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Buddhist Fist


Jstn

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To the best of my knowledge the Tai Seng DVD from '99 is still the only option. At least they sourced a W/S print, its got fairly dull colors but is pretty watchable. The hitch is that you have no subtitles, meaning you gotta choose between Canto, Mandarin or an English dub that was synced by a bunch of jabbering goofs for 30 bucks per head and in one take... At least that's what it sounds like.

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The dub is no worse than many other dubs from that time, it's quite good in my opinion.

It's a shame with all these fansubbers out there none of them have tried to sub this film. I love this film, it's one of my favourites and I paid over the odds for the Tai Seng, it's strange how many rip off merchants there are out there for any older music or films on ebay and Amazon.

This film badly needs a remastered release but I won't hold my breath.

edit- get the TaiSeng if you can for a good price, otherwise get the bootleg and copy it to a better quality blank.

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It’s been over eight years since this thread was started — has a decent version of this been released yet? Anamorphic widescreen and subtitles would be nice... 

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Duel to the Death

I was searching for this as well. I've seen it a couple times now. Real fun movie. Would love to own a version with subtitles with the original language. 

Holy Ghost Claw

JjOYNAn.gif

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Little Deer

The Tai Seng version seems to be slightly cropped. Would love to see a version with the proper aspect ratio. This trailer seems to have the the proper aspect ratio 

 

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Duel to the Death

For those interested i found the Dubtitles for the movie on one of those sites that has subtitles for movies. It probably would match up perfectly with the dvd if you watched it on your computer. It matches up perfectly with the english version on youtube and this Cantonese one i found elsewhere. 

http://www.opensubtitles.com/en/subtitles/buddhist-fist-1979/?languages=en

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On 8/22/2020 at 2:59 PM, DragonClaws said:

 

Maybe 88-Film's can put this one out on Blu-Ray?.

Def an old skool classic which is crying out for the remastered treatment!!

What I find puzzling is why a company would release a crappy old skool kung fu movie on Bly-Ray (for example The Leg Fighters is average at best) but many of these companies neglect releasing a classic such as The Buddhist Fist which is regarded as a classic amongst all fans and collectors!

Edited by Ninja Sinai
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On 8/26/2020 at 8:48 PM, Ninja Sinai said:

Def an old skool classic which is crying out for the remastered treatment!!

What I find puzzling is why a company would release a crappy old skool kung fu movie on Bly-Ray (for example The Leg Fighters is average at best) but many of these companies neglect releasing a classic such as The Buddhist Fist which is regarded as a classic amongst all fans and collectors!

It's disappointing and many of us understand your frustration.

At least with "The Leg Fighters", Pearl River used a theatrical 35mm print (hence the burnt Chinese/Engrish subtitles) from the director Lee Tso Nam's own private collection (praying that we can get Shaolin vs. Lama from him one day).

Usually film directors don't have legal rights to their films (as they're just hired by a film studio) but it's quite common that they will have copies of their films for private purposes (e.g. Jackie Chan has copies of his films including outakes that have been used for interviews on previous DVD releases). 

For such an old film, the original movie production studio probably has gone defunct and all existing master copies gone forever. In this case, copyrights to many kungfu films either are in limbo hell or some sort of "public domain" which can be a messy situation when trying to make new DVDs or blurays.

Several years back, a fan tried to start a crowdfund to release HD remastered copies of several Billy Chong films such as "Crystal Fist" and "A Fist Full of Talon". They had 35mm theatrical prints on hand and already made HD scans out of their own pocket. Just needed the OK to go foward with the remastering from the original production company but they were not interested. 

Of course, one of our friends here on the board who's passionate about Cathay films have had talks to somehow bring out their films on bluray. Unfortunately, all rights belongs to a real estate company in Singapore and have no interest, even to the point that many of their films were junked in the last 20 years. Existing copies today are fullscreen TV broadcast copies from the 1980s.

It's quite sad and the reality is that many Western audiences are very passionate about old films. HJowever from my experience, the love for old films in many Asian countries isn't the same level. 

In the end, business is business. Old films just doesn't make much money.

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5 hours ago, gskmeva said:

It's disappointing and many of us understand your frustration.

At least with "The Leg Fighters", Pearl River used a theatrical 35mm print (hence the burnt Chinese/Engrish subtitles) from the director Lee Tso Nam's own private collection (praying that we can get Shaolin vs. Lama from him one day).

Usually film directors don't have legal rights to their films (as they're just hired by a film studio) but it's quite common that they will have copies of their films for private purposes (e.g. Jackie Chan has copies of his films including outakes that have been used for interviews on previous DVD releases). 

For such an old film, the original movie production studio probably has gone defunct and all existing master copies gone forever. In this case, copyrights to many kungfu films either are in limbo hell or some sort of "public domain" which can be a messy situation when trying to make new DVDs or blurays.

Several years back, a fan tried to start a crowdfund to release HD remastered copies of several Billy Chong films such as "Crystal Fist" and "A Fist Full of Talon". They had 35mm theatrical prints on hand and already made HD scans out of their own pocket. Just needed the OK to go foward with the remastering from the original production company but they were not interested. 

Of course, one of our friends here on the board who's passionate about Cathay films have had talks to somehow bring out their films on bluray. Unfortunately, all rights belongs to a real estate company in Singapore and have no interest, even to the point that many of their films were junked in the last 20 years. Existing copies today are fullscreen TV broadcast copies from the 1980s.

It's quite sad and the reality is that many Western audiences are very passionate about old films. HJowever from my experience, the love for old films in many Asian countries isn't the same level. 

In the end, business is business. Old films just doesn't make much money.

Man I wish I had enough money to travel the world hunting for the reels for these classics and then remastering them properly and putting them out there for the fans.

Buddhist Fist was directed by Yuen Woo Ping, and made by Peace Film Productions, who also made Miracle Fights and a few other movies, all of which have been released in a decent format on DVD or have been remastered. Alas, fans still have crappy versions of Buddhist Fist, and its been 40 years since it was made! 

Im hoping Pearl River can get hold of the reels of Shaolin vs Lama, as thats another movie which is a regarded as a cult classic amongst fans.

Its just frustrating for fans to see companies remaster and release MANY average and even crappy kung fu movies, while many classics are being neglected, but as you mentioned, maybe their hands are tied. 



 

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20 hours ago, Ninja Sinai said:

Man I wish I had enough money to travel the world hunting for the reels for these classics and then remastering them properly and putting them out there for the fans.

Buddhist Fist was directed by Yuen Woo Ping, and made by Peace Film Productions, who also made Miracle Fights and a few other movies, all of which have been released in a decent format on DVD or have been remastered. Alas, fans still have crappy versions of Buddhist Fist, and its been 40 years since it was made! 

Im hoping Pearl River can get hold of the reels of Shaolin vs Lama, as thats another movie which is a regarded as a cult classic amongst fans.

Its just frustrating for fans to see companies remaster and release MANY average and even crappy kung fu movies, while many classics are being neglected, but as you mentioned, maybe their hands are tied. 



 

Miracle Fighters was a joint production between Golden Harvest and Peace Films so current DVD copies of this film likely came from the GH vault. 

I did a quick check on the HKMDB and many of the Yuen films in the 80s were split between GH, Lo Wei Films and Peace Films, so the condition of their film library along with the copyrights are probably all over the place. 

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