Administrator KUNG FU BOB Posted September 1, 2012 Administrator Share Posted September 1, 2012 can anyone confirm if the region one DVD has the original soundtrack? And what other audio options are also available? Is there an audio commentary? With regards to the US Blu-ray can anyone confirm if it is region free/area free? Yes, it has: 1. the original soundtrack 2. the new music soundtrack 3. an English dub 4. an audio commentary by the director. 5. Portugese audio 6. Spanish (Castilian) audio 7. Spanish (Latin) audio Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ShaOW!linDude Posted September 1, 2012 Member Share Posted September 1, 2012 According to Amazon, the US Blu-ray is All Regions. I've been skimming the cover and the disc of mine but I can't find where it states what the Region coding is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Close Quarters Posted September 12, 2012 Member Share Posted September 12, 2012 Easily THE best martial arts movie in the last 10 years maybe more. I'm more going off the fighting, amount of it and intensity. Saw it 3 times at the theater, if anything I hope others start biting off this movie kinda like how slasher movies were in the 80's where tons were coming out each year. As long as there is decent choreography, lots of fighting with limited plot and dialogue others can pull it off. Even if it's not as good, still would be better than these movies that have much bigger budgets but they end up just ok. As good as Donnie's and Jaa's last few films are, they just can't touch The Raid imo. I enjoyed their movies, but The Raid to me was just more hard hitting and gritty compared to anything else that's out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member blue_skies Posted September 12, 2012 Member Share Posted September 12, 2012 Yes, it has: 1. the original soundtrack 2. the new music soundtrack 3. an English dub 4. an audio commentary by the director. 5. Portugese audio 6. Spanish (Castilian) audio 7. Spanish (Latin) audio So the original Indonesian soundtrack with the original music is on the region one DVD? Oh that is fantastic news! I really didn't want to get the Blu Ray for the extra cost and no one else can play them… Plus if mine broke down I couldn't afford to replace it. anyone know where the cheapest R1 to the UK is? According to Amazon, the US Blu-ray is All Regions. I've been skimming the cover and the disc of mine but I can't find where it states what the Region coding is. Thanks for looking SD. Easily THE best martial arts movie in the last 10 years maybe more. I'm more going off the fighting, amount of it and intensity. Saw it 3 times at the theater, if anything I hope others start biting off this movie kinda like how slasher movies were in the 80's where tons were coming out each year. As long as there is decent choreography, lots of fighting with limited plot and dialogue others can pull it off. Even if it's not as good, still would be better than these movies that have much bigger budgets but they end up just ok. As good as Donnie's and Jaa's last few films are, they just can't touch The Raid imo. I enjoyed their movies, but The Raid to me was just more hard hitting and gritty compared to anything else that's out. have you seen Broken Path? I think that will probably be right up your street;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DiP Posted September 12, 2012 Member Share Posted September 12, 2012 Easily THE best martial arts movie in the last 10 years maybe more. Hah, I wouldn't go that far. In terms of creativity and overall diversity of fight choreography, other films have done better. But what it has the upper hand in is the grittiness and brutality of martial arts action that has been missing for the most part since the 80s and mid 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member makone Posted September 12, 2012 Member Share Posted September 12, 2012 I loved this movie, it had it all imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Close Quarters Posted September 12, 2012 Member Share Posted September 12, 2012 Hah, I wouldn't go that far. In terms of creativity and overall diversity of fight choreography, other films have done better. But what it has the upper hand in is the grittiness and brutality of martial arts action that has been missing for the most part since the 80s and mid 90s. Here's what happened after I watched The Raid....I purposely watched some good Donnie movies his more recent work of course since it's really good right now. It felt too much like a straight up movie and the choreography was good, but it didn't grab me as far as raw hard hitting type of fighting. You gotta understand The Raid deserves its props for being one of the few REALISTIC martial arts movies. Nothing was fancy or intricate choreography a la Donnie and others. This was straight brawling, brutal and to the point. That's where this movie is in it's own league, nobody is doing it quite like that. Even Merantau despite being good too, it was a bit more well-choreographed compared to The Raid, still not too pretty tho compared to HK choreography. The Raid left a huge impression on me. I didn't feel like I was watching a movie. I felt like I was sitting in on people getting their ass beat. Like I said I hope people start biting off this movie and bring REALISM to their movies....I really don't need cinematography or typical HK choreography....yes I like it but I've seen it a lot....The Raid was fresh and different and MORE REALISTIC fighting than anything in the last 10 years. blue_skies I did see Broken Path...how can I describe that...it's like a cheap 80's slasher, tons of flaws, bad acting over the top blood/violence...but the fighting was good, a lot and gritty. My main problem was the lack of realism with having the same people fighting over and over, then getting hurt, but still fighting again. I get the budget limits, but change costumes to hide that you're recycling people. You could tell JYB has major