Well Go USA confirmation

[John]

Well, they can Go poorly encode themselves.

[Sheng]

My copy of DUEL OF FISTS arrived today and I find it almost impossible to believe... but it truly is non-anamprphic!!

I mean, their last Shaw issue, JADE TIGER, was already a below-par offering but this ? This looks absolutely identical to my age-old Australian Siren. How dare WellGo USA fuckin' release something like this in 2012 ??

Anybody who toyed with the thought of of ordering it: A.V.O.I.D.

[chen lung]

My copy of DUEL OF FISTS arrived today and I find it almost impossible to believe... but it truly is non-anamprphic!!

I mean, their last Shaw issue, JADE TIGER, was already a below-par offering but this ? Tthis WellGo disc looks absolutely identical to my age-old Australian Siren. How dare they fuckin' release something like this in 2012 ??

Anybody who toyed with the thought of of ordering this: A.V.O.I.D.

I believe Celestial made it non-anamorphic, so the blame lies with them.

Whether you want to upscale to anamorphic is a two-sided debate. Some say it's more convenient, whilst others say it's cheating.

Can you confirm if there is blended frames? If so, the Siren DVD will actually be better, since I don't think it does (in it's native PAL).

What are the subtitles like on it?

[spannick]

as the Movie was not remastered in HD, only the SD Master is available. All non-HD Masters from Celestials are 25fps 4:3 Letterboxed.

but if you convert PAL to NTSC you can easily upscale it to 16x9, as the NTSC Image has less horizontal Lines to show. so you just lose a lot of Quality if you leave it in 4:3 letterbox.

but they botched both, the PAL-NTSC Conversion AND the 4:3 downgrade to NTSC... great stuff. i hope they don't sell many of that crap.

[David Rees]

Anything released non-anamorphic these days is a joke, unless 4:3 originally.

WellGo should be ashamed.

[waywardsage]

Anything released non-anamorphic these days is a joke, unless 4:3 originally.

WellGo should be ashamed.

I just got my copy of Jade Tiger in today, and I am pretty astonished at the terrible quality. It's anamorphic, but it seems to be a 3rd ish generation print that was NOT remastered.

From my experience, Well Go's shaw line are the worst transfers out of the legit R1 distributors.

[blue_skies]

My copy of DUEL OF FISTS arrived today and I find it almost impossible to believe... but it truly is non-anamprphic!!

I mean, their last Shaw issue, JADE TIGER, was already a below-par offering but this ? This looks absolutely identical to my age-old Australian Siren. How dare WellGo USA fuckin' release something like this in 2012 ??

Anybody who toyed with the thought of of ordering it: A.V.O.I.D.

I agree it's terrible but anybody wanting to see more Shaw brothers movies released in the US need to think twice before boycotting. I suppose it boils down to whether you want to see any more releases or not? Complain yes, I encourage everyone to write to the company about the poor quality. But being on the cusp of absolutely no releases and fewer and fewer available copies from other regions left before they go out of circulation. Do you really want to show these few remaining distributors that Shaw brother movies are not worth continuing?

[Killer Meteor]

I agree it's terrible but anybody wanting to see more Shaw brothers movies released in the US need to think twice before boycotting. I suppose it boils down to whether you want to see any more releases or not? Complain yes, I encourage everyone to write to the company about the poor quality. But being on the cusp of absolutely no releases and fewer and fewer available copies from other regions left before they go out of circulation. Do you really want to show these few remaining distributors that Shaw brother movies are not worth continuing?

Why should we pay money for rubbish stuff? Not all of us can afford to re-buy crap just to please lazy and cheap-skate distributors. If Well Go released their titles properly, I'd buy them. But what they are offering is no improvement over the IVL discs, which is the main attraction of the Media Blasters and Funimation discs.

[waywardsage]

Apparently the said on their facebook page that they will not be releasing any more Shaw's this year. So it looks like Shaw's in general are going into the cold storage for the rest of 2012

[Run Run]

This is such a bummer!

I got Jade Tiger recently, too, and I also noticed the quality. It wasn't bad enough for me to hate the movie, but still...

I hope the Shaw R1 well doesn't dry up!

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

I hope the Shaw R1 well doesn't dry up!

I think it pretty much has. It's been ten years since the first Celestial Shaws came out, and in the wake of that, was picked up and released by other labels. That's actually a pretty good run, a full decade. But I think the financial risk has proven to great for all that tried.

I give each and everyone of those labels props for taking a chance on the Shaw flicks. Even if few, if not none of them, got it 100% right.

