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US Versions of asian films (Original languages?)

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US Versions of asian films (Original languages?)

Old 12-31-04, 09:06 PM
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US Versions of asian films (Original languages?)

Im not sure where would be the best place to ask this since its concerning international movies, but domestic DVDs.

I'm seeing a lot of Jet Li/Jackie Chan movies I wanna get, but most will say "English 5.1" or just "Dolby 5.1 Sound" (And not the language).

Since I know each do both US and Overseas movies, Im not sure which ones are originally in english, and which are dub-only versions.

Additionally, I'm not sure which are good and which arent (I've seen The Tuxedo and The Medallion, and dont wanna go through that again !)

A few I'm interested in are:

Jackie Chan's First Strike
Kiss of the Dragon
Contract Killer
Rumble in the Bronx
Fist of Legend
Accidental Spy
Mr. Nice Guy
Project A
Project A-2
Supercop 2


Like I said, theyre pretty cheap (Most I've seen for $4.99-5.99 with a few for 9.99), but I dont have a clue which are in the original languages and dont wanna find out the hard way
Old 01-01-05, 05:31 AM
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Jackie Chan's First Strike - First Strike is the US title of a Police Story movie... I have the US version, so I don't know what advice to give you here. I know Jackie did his own english dub though.
Kiss of the Dragon - English, it's basically a hollywood film.
Contract Killer - actually called Hitman - it's in cantonese.
Rumble in the Bronx - never saw this in "original language", just the English dub. I think like alot of his films at the time, it was just a mix of various languages. Jackie did his own english dub
Fist of Legend - the original language version of this is long OOP I think.
Accidental Spy - I have the HK version of this and can't remember what the language was... I think it was a mixture of everything. Not the best movie ever.
Mr. Nice Guy - Can't recall on this one either... I have the US version.
Project A
Project A-2 - there's a new project A boxset worth looking into. Cantonese is the original language of this I'm pretty sure.
Supercop 2 - cantonese, but this film doesn't have much of Jackie in it - it's mostly about Michelle Yeoh I think.

Hmm... guess I wasn't as much help as I thought I would be. sorry.

Last edited by Trigger; 01-01-05 at 05:36 AM.
Old 01-01-05, 06:52 AM
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First Strike - AKA Police Story 4 - Originally Cantonese. US release is English dub only.

Fist of Legend - There has never been an official release of this on DVD in its original language.

Accidental Spy - A mix of Cantonese/English, with some other languages thrown in as well. Not sure about US release, probably has dubbed all th enon-English parts.

Mr. Nice Guy - Original Track was about 90% English. However, the US version was completely redubbed to remove the Australian accents of many of the actors.

One you didn't mention:
Jackie Chan's Who Am I? - Again about 90% English, with a little bit of Cantonese as well as an African Native language. US version dubbed the non-English parts that it didn't just completely edit out.

Note that almost all the US releases of Jet Li's and Jackie Chan's foreign films are edited in some way, including all the ones I listed.

Last edited by Jay G.; 01-01-05 at 06:54 AM.
Old 01-01-05, 07:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Jay G.
Fist of Legend - There has never been an official release of this on DVD in its original language.
I was gonna argue with you, but then I remembered that my Ritek dvd is in mandarin instead of cantonese, but what's special about it is that it's uncut (more or less). I think there's a laserdisc from Mei Ah out there somewhere with the original language. You're right though - no DVD yet of this one.
Old 01-02-05, 05:36 AM
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I'm gonna have to argue on the Fist of Legend DVD.

There's a French R2 DVD with the original Cantonese mono track. Now, the DVD isn't really English-friendly, nor is it R1, but there is an official Cantonese-language DVD out there. It doesn't have the 'bonus' scenes the Ritek DVD has, but those scenes were only on the Taiwanese print, if I recall correctly, and so the movie stands as 'uncut' without those. Strange, but I always wonder why Taiwan has longer versions of movies...

As for the others, I've seen them all and avoid at all costs the American DVDs (except, of course, for Kiss of the Dragon). Many of these have been cut and/or rescored and/or redubbed and/or have other bad things done to them. Jackie Chan dubbed himself on all the Disney/Dimension/Miramax releases, but it's doesn't really make much of a difference. Their treatment is still kind of dreadful. If you can, get the HK DVDs. You can never go wrong with those. All of those DVDs (except FoL) are R0 and with their original language. They're also actually cheaper than the bargain bin Dimension DVDs when you order them online.

Last edited by pat00139; 01-02-05 at 05:39 AM.
Old 06-17-05, 11:15 PM
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sorry to bring this one back, but how are the subs on the fist of legend taiwanese dvd?

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