talent, I just wish these guys could contain it in the right formula of a movie. The Raid should show all these up and coming MA guys that it is possible. Just keep it simple, great realistic fighting, hard hitting and you'll get attention. Hopefully he gets inspired, we'll see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DiP Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Here's what happened after I watched The Raid....I purposely watched some good Donnie movies his more recent work of course since it's really good right now. It felt too much like a straight up movie and the choreography was good, but it didn't grab me as far as raw hard hitting type of fighting. You gotta understand The Raid deserves its props for being one of the few REALISTIC martial arts movies. Nothing was fancy or intricate choreography a la Donnie and others. This was straight brawling, brutal and to the point. That's where this movie is in it's own league, nobody is doing it quite like that. Even Merantau despite being good too, it was a bit more well-choreographed compared to The Raid, still not too pretty tho compared to HK choreography. The Raid left a huge impression on me. I didn't feel like I was watching a movie. I felt like I was sitting in on people getting their ass beat. Like I said I hope people start biting off this movie and bring REALISM to their movies....I really don't need cinematography or typical HK choreography....yes I like it but I've seen it a lot....The Raid was fresh and different and MORE REALISTIC fighting than anything in the last 10 years. Well, if raw and hard type of fighting is all you want to see in MA films then you're looking at and criticizing other MA films pretty narrowly. Donnie's recent films post SPL/Flash Point (featuring among the most realistic MA choreography for their time, mind you) have all been about telling and selling a story and characters with action infused as complements rather than the action being self-driven as stand-alone set-pieces with no real connection or depth to anything else (typical MA films with mere focus on action). Fight choreography as a whole is so diverse and open that you're free to create anything you want to the point that you don't always have to keep things very realistic and raw all the time, as long as the choreography is of top-notch quality. MA films can be more than just realism and power. The Raid and Merantau have grounded action and the stunts and overall choreography are executed brilliantly so I'll give them that. But seeing people labeling The Raid "the best MA film in 10 years" is just far-fetched. The Raid brought back brutal and intense fight choreography to the map no doubt, but on the surface that's pretty much the approach of the fight choreography: bringing back what's been missing - or realistically speaking what's been done before - in recent times. Plus I find your generalization of HK and Thai action films very amusing since they have pretty much done films similar to The Raid. Don't forget that those other films (Jackie films, Donnie films, Jaa films) you calling "pretty", "fancy" and "typical" actually influenced the makers of Merantau and The Raid, as they contain familiar choreographical elements such as arm/leg exchanging (HK style), elbows/knees (Thai style) as well as prop-usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member oneskyforall Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 The fighting in The Raid isn't TOO realistic to me. Too many people get slammed into a wall or kicked/knee'd in the face SUPER HARD only to get back up seconds later and fight as though nothing happened. When in real life they would not be getting up anytime soon haha. I actually feel like that happens more often in this film then in many other kung fu and action movies. I still love the movie but the fact that so many people get up and are fine after devastating injuries definitely takes away from the realism. BUT it is a movie so who cares haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member OpiumKungFuCracker Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Easily THE best martial arts movie in the last 10 years maybe more. Come on now dude.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member lillippa328 Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Loved this movie to death....but as far as best in the last 10 years, cant agree.... Ip Man is a waaay better movie in most area's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member OpiumKungFuCracker Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 If we're talking about last 10 yrs from 02-12, mines would be Chocolate... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The Dragon Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Loved this movie to death....but as far as best in the last 10 years, cant agree.... Ip Man is a waaay better movie in most area's Ip Man was a really good Kung Fu film. The performances are a cut above for such a film. Donnie Yen's exhibition of Wing Chun is quite convincing.. The fight in the Japanese Dojo.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member John Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Ip Man was a really good film about a guy loosely based on a guy called Ip Man in a both ficticious and preposterous series of events that ends up with a karate showdown. No film has done that before or since! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Close Quarters Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Well, if raw and hard type of fighting is all you want to see in MA films then you're looking at and criticizing other MA films pretty narrowly. Donnie's recent films post SPL/Flash Point (featuring among the most realistic MA choreography for their time, mind you) have all been about telling and selling a story and characters with action infused as complements rather than the action being self-driven as stand-alone set-pieces with no real connection or depth to anything else (typical MA films with mere focus on action). Fight choreography as a whole is so diverse and open that you're free to create anything you want to the point that you don't always have to keep things very realistic and raw all the time, as long as the choreography is of top-notch quality. MA films can be more than just realism and power. The Raid and Merantau have grounded action and the stunts and overall choreography are executed brilliantly so I'll give them that. But seeing people labeling The Raid "the best MA film in 10 years" is just far-fetched. The Raid brought back brutal and intense fight choreography to the map no doubt, but on the surface that's pretty much the approach of the fight choreography: bringing back what's been missing - or realistically speaking what's been done before - in recent times. Plus I find your generalization of HK and Thai action films very amusing since they have pretty much done films similar to The Raid. Don't forget that those other films (Jackie films, Donnie films, Jaa films) you calling "pretty", "fancy" and "typical" actually influenced the makers of Merantau and The Raid, as they contain familiar choreographical elements such as arm/leg exchanging (HK style), elbows/knees (Thai style) as well as prop-usage. Let me see if I can speak your language where you might get where I'm coming from even if you don't agree with me. Lets take the knife fight between wu jing and donnie. That's gotta be one of the best modern setting 1 on 1 weapons fights in recent years. For me that was the best fight scene in that movie period. What stood out for me was the reaslistic approach in how they were fighting. It actually didn't look choreographed, it looked like 2 people trying not to get hit or stabbed, but waiting to beat the other ones ass period. There was no style, it didn't even look fancy....THATS what i'm trying to refer to. That stood out to me big time. Of course SPL is more of a polished movie and you get the intro of donnie standing there before the fight and the music hits...its definitely a movie. The Raid is just a barebones version of that, but instead of 1 fight, it's the entire movie, no slo mo, no emphasis just people getting whooped in a project building....this movie shouldn't even exist now in 2012, really seems like its from the past to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member John Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Let me see if I can speak your language where you might get where I'm coming from even if you don't agree with me. Lets take the knife fight between wu jing and donnie. That's gotta be one of the best modern setting 1 on 1 weapons fights in recent years. For me that was the best fight scene in that movie period. What stood out for me was the reaslistic approach in how they were fighting. It actually didn't look choreographed, it looked like 2 people trying not to get hit or stabbed, but waiting to beat the other ones ass period. There was no style, it didn't even look fancy....THATS what i'm trying to refer to. That stood out to me big time. Of course SPL is more of a polished movie and you get the intro of donnie standing there before the fight and the music hits...its definitely a movie. The Raid is just a barebones version of that, but instead of 1 fight, it's the entire movie, no slo mo, no emphasis just people getting whooped in a project building....this movie shouldn't even exist now in 2012, really seems like its from the past to me SPL is polished? From both a pre (meandering script) and post-productive (Donnie Yen's music video-esque "ending") standpoint, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Raid is low-budget, but tightly crafted, and overall much more successful an effort than SPL in any critical sense. The only reason to even bother with SPL is a couple of neat fight scenes, the rest is tragically underwhelming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Drunken Monk Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 It's horses for courses. Obviously Close Quarters isn't overly interested in a stylized number of moments strung together and reminiscent of what we fans call "shapes." Perhaps he is looking for gritty, raw, powerful action that isn't as fluid. I would agree that "The Raid" has that in spades. Is it realistic? That can be debated. Uwais' character certainly takes out foes with less flare and visually poetic moves than, say, Donnie Yen in "Ip Man" and even Tony Jaa in "Ong Bak 2." Is "Ip Man" considered the best kung fu movie of the last ten years? Is that fact? I don't know. I do understand that preference rules, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Markgway Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 There hasn't exactly been a lot of 'great' martial arts movies in the last ten years. My top three would be: Fearless, Hero, and Ip Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member John Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Breaking: Donnie Yen to star in IP Man, fighting intellectual property crime one punch at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DiP Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Let me see if I can speak your language where you might get where I'm coming from even if you don't agree with me. Lets take the knife fight between wu jing and donnie. That's gotta be one of the best modern setting 1 on 1 weapons fights in recent years. For me that was the best fight scene in that movie period. What stood out for me was the reaslistic approach in how they were fighting. It actually didn't look choreographed, it looked like 2 people trying not to get hit or stabbed, but waiting to beat the other ones ass period. There was no style, it didn't even look fancy....THATS what i'm trying to refer to. That stood out to me big time. Of course SPL is more of a polished movie and you get the intro of donnie standing there before the fight and the music hits...its definitely a movie. The Raid is just