Im not expecting much in the future. At least not on any current formats. But who knows....

[Killer Meteor]

I think it pretty much has. It's been ten years since the first Celestial Shaws came out, and in the wake of that, was picked up and released by other labels. That's actually a pretty good run, a full decade. But I think the financial risk has proven to great for all that tried.

I give each and everyone of those labels props for taking a chance on the Shaw flicks. Even if few, if not none of them, got it 100% right.

Im not expecting much in the future. At least not on any current formats. But who knows....

I think the alarming thing is that the old school and 80s well seems to have dried up worldwide.

Other cult genres, such as Italian giallo, Japanese chambara and American indie horror are making the jump to Blu Ray, but kung fu is dwindling badly. If only there was a reliable label like Synapse or Scorpion to tackle the kung fu classics.

[Run Run]

It sucks that Kung Fu films don't have the fan base that other genre's do. IMO, these films offer so much more than other genre films, in terms of lessons that can be learned from them. These films are good for the soul, dammit!

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

@KillerMeteor

Being a Giallo and Poliziotteschi fan and collector myself, I somewhat agree. Though those genres are also often given some rough treatment outside of the immediate classics. But yes, Kung Fu really seems to be the redheaded stepchild that no one gives a fuck about.

[blue_skies]

Why should we pay money for rubbish stuff? Not all of us can afford to re-buy crap just to please lazy and cheap-skate distributors. If Well Go released their titles properly, I'd buy them. But what they are offering is no improvement over the IVL discs, which is the main attraction of the Media Blasters and Funimation discs.

well if you already own a copy you don't need to purchase again! All I'm saying is if people don't buy the discs, companies won't see them as an attractive investment and they could dry up. I haven't seen the quality of "Jade Tiger" But I would bet it's infinitely better than the cropped full-screen, poor English dub , classic kung fu DVDs I've been picking up recently that probably have more in common with VHS quality than DVD. Clearly everyone wants the best possible release but if nothing is released all you're left with is greedy ebayers profiteering out of print discs

[Killer Meteor]

well if you already own a copy you don't need to purchase again! All I'm saying is if people don't buy the discs, companies won't see them as an attractive investment and they could dry up. I haven't seen the quality of "Jade Tiger" But I would bet it's infinitely better than the cropped full-screen, poor English dub , classic kung fu DVDs I've been picking up recently that probably have more in common with VHS quality than DVD. Clearly everyone wants the best possible release but if nothing is released all you're left with is greedy ebayers profiteering out of print discs

Since Well Go and Image made not attempt to get their discs up to scratch, I'm not in the least bit bothered that their ranges have stopped, but they were more prolific.

Media Blasters and Dragon Dynasty was doing excellent work, yet their releases are heavily stagnated.

[waywardsage]

well if you already own a copy you don't need to purchase again! All I'm saying is if people don't buy the discs, companies won't see them as an attractive investment and they could dry up. I haven't seen the quality of "Jade Tiger" But I would bet it's infinitely better than the cropped full-screen, poor English dub , classic kung fu DVDs I've been picking up recently that probably have more in common with VHS quality than DVD. Clearly everyone wants the best possible release but if nothing is released all you're left with is greedy ebayers profiteering out of print discs

Perhaps I overstated things a bit. Jade Tiger had the original language and 2.35 Anamorphic transfer. I would say, it's not worse than this film probably looked in a normal theatre when it was shown.

These day's we're so used to seeing the amazing HD transfers from Celestial. I know a lot of people complain about Celestial's work. But before they came along, all we had were black market VHS/DVD's that were full screen and only dubbed that looked like a videotaped TV screen!

I don't advocate boycotting all the R1 distributors because of "minor" things like 2 minutes edited out of the film, or the color slightly being off graded. A lot of people are WAY too picky on this. Unless your an archivist, I'm not sure that any of us know the true reason behind the "best prints available" for any particular film.

For example, while I was disappointed by Dragon Dynasty's "The Killer" blu ray, it wasn't so bad that I would have never purchased it. It was the best copy I've ever seen of the film. However, I do find it weird that a lot of the late 80's early 90's flicks look terrible compared to the remastered Shaw's that are almost twice as old.

[blue_skies]

Perhaps I overstated things a bit. Jade Tiger had the original language and 2.35 Anamorphic transfer. I would say, it's not worse than this film probably looked in a normal theatre when it was shown.

These day's we're so used to seeing the amazing HD transfers from Celestial. I know a lot of people complain about Celestial's work. But before they came along, all we had were black market VHS/DVD's that were full screen and only dubbed that looked like a videotaped TV screen!

