JHosk

Anyone have any reviews of Legend 2 (Fong Sai Yuk 2) and Legend of Red Dragon (New Legend of Shaolin). I have seen both the flicks, but was wondering what the R1 versions were like. I know they are both dubbed but was wondering how cheese the dubbing is, what was cut, and picture quality. I have bought a few of the Americanized Jet Li flicks, and found the dugging to be pretty lame, but hte picture quality and sound during the fight scenes to be miles ahead of the HK counter-parts.

Any info would be appreciated.

JHosk

I just checked out the Legend 2 dvd from Disney. For those that have the HK version of Fong Sai Yuk 2 be prepared for a night and day differrence in picture quality. The Legend 2 has a far superior transfer. In the HK version the picture was generally very dark, even so much that in some scenes it was difficult to tell exactly what was happening. With the Legend 2 the colors are very sharp and vibrant. Sound quality is also superior to the HK version. Although the surrounds aren't used too aggressively, the sound itself is great. The punches and kicks have plenty of whoomp; it was almost like watching the film all over again for the first time.

Now for the big issue: the movie is dubbed and the soundtrack re-done. For anyone who has seen any of the previous Disney Jet Li re-releases you should know what to expect. The dialogue and voice acting is not exceptionally strong. I have seen much worse, but the origianal dialogue with English subs is the best way to watch this film, and sadly that option is not available on this disc. While some of the previous Disney re-relases sported some very lame and annoying re-done soundtracks(Twin Warriors pops to mind immediately), the soundtrack to Legend 2 was actually not too bad.

There are absolutly no extras on this disc. If the martial arts theatre releases can put together some Ric Myers commentaries on the old skool releases, I'm sure a big company like Disney could have at least scrapped something together.

Overall, this disc has the best picture quality and sound (minus language of course) out there. Its too bad they never included the original soundtrack but beggars can't be choosers. I have both the Universe and now this new Disney version and I will say this new Disney version will be the one I watch most. The fight scenes look and sound way better, and for me that is enough for to put up with the cheese dub.

JHosk

I just had a chance to check out Legend of the Red Dragon, and here are my impressions.

When I first loaded the disc I was suprised that it had soem pretty nice animated menu's. I choose the Dolby Digitsal 5.1 track and got ready to watch some kick ass kung-fu action. I was a bit let down in the audio department. The audio is again re-done with an English dub, this one being a little more cheese than The Legend 2. However, I thought the other sound effects never made up for the cheese English dub. The fight sound effects were generally pretty flat and only marginally better than the newly released HK version (from Universe I beleive).

Picture quality is decent, but again only marginally better then the HK version. Part of this may be due to the fact that the film has a alot of dark lighting. There is some wear on the print but overall I think fans of the film and genre will not complain.

As a martial arts film enthusiat, the main selling point for these R1 "americanized" releases is the better picture quality and most importantly better fight sound effects. In this regard, I think Legend of the Red Dragon was a bit of a let-down.

On a personal non-dvd note, I think the film itself is not one of Jet Li's better period peices. I was never really a Wong Jing fan and for those of you familiar with his work, expect some more action that is way too over-the-top. Corey Yuen did choreograph some nice fights, but they were far from his best.