How Pan & Scan Ruins Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema

[TheKungFuRobber]

A look at the old Eastern Heroes VHS tape of Hitman in the Hand of Buddha from 1995. Unfortunately, thousands of other movies suffered the same process and the original scope versions are lost (the entire Cathay Films catalogue being a prime example). This is one of the many old school classics still awaiting an official widescreen release. It is currently in the hands of Mei Ah Entertainment Company and there are no plans to release the film any time soon. The widescreen print here is taken from the heavilly cut German DVD, which has over 20 minutes of plot related footage cut leaving the film at only 72 minutes in length.

Over 50% of the picture is missing, and this causes the cinematography to be altered drastically.

 

[Killer Meteor]

The worst for me was the VHS of Spiritual Kung Fu. it didn't actually pan and scan, just sat studdbornly in the centre whilst people yelled at each other and you couldn't see them.

[TheKungFuRobber]

49 minutes ago, Killer Meteor said:

The worst for me was the VHS of Spiritual Kung Fu. it didn't actually pan and scan, just sat studdbornly in the centre whilst people yelled at each other and you couldn't see them.

This isn't pan scan either. Unfortunately this VHS was one of the first released by Eastern Heroes, when it was the only copy they could get. They later did release a remastered letterbox tape with proper English subtitles but it is very hard to find, which is a shame because it is the definitive version to own being remastered. I've been looking for the restored Hitman tape for ages. If anyone has the second Eastern Heroes tape and it isnt too worn I will buy it. I need to incorporate about 17 minutes of footage from the tape to have a proper frame perfect cinemascope version of the film. VHS is not very high resolution (250 vertical lines at PAL) but it is doable if done properly and will be much better than the FLK bootleg. I have no idea why Eastern Heroes used an inferior transfer for their DVD instead of the remastered letterbox version they comissioned for the second VHS tape. It would have made more sense. 

On another note, the badly cropped HK version on my current tape runs for 1hr 33 minutes at film rate making it longer than the shitty FLK bootleg which splices stuff from the Korean version into a VCD print.

[Killer Meteor]

From what I gather, EH never did a letterbox tape. They announced one and had the covers printed, but got a 4:3 transfer with Chinese subs burnt in.

 

 

[TheKungFuRobber]

37 minutes ago, Killer Meteor said:

From what I gather, EH never did a letterbox tape. They announced one and had the covers printed, but got a 4:3 transfer with Chinese subs burnt in.

 

 

I think they did. I found a listing for the tape in question and on the back it states Widescreen with remastered subtitles. https://picclick.co.uk/Rare-Vhs-Kung-Fu-X-3-hitman-In-264044422833.htmlBFDPceBmw&feature=youtu.be

[Killer Meteor]

Yes, my memory is that's they printed the covers, got the 4:3 transfer and released that despite the cover claiming it was widescreen!

[DragonClaws]

37 minutes ago, Killer Meteor said:

Yes, my memory is that's they printed the covers, got the 4:3 transfer and released that despite the cover claiming it was widescreen!

 

1 hour ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

I think they did. I found a listing for the tape in question and on the back it states Widescreen with remastered subtitles. https://picclick.co.uk/Rare-Vhs-Kung-Fu-X-3-hitman-In-264044422833.htmlBFDPceBmw&feature=youtu.be

 

Sadly there have been many misleading covers over the year's, from various company's.

 

I cant recall seeing this in stores, was it in true widescreen?

 

 

 

This was the only VHS release by Eastern Hereos, that I can remember seeing in shops.

 

[sym8]

I remember watching Enter the dragon back in the early days of vhs and thought the camera was always to close to clearly see the action but when I saw the widescreen print many years later I thought I was watching a different movie,it was way much better.

[Killer Meteor]

53 minutes ago, sym8 said:

I remember watching Enter the dragon back in the early days of vhs and thought the camera was always to close to clearly see the action but when I saw the widescreen print many years later I thought I was watching a different movie,it was way much better.

To be fair in Enter's case, even in the proper aspect ratio the camera is too damn close half the time!

[Killer Meteor]

1 hour ago, DragonClaws said:

 

 

Sadly there have been many misleading covers over the year's, from various company's.

 

I cant recall seeing this in stores, was it in true widescreen?

 

 

 

This was the only VHS release by Eastern Hereos, that I can remember seeing in shops.

 

Yeah, it wasn't widescreen.

 

The EH DVD was weird. It was the English copy, but they removed a whole scene to get around the forced Ocean Shores copyright notice!

The later double bill DVD with Hellz' Windstaff was widescreen...but they did that by taking the previous English DVD master and squishing it!

 

[TheKungFuRobber]

I found this review on Amazon, which interests me. Maybe this guy is talking bullshit.

[Killer Meteor]

Hmm, how odd...

[saltysam]

How was the HKL of Spiritual Kung Fu? i see it goes for mad prices so assume it was decent?

[DragonClaws]

16 hours ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

I found this review on Amazon, which interests me. Maybe this guy is talking bullshit. 