I don't advocate boycotting all the R1 distributors because of "minor" things like 2 minutes edited out of the film, or the color slightly being off graded. A lot of people are WAY too picky on this. Unless your an archivist, I'm not sure that any of us know the true reason behind the "best prints available" for any particular film.

For example, while I was disappointed by Dragon Dynasty's "The Killer" blu ray, it wasn't so bad that I would have never purchased it. It was the best copy I've ever seen of the film. However, I do find it weird that a lot of the late 80's early 90's flicks look terrible compared to the remastered Shaw's that are almost twice as old.

That's the thing fans have been spoiled in the past and demand perfection. Original language and anamorphic widescreen, with good English subtitles is good enough. As it already stands so many modern and classic martial arts films don't get released, or rereleased. These films need to stay in print and available so people can watch them especially when so-called flawed DVDs are overall pretty dammed good quality. I'm sure in years to come when there's nothing coming out whatsoever people will wish they have lowered their standards earlier, in the same way they have become accepting of no extras.

I have no technical knowledge on why 80s and 90s films look worse than remastered Shaw Brother movies but I would guess down to cheaper film stock and the way films were made more cheaply

[chen lung]

Sometimes, "poor and lack of resources" is a claim put forward by companies.

That probably is the case in certain circumstances, but I think it's used too often as an excuse. You see how well films brush up when they are released (the Celestial's do look wonderful, even if there are some niggles), but are let down by other factors, which can often (though not always in some legitimate cases, I will permit) be easily avoided. Such factors are not likely to happen with a mainstream Hollywood film (otherwise, there would be uproar). I'm aware there's a budget issue, but that too is likely to be used as an excuse. The materials are there and in an acceptable state, but I believe incompetence is really the cause.

One example I find frustrating: When someone complains about subtitles, it is countered by someone who is likely ignorant and labels them "bitchy", without even checking with someone who knows the language. I think if more people were more aware and criticisms were proper, articulate, prominent and frequent, it wouldn't be happening - at the moment, I feel it's only a select few who are voicing such issues.

As long as a release has many extras, supposedly good quality, or a big and reputable company, people let it overshadow any other issues and reject constructive, legit criticism. Having been in touch with some companies (without mentioning who), I know there are passionate people and for those that do, I genuinely have praise for the well-intentioned effort into extras and other areas, but sometimes, it's not enough and sub-standard quality continues.

[The Silver Fox]

Say what you want about Well Go but they are cranking out the releases, Shaw Bros,Japanese Flicks,Hong Kong action. They are the only Region 1 company who has consistently put the product on the shelves according to schedule.

Are the releases perfect? No, but the majority are alright, and I'm supporting this company because they are practically the only Region 1 company putting out Asian genre films.

I think there are movie lovers that obtain the best version of a film that is available and can still enjoy the film even if it isn't anamorphic or whatever.

On the other hand, you have technophiles who don't really enjoy movies-but rather derive pleasure from negatively picking apart each release with pompous,and hyperbolic statements, which in turn dissuades potential buyers from supporting and thus ensuring future releases.

I have Jade Tiger, I watched it with a group of people, I didn't hear any complaints about have unwatchable it was. For a 1977 swordplay film it looks pretty great.

[chen lung]

I do enjoy these films and desire quality releases (they do exist), but I dislike when buyers are taken for granted - the inferior quality is unfair.

[Killer Meteor]

For me it boils down to: why should I pay money for an inferior product?

[The Silver Fox]

Yeah,but inferior compared to what? Have Shaw Bros films ever had a stellar track record as far as Reg 1 home viewing releases? What you are calling substandard is staggering compared to what was available even up to the late 90's mid 2000's. The best you could hope for was VHS quality,English dubbed full screen prints and they weren't cheap either.

When Celestial got a hold of the catalogue,they remastered 700+ films,sure they made mistakes but to have cleaned up,widescreen,Man/Canto Lang with Eng subs was like a dream come true.

Sure other Region 1 companies may have done a proper PAL to NTSC transfer but look at where Tokyo Shock and Dragon Dynasty are now,they're done.Endless delays,excuses,lots of titles still sitting in limbo.

I get the impression that WellGO releases the Celestial masters as is so basically you're getting the same version as an IVL which is fine,esp if you never got the Reg 3.

[John]

Perhaps I overstated things a bit. Jade Tiger had the original language and 2.35 Anamorphic transfer. I would say, it's not worse than this film probably looked in a normal theatre when it was shown.

You did NOT just compare a brand new 35mm print to middling NTSC video.