a barebones version of that, but instead of 1 fight, it's the entire movie, no slo mo, no emphasis just people getting whooped in a project building....this movie shouldn't even exist now in 2012, really seems like its from the past to me Actually, I already knew what you were all about in terms of preference watching MA films - as you can see in the very first sentence of my last post - and I respect that. Loving a certain kind of flavor in fight choreography is something of a common trait for each person so of course I can't take that away. It's just that I can't see how a single criteria (realism, rawness, brutality) would make up for calling a MA film the best in 10 or more years when it's lacking in other departments as a whole, and that the makers accomplished their tasks for the same reason makers of other MA films accomplished their own tasks for their respective films. It's your preference though so I'll leave it at that. And John, SPL underwhelming and the only reason to watch it is for the action? I don't know if we watched the same film but SPL was a whole lot of a deal as far as not just action choreography but also for overall film-making imo. Visuals, sound, cinematography/lighting, fight choreography, music, direction (the latter is probably what CQ meant with SPL being polished). The script can be questionable because the poetic and at times quite melodramatic vibe takes away from the grittiness and realism of the story. But to me, it drives the film because - in a contrived yet surreal sense - it brings out more out of the acting and the action otherwise done in a restrained way had the film been more close to a usual contemporary film. In the film, everyone's told as gray - characters with imperfect qualities to them which makes them complex and fascinating. In The Raid, I thought the makers put enough effort on infusing depth to the characters but I felt it was so straightforward that I couldn't care less about why they were set up the way they were, given that some of the roles were mandatory for the story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member daisho2004 Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 OK I'm just going to jump in the middle of this here. As far as SPL and the knife fight between Donnie & Wu Jing I think The Man From Nowhere had a better knife fight scene than SPL, again this is my own opinion. And to say that IP Man was the best Kung-Fu movie in the past 10yrs hmmm I would need to see what was out in those 10yrs that we can compare it to. It ranks right up there as one of my favorites. As far as The Raid goes I think that is definitely one of the best action movies in the past 10yrs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Lionclaw Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Why do people have to trash another movie to praise another? The Raid was amazing, SPL was amazing, Ong Bak 2 was amazing, and Ip Man was amazing. I love em all. As long as there are well done hard hitting fight scenes, I'm there. The Man From Nowhere is very high up on my list of favorite action movies also. Each of these movies were great in there own way, so I don't see the point of trying to put one over another because in a fear years another great martial arts movie is going to turn up and people are gonna start putting it over the raid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Close Quarters Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 SPL is polished? From both a pre (meandering script) and post-productive (Donnie Yen's music video-esque "ending") standpoint, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Raid is low-budget, but tightly crafted, and overall much more successful an effort than SPL in any critical sense. The only reason to even bother with SPL is a couple of neat fight scenes, the rest is tragically underwhelming. It's polished compared to The Raid due to budget alone. That's probably why I enjoyed The Raid more than these other movies, the effort was put into the fighting, not the cinematography, lighting, acting, but just the fighting. It was done in a decent way to string together a movie. I like that The Raid is in the minority compared to Ip Man, Ong Bak 2, Flash Point etc. in terms of cinematography....gone, dramatic filler...gone, waiting till the end just to see a big fight scene...gone. Just all out brawling that was worth the watch. I appreciate all the movies I just mentioned for what they are... I own them all. I'm just saying right now as it sits....no one is making a fighting movie to the degree of The Raid. This movie specifically relied mostly on fighting alone. I watched someone fight damn near a whole movie....Donnie, Jaa etc. have not given that experience yet in a movie and maybe they never will. That's cool everyone does what they do. However, I hope I see more movies follow in the trend of The Raid. Personally I'd like THAT type of genre to exist in the future. Unfortunately bigger budget movies compared to The Raid prob will never allow themselves to follow that formula. We'll see, but then again with The Raid tapping into different fanbases not really connected to MA movies is a big plus and I'm sure Donnie and Jaa's camps are paying attention to The Raid for that reason alone. Like I said, I hope others follow in the foot steps of The Raid. I'm not excited for Ip Man sequels, but I'm dying to see The Raid trilogy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member daisho2004 Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 @Lionclaw: I agree with everything you said 100%! But again we as a whole on here are going to continue to dissect, review, rip & praise all M.A. movies that come out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member OpiumKungFuCracker Posted September 13, 2012 Member Share Posted September 13, 2012 Where is the love for Thai MA movies/ so lonely.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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