Do we MA fans expect too much from DVD/Blu Ray presentations?

[bamboo spear]

I don't expect too much from a martial arts film, just a decent transfer and good subtitles (this includes opening scene kanji as well!). I expect good extras, interviews, commentary, deleted scenes, etc, for something like a Star Wars or Harry Potter or LOTR boxset, or any kind of big-budget Hollywood sci-fi or fantasy epic.

[Space]

As long as it looks decent, comes with the original language track and has subtitles, that's all I care about.

Extras are cool, but I generally only watch them once and that's it. The only exception I can think of is the restored Game of Death footage that comes with Enter the Dragon.

[David Rees]

Some valid comments, but it seems some people dont watch a dvd for enjoyment, or the film itself, there just looking for faults, however small.

HK Legends were great, not perfect, but for a small niche like this they were far superior to any other label, apart from maybe some French companies like HKV.

My big gripe at the moment is added foley sound effects on HKBlu ray releases, not needed, but they dont even give a mono option!

[bratty]

Actually it was Hong Kong cinema that made me realize what a jackass I was being about video presentation. Via HK movies I started watching VCDs and had to throw my perceptions of what a DVD should look like out the window! Honestly I have never been a happier or more satisfied movie goer. A couple years before I returned a spaghetti western DVD for having too many jaggies!! and that movie STILL hasn't been re-released elsewhere. I bet that DVD is worth a small fortune today! These days I'm collecting DVD, VCD and videos and I have absolutely no problem with watching stuff in low-res. To this day I still haven't seen a movie on blu ray.

[Takahiro]

I just don't understand why people care so much about original language tracks. For me Kung Fu cinema is all about what I see not what I hear so I don't really care about what dialect the chinese is especially when all the old films were dubbed. Example the Bruce lee films Im sure Bruce was speaking Cantonese when he shot them and then they were dubbed into Mandarin later. Im sure Jet Li spoke Mandarin when he shot his films in Hong Kong and they were dubbed later into Cantonese.

[Sheng]

Originally Posted by Takahiro

I just don't understand why people care so much about original language tracks.

Well, good point Takahiro. Even at the time when most Shaw Brothers movies were shot in Mandarin, a lotta the better known actors actually mouthed their lines in Cantonese. Nowadays Mainland and HK actors are used for almost all bigger productions and a lot of them are still dubbed into one language or the other (or they dub themselves afterwards).

Now, it is a lil’ bit pedantic (to put it diplomatically!) if people who don’t understand a word of Mandarin or Cantonese cry "foul", "wrong language", “don’t buy!”, rae, rae… just because a particular film misses the “original” audio track. At the end of the day we’re talking about two Chinese languages here that do have quite a bit in common. And most of all they share a history of being expertly dubbed (admittedly there were and still are some problems occasionally with rendering some very broad Canto comedy into Mandarin. But that’s rather slippery “cultural differences” territory really…).

Anyway, the dub crews that Shaw for instance used were real pros and did really good jobs most of the time. Now if a Chinese vocal track is simply substituted with an English (or German or Serbo-Croatian or Zulu, whatever) dub then its truly appropriate to scream “foul!” and “boycott!!! Because that definitely is the wrong fuckin’ language!

[Space]

I just don't understand why people care so much about original language tracks. For me Kung Fu cinema is all about what I see not what I hear so I don't really care about what dialect the chinese is especially when all the old films were dubbed. Example the Bruce lee films Im sure Bruce was speaking Cantonese when he shot them and then they were dubbed into Mandarin later. Im sure Jet Li spoke Mandarin when he shot his films in Hong Kong and they were dubbed later into Cantonese.

It's nice when their lips match the dialogue, even if it is a bit off at times (considering they didn't record sound on sets back then).

As long as it's not a dub; I can see why people like those out of nostalgia, but I hate sitting through a crappy English dub.

Cantonese is a lot funnier too and that delivery and comic timing seems to get lost in Mandarin.

[AlbertV]

I think for me it depends on the movie...sometimes I wonder how the performers did on the set and some of the Dragon Dynasty titles worked well in that department. But I don't expect too much in general.

[Guest Markgway]

It matters to me whether a film is shown in Cantonese or Mandarin.

Maybe that's because I can instantly tell the difference between them?

Or maybe it's just because I'm a purist and always will be?

[Killer Meteor]

A lot of the Cantonese comedies do suffer when heard in Mandarin. I'd argue I don't find it a problem watching a Bruce Lee film in Cantonese (in fact, I think they're better that way!) but Cantonese cinema relies a lot more on vocal performances and timing. I'm OK if its a rare film, but if its a film where the Cantonese track is easy to access, then it's a poor DVD. I mean, would you watch LA HAINE dubbed into Spanish?

