kevin_y

The Shirley Temple films are perennial favorites so their DVD costs have not been reduced much, especially if you want the restored DVDs from Fox and Universal from 2005 to '08. If you buy all 6 volumes of the "Sweetheart Collection" (18 films, pink DVD cases), it will cost you $100 or more, whether new or used. BUT, in 2010, China released a 20-disc DVD collection that costs only 70.80 yuan, or about US$12. I cannot post URLs yet, but go to Amazon.cn (Chinese site) and search for B0033PR80O. Adding overseas shipping will only be about US$18 total! Since this is sold at Amazon's Chinese site, chances are this is not a bootleg.

This "Shirley Temple Ultimate Collection" has 19 films plus 8 early short films. I've bought the set and seen all the discs. There are good news and some caveats.

The first caveat is all the films have none of the special features from the Fox/Universal DVDs. The special features are slim anyway so this is no big loss.

Stand Up and Cheer!, Little Miss Marker, Now and Forever, Stowaway, Wee Willie Winkie, The Blue Bird, and Young People are all made from the same video sources as the corresponding Fox/Universal DVDs, some even have the same menu art. All have English menus. All have English subtitles that are exact copies of the Fox/Universal DVDs. All have Traditional and Simplified Chinese subtitles. Some also have Mandarin audio. Only the sepia version of Wee Willie Winkle is available here (the Fox DVD includes both sepia and b/w versions).

Since You Went Away has the same source/subtitles as MGM 2004 DVD, plus Chinese subtitles and audio.

The following are "bad news":

TEN films in the set are colorized versions. The corresponding Fox Sweetheart DVDs come in both b/w and colorized versions, but this set only has colorized versions of these films. I don't like it, but maybe your family members wouldn't mind: Baby Take a Bow, Bright Eyes, The Little Colonel, Curly Top, The Littlest Rebel, Captain January, Dimples, Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Miss Broadway. English subtitles are ported over from the US editions, plus Chinese subtitles. Some have Mandarin audio.

Surprisingly, The Little Princess IS NOT a port of the fine-looking Fox DVD. It is much crappier-looking edition with no English subs. It has English audio and Simplified Chinese subs only.

The 8 short films are on one disc, but they are of very poor video quality, and have no English subs, but do have Chinese subs. Four are colorized and are apparently sourced from Legend Films' DVD editions ("Legend Films" is shown on opening credits), which may explain the lack of English subs: The Pie-Covered Wagon, Kid In Hollywood, Glad Rags to Riches, Kid 'in' Africa. The menus are poorly done. It shows audio as "Russian". But it has only English audio. The other 4 shorts have poor b/w picture, English audio, and Chinese subs only: Polly Tix in Washington, Merrily Yours, Pardon My Pups, Managed Money.

This DVD set was released by Emei Film Studios on Jan 11 2010.

To summarize, 8 films are good ports from US editions, 10 films are colorized only, The Little Princess looks crappy, the shorts look crappy, and there are no extras. Those who consider buying this cheap set should take all the aforementioned negative aspects into account.

*** EDIT 7/5/12: ***

Forgot to mention the important info about region and format. All discs on the set are ALL-REGION NTSC single-layer pressed discs. Yes, I was surprised they were NTSC, as all mainland-Chinese-made DVDs I've seen have been PAL. But these are NTSC.
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rbrown498

Total bootleg. Fox has a distribution arm for DVDs in China, and official Fox DVDs have a holographic sticker on them denoting them as official. I'm not sure about Universal. I'm pretty positive, however, that Fox and Universal DIDN'T decide to team up to release this set, as they haven't done anything like that in the past, anywhere.

So, let your conscience be your guide.

hilts

Coincidentally, DVD Talk/China has also fully endorsed the set.

Pizza

Wow, OP...just 16 posts in 5 years. You must really like Shirley Temple to start a thread.

rmw650

Exactly and why go through all the crazy hassle to get it from China when you can just get the official and licensed set for 50 bucks and know that you're getting it from a reputable firm...here is the link for those that are interested....http://www.wdrake.com/WalterDrake/Di...27&ICMP=Search

ProfessorEcho

I'm passing on it, but I do appreciate the very detailed information on the set and offer my thanks to the OP. Often when someone posts about an overseas release they either don't have or can't be bothered to include vital information about it. This was a very comprehensive overview and helped me make my decision.

kevin_y

rbrown498, looks like you're right. The box shows "Bo Ying" is the distributor and their website trboy.com seems to be no more. Hmm... The internet archive shows what the site looked like before. More to the point, your reasons make perfect sense as to why this is not an official release.

I'm strongly against bootlegs myself, so I may as well ask the mod to close this thread, to prevent any more business from going to these criminals.

The set rmw650 mentioned, also available at shirleydvd.com and Amazon, is indeed an official set from Fox. After a little research, I found out they are indeed the same restored editions from Fox in 2005 to '08. The films missing in this set are Little Miss Marker, Now and Forever, and Since You Went Away, but they can be had for a few dollars used at Amazon.

rbrown498

Kevin,

I lived in Taiwan 10 years ago, and I became pretty proficient at spotting pirate discs. A big chunk of the pirating (in Taiwan, at least) was (and may still be) due to the fact that Taiwan only recognizes foreign copyrights for 35 years. So, at least under Taiwanese law, anybody could sell any foreign movie that was over 35 years old. The DVDs were incredibly cheap (usually around $2-3), and they were EVERYWHERE--in record stores, discount stores, video stores.... So, naturally, I bought several hundred of them while I lived there. The selection was never-ending...and if you looked hard enough, you could find almost any movie on DVD, as long as it was over 35 years old. Quality was a different matter entirely. Very few of the sources were ripped from legally-released DVDs; many were from VHS, but most were from laserdisc.

The legitimate releases were usually denoted by holographic stickers, and they were priced about the same as in the States, usually around $18-20. Very few of the legit companies released their classics to DVD in Taiwan, as the pseudo public-domain DVDs' low prices usually won out over good transfers. The majority of the DVDs I bought from the studios were TV shows that were only a few years old.

Now, I don't really know how this correlates to the situation in China, as I've never been there. I think that there's probably something similar going on, though, which would explain the Shirley Temple release and lots of others.

dmkb

Fox's 18-disc "Little Darling Collection" was also available off and on at Costco as recently as this March for around $40

rmw650

I bought that exact set from Walter Drake a year ago for my best friend, who loves Shirley Temple and I asked them several times if the set i was getting was an officially licensed set and they re-assured me that it was and when I received it from them a few days later, it sure was and she was absolutely thrilled with it. They're a good company to deal with.

manicsounds

Bo Ying is not a bootleg company. But we must think about copyright laws. I know in Japan, any movie made before 1954 (I think) is public domain. So if you have a print of "Fantasia" for example, anyone in Japan can release it.

Probably China is the same with these old Shirley Temple movies.