These day's we're so used to seeing the amazing HD transfers from Celestial. I know a lot of people complain about Celestial's work. But before they came along, all we had were black market VHS/DVD's that were full screen and only dubbed that looked like a videotaped TV screen!

Well, it's all over the place. Their HD stuff is mostly good, but they're also known for frame cutting, sometimes up to four or six frames was it? And then there's the foley effects! I realize that for a lot of pictures we have no choice but Celestial, but if "it's better than VHS" is your best defense for failures on their part, that doesn't exactly engender goodwill.

I don't advocate boycotting all the R1 distributors because of "minor" things like 2 minutes edited out of the film, or the color slightly being off graded. A lot of people are WAY too picky on this. Unless your an archivist, I'm not sure that any of us know the true reason behind the "best prints available" for any particular film.

People have a right to be picky. It's their money.

Say what you want about Well Go but they are cranking out the releases, Shaw Bros,Japanese Flicks,Hong Kong action. They are the only Region 1 company who has consistently put the product on the shelves according to schedule.

That's a good point. They've never carried anything I really wanted, so I hadn't noticed before.

Are the releases perfect? No, but the majority are alright, and I'm supporting this company because they are practically the only Region 1 company putting out Asian genre films.

I think there are movie lovers that obtain the best version of a film that is available and can still enjoy the film even if it isn't anamorphic or whatever.

I'm all for the best version available, but wherefore the loyalty to region 1?

On the other hand, you have technophiles who don't really enjoy movies-but rather derive pleasure from negatively picking apart each release with pompous,and hyperbolic statements, which in turn dissuades potential buyers from supporting and thus ensuring future releases.

I can see where you're coming from: you can be nothing but grateful that obscure, foreign, and nowadays rather ancient films could even possibly be consumable given the fact that a) few people are really that into it, and critically speaking, most of this stuff isn't exactly high art. They're the loud, dumb action movies of old, nigh-on destined to be forgotten. It's a desperate situation, to be sure.

So with that desperation in mind, I'll try and not take too much offense at the sentiment that genuine, unflinching criticism about a product (not the institution of everlasting entertainment that is Jade Tiger, mind) is so despicable. This is, after all, first and foremost BUSINESS. It's my money, and as one of the few that make up a target audience for movies that almost nobody cares about, I'll run my mouth if I think somebody went and shat the bed with their shoddy release. I'll do it not just because I'm an educated consumer, but because I do like this stuff and I can't help but take it personally when it's not treated with respect.

Perfect attendence record notwithstanding, Well Go has done some bad business by my book. There are a LOT of movies out there, even obscure ones, that I'd like to have that also have releases that meet my expectations; I'd rather support that stuff and hopefully effect a trend towards those standards than contribute to something that doesn't. If that doesn't jive with you, so be it. You vote with your dollars, and I will with mine. There's no need to attack the character of everyone that disagrees with you.

[blue_skies]

Yeah,but inferior compared to what? Have Shaw Bros films ever had a stellar track record as far as Reg 1 home viewing releases? What you are calling substandard is staggering compared to what was available even up to the late 90's mid 2000's. The best you could hope for was VHS quality,English dubbed full screen prints and they weren't cheap either.

When Celestial got a hold of the catalogue,they remastered 700+ films,sure they made mistakes but to have cleaned up,widescreen,Man/Canto Lang with Eng subs was like a dream come true.

Sure other Region 1 companies may have done a proper PAL to NTSC transfer but look at where Tokyo Shock and Dragon Dynasty are now,they're done.Endless delays,excuses,lots of titles still sitting in limbo.

I get the impression that WellGO releases the Celestial masters as is so basically you're getting the same version as an IVL which is fine,esp if you never got the Reg 3.

That is exactly the point even if they aren't optimal they are still good quality and it's not like John said where you can vote with your dollars. Where is the alternative to vote for? IVL disks are slowly going out of circulation, the UK Shaw Bros releases are virtually non-existent, Australia isn't much better. I think some people need to shelve their quality DVDs and pull out some of the classics that weren't properly remastered, poorly dubbed English, full-screen, VHS quality and remind themselves how things used to be! Then stick in a so-called "inferior product" into your DVD player.

A handful of people with impossibly high standards dissuade a good proportion of the buying market and then you're left with nothing. Yet you know that only a handful of people actually complained to these companies. If people actually bought the movies en masse and complained en masse, something would get done.

You know what I bought a bunch of classic kung fu movies recently and I would kill for them to be as "shoddy" as some of the releases people are blustering about. People need to wake up before it's too late, if it's not already too late.