English dubbing varies hugely. I enjoy the Shaw Brothers dubs, but you'd have to threaten my family with death before I sit through that awful dub for RAGE OF THE MASTER again (I mean, could Jimmy Wang Yu sound anymore like a lobotmised man whose never spoken English before, trying - and failing - to read a cue card?).

[Guest Yi-Long]

I'm kind of on the fence on the Bruce Lee movies (and Shaw) being in cantonese or mandarin. They were shot in mandarin, yet they were HK-made (HK crew) and intended mainly for the HK audience, thus cantonese. I don't have a big preference in those situations.

[Killer Meteor]

I'm kind of on the fence on the Bruce Lee movies (and Shaw) being in cantonese or mandarin. They were shot in mandarin, yet they were HK-made (HK crew) and intended mainly for the HK audience, thus cantonese. I don't have a big preference in those situations.

I still find it totally bizzare that when those films were released, there were NO Cantonese language prints made for martial arts films. Golden Harvest didn't release any of their martial arts films in Cantonese until 1977, and Shaws until (I think) 1979.

[Sheng]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

I mean, would you watch LA HAINE dubbed into Spanish?

That is not a good example. The gulf between French and Spanish is clearly wider than between Cantonese and Mandarin. As I said, we’re dealing with two Chinese languages here. (Then again, to classify Cantonese as a language is a disputed issue – in strictly linguistic terms it would appear so, social, cultural and political factors qualify it rather as a dialect). Anyway, both do have much in common in terms of vocabulary and grammatical structure (plus they share a written script), even though pronounciation differences make them mutually almost unintelligible.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Love cantonese.... don't really dig Mandarin that much. Except maybe for old swordplay flicks and such. It just seems to fit there. 9 out of 10 I go for the canto audio option.

[Sheng]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

I still find it totally bizzare that when those films were released, there were NO Cantonese language prints made for martial arts films. Golden Harvest didn't release any of their martial arts films in Cantonese until 1977, and Shaws until (I think) 1979.

Nothing bizarre about that. It simply had something to do with the mind-frame of a particular generation of Mainland exiles, a lot of them Shanghainese, that began to dominate HK cinema in the 60s and kinda looked down on Cantonese as a “street language” that wasn’t deemed to be suitable for films with the broadest possible appeal. Chang Che clearly thought like this until his dying day. Chor Yuan on the other hand, who started as a Cantonese filmmaker, switched to Mandarin in 1970 (while still at Cathay) and finally went back to Cantonese with THE CONVICT KILLER ten years later. But in general the biased cultural notions towards the Cantonese language slowly faded away with the smashing successes of Michael Hui, Chan et al in the latter part of the 70s.

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

Nothing bizarre about that. It simply had something to do with the mind-frame of a particular generation of Mainland exiles, a lot of them Shanghainese, that began to dominate HK cinema in the 60s and kinda looked down on Cantonese as a “street language” that wasn’t deemed to be suitable for films with the broadest possible appeal. Chang Che clearly thought like this until his dying day. Chor Yuan on the other hand, who started as a Cantonese filmmaker, switched to Mandarin in 1970 (while still at Cathay) and finally went back to Cantonese with THE CONVICT KILLER ten years later. But in general the biased cultural notions towards the Cantonese language slowly faded away with the smashing successes of Michael Hui, Chan et al in the latter part of the 70s.

But how did Cantonese audiences react to this? Did they feel left out?

[Sheng]

Originally Posted by Killer Meteor

But how did Cantonese audiences react to this? Did they feel left out?

Well, let’s not forget that at the time “Cantonese” meant mainly HK & Macao and some Chinese Overseas audiences. The Mainland Cantonese speakers in Guangdong and Eastern Guanxi didn’t get to see those films (between 1966 and ’76 China was "officially" in the throes of the “Cultural Revolution” and KF films made in “colonized” HK or by the class enemies in KMT run Taiwan didn’t exactly fit the “revolutionary” agenda set by the Gang Of Four !).

Taiwan, a major market for Kung Fu in the 70s, is Mandarin speaking. Also bear in mind that a lotta Cantonese speakers do understand some Mandarin (not the other way around). I guess one couldn't say that HK audiences felt "left out" by the MA films at the time. But yes, people in HK gravitated towards Cantonese films more and more after the smash comedy hits by Hui & Chan and others. So that whole Kung Fu Comedy boom brought about a resurgence of Cantonese language films. Not that the Canto comedy stuff wasn’t thriving before - blockbusters like HOUSE OF 72 TENANTS, Chor Yuan’s biggest-ever film, were shot in Cantonese for instance.