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Review Request - Yi Yi and Wu Yen

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Review Request - Yi Yi and Wu Yen

Old 08-05-01, 07:35 AM
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Review Request - Yi Yi and Wu Yen

Is Yi Yi worth picking up? What's it about? What type of film is it? Should I get the HK disc (cheaper) or the US disc (more features)? Should I skip it?

Wu Yen? Well?

Also I keep seeing Bishonen show up when I do searches for people - is this a good film? I've heard it's a gay film - is it about aids or homosexuality or something? What would be its US equivalent (if it had one)?
Old 08-05-01, 01:47 PM
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Avoid the U.S. edition of Yi YI, Fox Lorber botched this one beyond belief. I'm usually forgiving of sub-par transfers just to have a film I love on DVD, but this is just unwatchable. If you can play R2 discs and if you understand either Mandarin or French, then you may want to consider the
French edition just released this past week. I haven't seen it yet, but it looks promising. It unfortunately doesn't feature English subs.

I can't comment on the HK edition of Yi YI, but it can't possibly be worse than the R1 version.

Can't help you with Wu Yen.
Old 08-05-01, 03:13 PM
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Trigger,

Skip Wu Yen. There is too much hype on the movie. And for the price tag that's slapped on the DVD, you might want to get the VCDs of "Love on a Diet," "Fighting for Love" or a DVD of "Needing You" if you haven't already seen them.

Many advertisers say that the movie is like Stephen Chow's style of comedy. Do not be fooled. I watched the first 15 minutes of the movie and found myself swearing and then turned the movie off. I felt bad for spending $18, so I gave it another round and watched another 15 minutes until I finally gave up and auctioned it off on eBay the same day I received the DVD from DDDHouse.
Old 08-05-01, 05:39 PM
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Wu Yen

Wu Yen featured great set and costume design, but little else to hold my interest. I found it increndibly mind numbingly boring and very tedious to sit through. I didn't care for Anita Mui's performance in the film either. This is one of those, I hated it but he loved it type of films, so opinion will go either way. I'd say unless you have a good grounding in Cantonese most of the attempts at humour will fly over the head.
Old 08-06-01, 02:47 AM
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Yi Yi is a wonderful drama. I'd go ahead and get the U.S. version over the Hong Kong one - yes, the transfer is not great, but I doubt the Hong Kong one will be any better, and the Hong Kong version is almost CERTAIN to not have as good of subtitles as the U.S. release - and in a drama like this good subtitles mean a whole heck of a lot to the experience. It's not just grammar - there's some subtleties that might be put in the U.S. subs and not the Hong Kong one, for instance, that could enhance your experience with the movie greatly.
Old 08-06-01, 10:32 AM
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Dagan, the Fox Lorber transfer of Yi Yi isn't simply "not great," it is without exaggeration the single worst transfer I have ever seen, with the possible exception of the R1 edition of Ashes of Time (which is worse than its HK R0 counterpart).

Fox Lorber seems to have used a PAL to NTSC transfer for this disc, and an exceptionally bad one at that. It features all the telltale signs of such a transfer: frame drops (especially noticeable during pans); pulsing waves on stairs, walls, carpets and anything with parallel lines; loss of sharpness.

Particularly disturbing is the softness of the image - everything seems out of focus, not unlike what one with myopia sees when not wearing his glasses. So much acting is done simply with the eyes and the performances can't be fully appreciated when the actors' faces are out of focus. This is, I think, more problematic than suffering through the awkward translations on many HK discs. And I do have many HK discs, and not one of them features a transfer as horrible as this.

Please don't give Fox Lorber any money for this travesty.
Old 08-06-01, 10:38 AM
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Please don't take my word alone: do a search on this forum, as well as on HTF and CriterionDVD.com for further testimony. Use the keywords "soft" and "Lorber."
Old 08-07-01, 05:25 AM
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Check DVDtalk's review section. From my understanding, some initial prints had poor video quality...perhaps this is the version Donald got?
Old 08-07-01, 01:09 PM
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Oopium, are you saying that Fox Lorber has re-transferred YI YI? How does one tell the difference between the old crap transfer and the new (good?) one? Are they replacing the faulty discs?

FWIW, I definitely got the CRAP transfer of YI YI! Without a doubt, the single worst looking DVD I've ever purchased (though to be fair, I do shy away from Madacy, et al.).
Old 08-07-01, 03:58 PM
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Richard, I have no first hand experience with the DVD. I was just referring to DVDtalk's review of YiYi. From what I read, it seems as though there was an inital bad pressing which may have been corrected. I could be wrong however...
Old 08-07-01, 05:38 PM
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Originally posted by Richard Malloy
Oopium, are you saying that Fox Lorber has re-transferred YI YI? How does one tell the difference between the old crap transfer and the new (good?) one? Are they replacing the faulty discs?

FWIW, I definitely got the CRAP transfer of YI YI! Without a doubt, the single worst looking DVD I've ever purchased (though to be fair, I do shy away from Madacy, et al.).
I am not sure if they did a new transfer, but they fixed whatever the problem was. The first pressing would not play on any of the three players I tried so I never got to see how bad it was. I recently got a newer version and I didn't think there was anything overtly wrong with it. (I only have a 20'' tv so don't notice all the problems many people complain about). This disc played in my player so I assume that there was a reprinting as others have said.
I tried calling a Winstar phone number I found and the guy I got was totally clueless. He didn't understand why I would just not return it to where I bought it from. Who accepts returns after several months?
Not quite ethical, but I ordered a new one from someplace, and returned the defective one and they sent a replacement. So I had to buy it again, but I got two good copies that way. I plan on selling the extra one or giving it as a gift or something.
Old 08-08-01, 09:02 AM
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I'd heard that YiYi wouldn't play in some players. I got mine on the street-date, so it must have been the first pressing (assuming there have been more than one), and had no problem playing it in my Pioneer 414.

But the image I got - even on my modest 27" monitor - was horrible. No, not Metropolis horrible. Not Scarface horrible. But horrible by comparison to every other film released in the year 2000 and given a transfer in the past year (that I've seen, of course).

We've discussed the various defects of the transfer in a thread on the "Talk" forum, but here are some specific problems to look for: an annoying herky-jerkiness ("dropped frames"?) accompanying every single pan and tracking shot, chronic leaf artifacting, a peculiar set of stairsteps that oscillate wildly like sine waves, and an overall image softer than a roll of aloe-infused Charmin (and suitable for the same purpose IMO).

Can any of you who believe you have the 'new' pressing check for these problems? The staircase scene is the photoshoot at the wedding party, the leafs are most obvious in every shot of the tree-lined boulevard (many shots during the beginning of the film), and there's a long tracking shot of the Japanese skyline at night (when NJ goes there, er, 'on business'). There's another tracking shot through the apartment that's really noticeable for the 'dropped frame' thing (or whatever), but I can't quite remember when that occurs...
Old 08-09-01, 02:33 AM
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I rented it last night and tried to watch it, but fell asleep. I should try watching it when I'm more awake I guess.

It seemed like one of those "touching" stories... Anyway - the DVD didn't seem like all that bad a transfer - I've certainly seen much worse. Maybe it was a little soft, but I thought the Fox Lorber of Killer and Hard Boiled was complete crap compared to their transfer of Yi Yi. Perhaps it was just me. Maybe I'll rent it again sometime.

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