DJariya

Has anyone here seen or heard of this movie?

It's broken up into 2 parts and was released in Asia over the last year or so. Part 2 came out earlier this year. It's similar to what was done with Red Cliff. This was John Woo's big comeback after taking several years off.

Trailer for Part 1:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xHqneqezpZM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Trailer for Part 2:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fStNj2-rbe4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


It's basically been described as the Chinese Titanic. It's a mix of a period war drama/romance and disaster flick.


I'd like to see it. It looks interesting. I'm a sucker for these big budget Chinese period dramas. But there appears to be no DVD/BD release coming Stateside yet and the Taiwanese BD release of Part 1 is $36 on Yes Asia, which is way overpriced.

Solid Snake

Hrm. Never even heard of it. Granted....I don't particularly care for Woo out of some of his older films and Red Cliff (that thing was insanely legendary in scope)

Jay G.

JSDVD has the Taiwan Blu-ray for $22, which with the ~$10 minimum airmail to the US places it at about $32 shipped:
http://dvd.jsdvd.com/advanced_search...s&currency=USD

I think us importers got a bit spoiled by the DVD pricing in HK and Taiwan, which was usually significantly cheaper. Blu-rays seem to be much more niche and thus higher priced. For example, the R3 Taiwan DVD is only $10.

DJariya

Still too expensive, but thanks for looking. The shipping kills it. And yes, BD's in HK are extremely expensive. I was there in June and went shopping for a few titles and the prices range between $20-30 per title. Even older catalog titles are in the high teens.

Guess I'll have to wait until a distributor like Well Go USA or Magnet release it here in the States. The most I'm willing to spend is between 12-15 bucks.

Jay G.

I imagine a US release will combine the two films, similar to what happened with Red Cliff, so getting them at a budget price seems feasible.

SuperJim88

Having seen the bootlegged version, I can tell you this isn't worth $32. The stories are nice with a great cast, but I felt disappointed. The stories switches one after another and it felt very scattered. Either it was a very poor editing job or not enough background setup on each story buildup. It was definitely on par with Woo's technique, very little foreplay, straight into the hardcore steamy sex.

L Everett Scott

Aren't VCDs still popular in Asia? If the home video market is OK with that type of PQ I can certainly understand why the average consumer over there would be reluctant to shell out for Blus.

__________________
The Ultimate Theatrical Experience: DVS in DTS on a 3D IMAX screen with D-Box seats and closed captioning.

Jay G.

I'm not sure how "popular" a format it is, but VCDs are still made and released. I think it's less and less common for a film or TV show to get a VCD release nowadays though.

Also, for TV shows, it's become popular to squeeze a bunch of episodes onto DVDs using highly compressed video (lower bitrates, less keyframes). These are referred to as X-DVD or HDVD, although they more-or-less conform to DVD spec and can be played in most DVD players. Sometimes you'll see separate "DVD" and "HDVD" releases, with the latter being cheaper and consisting of less discs:
http://www.yesasia.com/us/customer-s...on-answer.html
http://www.buyoyo.com/buyoyo/eng/Pro...65673&prtype=0

But yeah, the Asian markets seem more concerned about price than quality, so I don't think Blu-ray has caught on too much.