Brian T

Where'd they pull it from? Their asses, if I had to guess. Hopefully it wasn't a collective effort, because it's a pretty weak one. Right up there with KILL ZONE.

I'd love to know what makes them experts in what western audiences can understand - a lot of psychology degrees in that marketing departmentl perhaps? Seriously, the two specialties go hand-in-hand, but they can result in pointlessness when they overreach in tandem. It's presumptuous and irritating and I'm only glad they don't do it for every title they put out (not that I buy that many of them at any rate). Then again, a lot of these guys (including Logan) are products of and/or holdovers from the "old days" when simple-minded retitling of Chinese films (which almost always had workable English titles in the first place) was more commonplace. In 2007, there's no longer any need for such practices.

THE BANQUET was a perfectly acceptable, even classy title for this film. It even had an air of mystery about it to both the uninitiated and those in the know. Weinstein and Logan and White and their colleagues obviously felt it needed to be dumbed down or it wouldn't sell, and they do wanna sell after all. Thus, for the few scant weeks this will actually grace the shelves of your local Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy, you'll see THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK SCORPION, which sounds very much like some piece of junk that Roger Corman would make. Newcomers buying it under that title could very easily be disppointed when it plays out like something larger than the tight little chopsocky potboiler promised by that title.

Speaking of Best Buys and Targets and Wal-Marts (oh my!), what is the deal with these titles in stores? I spend a great deal of time in the states via New York and Michigan and have plenty of opportunities to browse the DVD aisles of all the big chain stores (such a geek!), and Dragon Dynasty product sure doesn't have much of a shelf life outside of the few old releases that never seem to leave the "Martial Arts" section at just about every Best Buy I've been to. Either the other DD titles keep selling out before I get to the stores, which I highly doubt, or the numbers drop and they simply stop carrying them due to lack of demand. Which would be a shame, because they DO have some really good movies in their lineup and the face-space in a brick and mortar certainly can't hurt. But I guess it will always be a niche, and if it doesn't move, it doesn't move. Thank goodness we'll always have online retailers. Gotta wonder if that's where DD makes most of their sales anyways . . .

Brian T

Plenty of reviews out there:
http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/reviews.m...isplay_set=eng
http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/reviews.m...isplay_set=eng

visitor Q

Considering the Weinstein's history of treating (bastardizing, withholding) HK films as they have, I'm not sure I understand the responses to these name changes. It's not like it's a surprise ...

It's a friggin shame that they are doing this, but .. I don't support them. And it continues to hurt as I'll probably never own a proper release of one of my favorite martial arts films, Fist of Legend. That was never guaranteed with the Weinstein's anyway.

Brian T

Can't say it surprises me, either. I don't support them, believe it or not, despite having four of their titles, all won for less than $3 each from a guy on ebay (OK, so I supported them to the tune of $12 ), and honestly only one of them was truly needed (a replacement for an unsubbed Thai DVD of Born To Fight). Still, it would be nice to see newer and/or younger fans in Region 1—presumably a key market DD wants for these shiny re-issues, since any serious buff or scholar should have gone region-free years ago and been importing these goodies—be introduced to the form in the best way possible. In the case of most DD releases, even I'll admit it ain't a bad way to go if you haven't got access to other regions, but when they get "creative" (retitles, stretching images, weak extras that don't justify second discs), it leaves a lot to be desired, and they should be called out over it just like every other company.

That said, I can't recommend region-free players and importing (and parallel importing) strongly enough to all those with a growing interest in Hong Kong cinema in particular. You're missing so much amazing stuff by waiting for any U.S. distrib to present you with their cherry pickings, and even when they do, it's hardly a representative sample!

dpz301

i've enjoyed a lot more asian movies because of these releases, so i will keep getting them even though they might change the original title.

zombeaner

Probably the same transfer as the new kickass HK set I just received from Yesasia. I may need to double dip for subbed extras though.

LorenzoL

The thing with me is that they are capable of great work illustrated on some of the releases for the Shaw Brothers Collection and even with SPL (AKA Kill Zone) which is a great DD release except with the name change. That's the annoying part.

LorenzoL

The Royal Tramp Collection (Royal Tramp I and II) has a release date of 02/12/08. No indication of what the extras are going to be.

http://www.dragondynasty.com/films/show/101

M Polo

Legend of The Black Scorpion follows The Royal Tramp Collection:

http://www.dragondynasty.com/films/show/102

Amazon has both up for pre-order at 16.99 each

PTU is rumored as the next after these two I believe...

zombeaner

I love PTU. Logan talks about it in one of his older blogs as being a DD release.

tsetse27

It sure will be great if DD can bring more Johnnie To / Mikyway titles...

Have been waiting for a good 16x9 remastered release of "expect the unexpected" and "Hero never die'...

clintilona

I'd love to see a remastered edition of "Too May Ways to be No. 1", which is my favorite of the Milkyway titles.

