Full Contact - Columbia Tristar
 

Just got this last night. ... and made the mistake of watching it today. Horrible, just horrible.

The only good thing I can say about it is that the picture is better than I can remember from the laser disk. I have a VHS copy of this and the DVD offers no better in soundtrack quality, and the subtitles have been redone by Columbia. They literally ripped the laser disk subs to shreds ... and I am deeply annoyed by this. It's like Columbia took an already brutally violent movie and caked over the subs by being politically correct or something. How ridiculous and illogical. Nevermind the dubbing .. another fine job ... riiiiiiight. Chow Yun seems like he was plucked from the middle of London.

Anyway, needless to say, eBay will soon be getting some new business and Tai Seng will be getting a call. ... then again, does anyone know if (Tai Seng's) Media Asia DVD release has the same subs as the laser disk. I've heard that this release may be unrated, whereas Columbia is definately a tamer version. .. if that could be said about this movie.

The version that Columbia released is the uncut version. They released it through their "Destination Films" label, so its uncut. Plus I hve seen the old dvd and the new version and they are the same. The picture that columbia put out is better.

I just picked this up yesterday but haven't opened it yet. I wanted to make sure that it was uncut and truely better than the HK release (which I also own).

Does anybody have any pointers to on-line reviews?

The Columbia version is uncut. There were some more extreme scenes that Ringo Lam filmed but they were apparently cut prior to the film's original HK theatrical release so this version is as uncut as we are likely to get. The big controversy with this disc seems to be the Cantonese audio track that apparently has a few differences in music cues and a few second segment where the audio switches to English briefly. Theories going around range from Columbia being given a faulty track to this being an "alternate" Cantonese audio track. Still, this is the best I've seen this film look and I can live with the slight audio differences, so I'm happy enough with the Columbia disc.

Re: Full Contact - Columbia Tristar
 

By any chance, are you planning to trade this dvd?

Hey Gil

Although I'm not impressed with the subtitling, I'm going to keep it for now .. well, until I get Tai Seng's release. I'm not sure when this will be. So, it may serve you better to not wait around. Sorry.

This is one of my favorite movies, so it would be tough to part with, all nit picking aside. And since I can't seem to find any interest in watching anything VHS anymore, my laser disk VHS copy will probably just continue to collect dust.