Member David Rees Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 Yes, another Kam & Ronson Blu ray release , this time the classic Sammo film Encounters Of The Spooky Kind, probably another crap upscale but you never know... SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS BLU RAY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 They've improved the face of Sammo on the artwork too. Blended a photo over the top of the original. the Fortune Star remaster dvd print has a foggy green filter over it for the first half of the movie, then it fades away. So annoying. If not for that foggy filter, it'd look pretty good. Colours still weren't great though. And yes, look forward to another Kam & Ronson upscale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member andi81 Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 Those "Blu Rays" are tempting....but i'll stick to my HKL DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Sheng Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 You never really know, David, indeed. I’m certainly not one that screams “foul!” as fast as you probably would... but let’s not overlook the fact that there were some pretty decent BD’s that Kam & Ronson released. For instance I was very, very pleasantly surprised by their recent reissues of YOU SHOOT, I SHOOT and DOUBLE TAP. Generally speaking, I think one should approach all these releases in a pragmatic fashion, placing utilitarian considerations over principles. If any given title is only available as a grubby, unremastered, letterboxed DVD, even those less-than-adequate K & R releases constitute a serious improvement (films like THE LEGEND OF WISELY, THE LUNATICS or BROTHERHOOD spring to mind!). And frankly, when I get a choice between a “smudgefest” (loaned this term from Markgway!) and a decent anamorphic print of a film for the first time ever, then any misgivings about those discs being “upscales” and fraudulently labeled "HD" come secondary. However, I think its important to keep in mind that the vast majority of these Kam & Ronson BD offerings have already been around as remastered DVD’s (released roughly between 2003 and 2009). And after having bought a few dozen of these catalogue titles myself I can say it can almost be taken for granted that if a remastered DVD was issued it’ll be highly unlikely that the BD will give you more than a miniscule upgrade in image quality. Matter of fact some recent BD’s I checked – LA BRASSIERE for instance – offered not even that. Furthermore it can be safely assumed that the subtitles will be identical (only in smaller print), extras will never exceed those found on the DVD releases and the audio choices will never include an original mono track (well, a a good number of the remastered DVD’s already dispensed with these). As for ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND, it is another title that has seen a pretty fine remaster, therefore its totally unrealistic to expect it to look better than your old HKL DVD viewed in a Blu Ray player with an “upscale” function. As I understood it, this was exactly the same case with recent K & R catalogue titles like MAGNIFICENT BUTCHER, ROUGE and CENTER STAGE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 With all that disc capacity, why the hell can't they include original mono cantonese, mandarin and english, for christ's sake?! OR just Cantonese would do. As for the HKL dvd of Spooky Encounters. Not OAR, but squashed down to look like OAR. It's actually missing a fair bit of image on the sides and the actors are squashed. It's also a bit too bright. Like made to look too nice. It's supposed to be a bit duller and spookier looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Sheng Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 Originally Posted by Son Of A Gun With all that disc capacity, why the hell can't they include original mono cantonese, mandarin and english, for christ's sake?! OR just Cantonese would do. Dunno why, they just never did it. They probably think that their target audience don’t give a monkey’s... As for the HKL dvd of Spooky Encounters. Not OAR, but squashed down to look like OAR. It's actually missing a fair bit of image on the sides and the actors are squashed. It's also a bit too bright. Like made to look too nice. It's supposed to be a bit duller and spookier looking. Honestly never noticed that but haven’t watched the disc in a long time. Ten or so years ago when the HKL popped up I remember it was considered to be quite a revelation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 You're right. Before I was fussy and knowledgeable about dvd details, I thought HKL's Spooky dvd was the sex too. Then I was told that it's squashed and I started noticing it, then I saw the IVL Fortune Star print and the megastar print and I noticed all the differences. Then I compared them and really noticed the missing image and squashedness. The scenes in the old temple where Sammo spends 2 nights and fights the hopping corpse has had a blue filter put over it on the HKL print. Everything is blue basically. Look on the megastar print during those scenes and you'll see other colours and not so much blue. Like you can see Sammo's skin colour and the coloured patterns on the Corpse's clothes and all sorts. HKL's or media asia decided to make it all blue. But this is just me being a perfectionist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Markgway Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 What's the best REMASTERED disc of SPOOKY with MONO? (I currently have the HKL). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 It's my favourite film and I'm not happy with any release apart from the Megastar dvd when I watched it on my old beloved CRT square tv. Now I have widescreen LCD it looks ugly. But to be honest HKL's still kinda wins. The Joy Sales/IVL print would be better quality if it didn't have a dark green tinge during many night time scenes and and the foggy filter thing for the first half of the film. If you can look past these things then Joy Sales/IVL is better, IMO. It does have original mono yeah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Sheng Posted November 12, 2012 Member Share Posted November 12, 2012 What's the best REMASTERED disc of SPOOKY with MONO? (I currently have the HKL). Gotta be the FS remaster. But the subs are probably inferior to the HKL... and for me that factor alone would outweigh slight OAR and colour deficits. By the way, I always marvel that the overall quality, accuracy and programming speed of subs seems to be a non-issue in way too many DVD reviews. At the end of the day a comprehensive understanding of everything that’s said in a film is even more important than the sound being original mono or downmixed or “lossless” or whatever. Not saying that I don’t share the gripes about audio options on HK DVD’s, though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted November 13, 2012 Member Share Posted November 13, 2012 The HKL is one of their best: good picture, mono sound (in fact, their ONLY Media Asia/Golden Harvest pre-97 title with unmolested audio)... ...BUT Media Asia, as with Mr Vampire, changed the font on the title card, changing it from a slimy green to a bland mondern Chinese, even though the rest of the credits are green and slimy. Why? Heaven knows, but its distracting - GREAT movies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 13, 2012 Member Share Posted November 13, 2012 Magnificent Butcher has original mono tracks too I think. Pretty sure. And yeah, I haven't been able to find a dvd release yet that has the original title card with no added "aka Spooky Encounters" plonked underneath. :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Killer Meteor Posted November 13, 2012 Member Share Posted November 13, 2012 Magnificent Butcher has original mono tracks too I think. Pretty sure. And yeah, I haven't been able to find a dvd release yet that has the original title card with no added "aka Spooky Encounters" plonked underneath. :/ Magnficent Butcher is 2.0 but does have some new background foley - barely noticeable it must be said. If only they hadn't distorted the picture. I find it odd that nearly every old school film that is on dvd comes with a load of flaws that are not the fault of it being an old film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Son Of A Gun Posted November 13, 2012 Member Share Posted November 13, 2012 ahh, ok, I thought that might be the case. And yeah, you're right. So many unnecessary flaws. :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.