M Polo

Got my Royal Tramp Collection today from Amazon. I only had a few minutes to check out disc 1 and the picture, etc. looks quite nice. For $16, this is a nice release.

M Polo

PTU: Police Tactical Unit - March 25, 2008 (Amazon Pre-order for $13.99)
http://www.amazon.com/PTU-Tactical-F...2956597&sr=8-1

http://www.dragondynasty.com/films/show/103

Flash Point - April 22, 2008 (Amazon Pre-Order for $22.49 which I assume will go down)
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Point-Lu...2956727&sr=1-3

http://www.dragondynasty.com/films/show/104

Matthew Ackerly

Where the hell is "The Killer"???????????????????????????

riotinmyskull

where the hell is RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY? COME DRINK WITH ME? THE FLYING GUILLOTINE? 8 DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER? EXECUTIONERS FROM SHAOLIN? CRIPPLED AVENGERS? CLAN OF THE WHITE LOTUS? THE FIVE VENOMS? DIRTY HO?

bluesxman

what do you think the fate of 'Shaolin Challenges Ninja' is? On HKflix they have it listed as releasing 4/8.
another good news 'Invisible Target' is due out 6/10. Atleast we have HKflix to check for updates, just hope all the dates stick.

Brian T

So, does anyone know if PTU is some kind of Director's Cut? I remember all the controversy about the massive-exploding-building-with-helicopters sequence not testing well with preview audiences.

Or something.

Always on the ball, that Dragon Dynasty.

TimeandTide

Ditto to both.

chris_sc77

Brian T

Wow. The Ting Kau bridge! Nice to see a background element that actually belongs there!

I've seen better marketing materials for FLASH POINT, but I'll give them credit on this one.

bluesxman

any word if Shaolin Challenges Ninja is still on track to be released on 4/8? Its not metioned on the updated Dragon Dynasty page, but HKFLIX still has it as a pre-order with the above release date.

any word on all those Jet Li films there supposed re-release?

LorenzoL

Amazon still has it listed for 04/08/08 under its original name "Heroes of the East".

http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-East-Go...808335&sr=1-39

However, they have taken the pre-order link for "Come Drink With Me" down.

The Running Man

The DD release of the Royal Tramp movies is pretty much a mess.

So I pull out my old Mega Star disc and start comparing a bit and to my surprise Brian White and people have dug a new kind of hole for themselves.

There's a scene in Royal Tramp where Damian Lau pulls Stephen Chow to the side and reveals some info on what's really going on with the association and movement he is leading.

Apparently, DD "censored" their subtitles (which were based on the same subs as seen on the Mega Star disc). :huh:

Here are the Mega Star English subs:

"Most of the intellectual and reasonable men are government officials now. So, to fight against Ching subjects, we should use slow people. To them, you cannot tell the truth. Use religion to amaze them. Make them believe, whatever they do is for a righteous cause. So, 'Anti-Ching, For-Ming' is just a slogan. Just like Amen."


DD subs:

"Most clever and reasonable people are officers of the Qing dynasty. If we are to fight against them, only foolish people can be used. We mesmerize them so they feel what they are doing is right. 'Anti-Qing, For Ming' is only a slogan, like 'Abracadabra.' "

On top of it being dumbed down, noticed the complete disappearance of the "religion" part of Lau's dialog.

Not only that, but I took a look at the Spanish subs and not only must they be based on a different script, but they are timed completly out of wack. During the same scene above, the Spanish subs have dialog that is supposed to cue up a minute or two later in the scene coming up during that very part! This mistake is even more lousy when you consider that the old Mega Star DVD had both English and Spanish subs also and that didn't have one problem keeping up when someone is saying something.

This is not the first time DD screwed up on cuing up the subs at the wrong time. DD did on Infernal Affairs 3 on both language subtitle tracks where a dialog that occurs between Eric Tsang and Chapman To has their dialog reversed (so it seems that Chapman To is telling off Eric Tsang when Tsang plays his boss in the movie!).


Just on the problem with the Spanish subs, these discs need and should be recalled. Obviously the censoring of the dialog will stay but at least for those buyers who need Spanish subs they are going to be getting a screwed up version of the film with dialog coming up at the wrong time!

The value of this set has dropped big time. The video transfer is inferior to the recent Joy Sales, it has less extras (Joy Sales has two interviews with Wong Jing and deleted scenes whereas DD just has one interview), no mono tracks, and now inferior subtitles.

To sum it up, Dragon Dynasty dropped the ball in more ways than one and as such their set is a total pass.

Pick up or upgrade with the Joy Sales release instead.

Brian T

Unreal. Is there actually a single title in the entire Dragon Dynasty line-up that hasn't been tampered with in some way, large or small, from print to packaging? Do the Weinstein fartcatchers do things like this (sub-scrubbing for the apparently lucrative market of sensitive kung-fu Christians) as make-work projects? Tell me, did they manage to incorporate an exploding helicopter onto the Royal Tramp cover? That might still get me to buy . . .

Thanks (as always) for the caution flag.