 

If knowone on the forums recalls this release, it must be either very rare, or just a misleading cover & Amazon review?.

 

You could always try contacting Eastern Heroes now, and ask them about this title?.

[TheKungFuRobber]

1 hour ago, saltysam said:

How was the HKL of Spiritual Kung Fu? i see it goes for mad prices so assume it was decent?

It was an excellent release. Remastered print, English subtitles, Cantonese and English dubbed (both Dolby 5.1 remix) and I think it had an audio commentary..

[Killer Meteor]

The awful 5.1 remix runined the HKL DVD of Spiritual Kung Fu.

[saltysam]

A 1080p Web-DL of Spiritual Kung Fu has surfaced in the last few days, chinese subs are unremovable though.

[DragonClaws]

3 hours ago, saltysam said:

How was the HKL of Spiritual Kung Fu? i see it goes for mad prices so assume it was decent?

 

It seems all the HKL Low Wie/JC title's, are very high in price online, glad I didnt pay the high prices some wantd for Dragon Fist. Got a superior HD print on Blu-Ray, for so little, brand new too.

I just hope 88, get round to releasing all of the LW/JC title's, fingers crossed they sell a decent amount of these.

You would think, the new releases, would effect the prices of the old HKL DVD re-issues?.

[TheKungFuRobber]

On 1/14/2019 at 8:16 PM, DragonClaws said:

 

It seems all the HKL Low Wie/JC title's, are very high in price online, glad I didnt pay the high prices some wantd for Dragon Fist. Got a superior HD print on Blu-Ray, for so little, brand new too.

I just hope 88, get round to releasing all of the LW/JC title's, fingers crossed they sell a decent amount of these.

You would think, the new releases, would effect the prices of the old HKL DVD re-issues?.

The Shout Factory editions are easy to get. They offer two movies on a DVD9, with remastered anamorphic prints and English dubbed soundtracks.

Also, the HKL DVD of 'New Fist of Fury' is very easy to find online - although sadly it is a heavilly cut version from 1980 which was released by Golden Harvest after the success of The Young Master. It is cut by 39 minutes removing much of the KMT-sympathetic elements and anti-Japanese sentiments which were likely enfoced by the government in Taiwan at the time and likely wouldn't have worked for Hong Kong audiences, and was also dubbed into Cantonese. Interestingly enough, Golden Harvest made a few re-edited versions of films from their catalogue including the more notorious Cantonese re-release print of The Big Boss, which is almost identical to the US print sans a couple of 3 second clips but has different opening credits and a completely different soundtrack from the Mandarin version. This version forms the basis of all currently availible DVD's and Blu-rays. HKL didn't even bother to include the Mandarin soundtrack on their Big Boss DVD despite it having been the original language of the film, likely due to the backlash of their 'Snake in the Eagle's Shadow' DVD which included the incorrect Mandarin soundtrack instead of being in Cantonese.

[Killer Meteor]

New Fist of Fury is a political film before it's a kung fu film. It doesn't exactly show the Taiwan rebels to best advantage - they sit in an attic the whole movie and do nothing!

[TheKungFuRobber]

3 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

New Fist of Fury is a political film before it's a kung fu film. It doesn't exactly show the Taiwan rebels to best advantage - they sit in an attic the whole movie and do nothing!

That's true. I actually prefer the 1980 version of the film anyway to be honest, besides it is probably the more widely viewed version given that the 1976 release flopped and was pulled from theaters quickly.

[Killer Meteor]

There is a lot of padding in NFOF. It's 2hrs long and I don't think there is a proper fight scene until 40min in.

[DragonClaws]

15 hours ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

The Shout Factory editions are easy to get. They offer two movies on a DVD9, with remastered anamorphic prints and English dubbed soundtracks.

Also, the HKL DVD of 'New Fist of Fury' is very easy to find online - although sadly it is a heavilly cut version from 1980 which was released by Golden Harvest after the success of The Young Master. It is cut by 39 minutes removing much of the KMT-sympathetic elements and anti-Japanese sentiments which were likely enfoced by the government in Taiwan at the time and likely wouldn't have worked for Hong Kong audiences, and was also dubbed into Cantonese. Interestingly enough, Golden Harvest made a few re-edited versions of films from their catalogue including the more notorious Cantonese re-release print of The Big Boss, which is almost identical to the US print sans a couple of 3 second clips but has different opening credits and a completely different soundtrack from the Mandarin version. This version forms the basis of all currently availible DVD's and Blu-rays. HKL didn't even bother to include the Mandarin soundtrack on their Big Boss DVD despite it having been the original language of the film, likely due to the backlash of their 'Snake in the Eagle's Shadow' DVD which included the incorrect Mandarin soundtrack instead of being in Cantonese.

 

Thanks for the head's up @TheKungFuRobber, an informative post by the way.

[saltysam]

I like NFOF ,i have the columbia Region 1 which is the long version.

[Killer Meteor]

I'd like it more if they'd had Nora Miao in a cat fight with Chen Siu-Siu!