts version of Fists of Fury (watahhh!!!) all from HK.

axolotls return

Fudoh reports at the asian dvd site that:

There is only audio language track and it is a mix of English, Chinese, and Turkish (hence the International Version title). Subs are in Chinese (traditional and simplified) and English. Also included is a 20 minute making of featurette and trailers for other movies. Letterboxed, non anamorphic (duh). dts and dd 5.1 tracks as advertised.