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The 88 Films Blu-Ray Thread


Chemical Lemon

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lastninja

The new listings are:

The Golden Lotus (Asia Nr. 38)

The Shadow Boxing (Asia Nr. 41)

To Kill A Mastermind (Asia Nr. 42)

88 Films stopped releasing Shaw Brothers movies with Flying Guillotine 2 (Asia Nr. 36). That makes me wonder what hides behind Nr. 37, 39 and 40???

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Niklaus Vogel

A bit alarmed by the lack of commentaries on these three Shaw titles as well as on classics like AN AUTUMN'S TALE, while Eureka remains consistent on their releases with Leeder/Venema and Frank Djeng doing commentaries on their monthly releases. It appears 88 is only having Djeng do the more "A-tier" titles like the Jackie Chan and Jet Li ones.  I really thought they would've asked him to do a commentary on HOLY VIRGIN VS EVIL DEAD, SHADOW BOXING and TO KILL A MASTERMIND.

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Frank is machine, but even he has to decline doing commentaries every now and again surely? 

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2 hours ago, Niklaus Vogel said:

A bit alarmed by the lack of commentaries on these three Shaw titles as well as on classics like AN AUTUMN'S TALE, while Eureka remains consistent on their releases with Leeder/Venema and Frank Djeng doing commentaries on their monthly releases. It appears 88 is only having Djeng do the more "A-tier" titles like the Jackie Chan and Jet Li ones.  I really thought they would've asked him to do a commentary on HOLY VIRGIN VS EVIL DEAD, SHADOW BOXING and TO KILL A MASTERMIND.

We did a pretty hefty production backstory on the making of An Autumn's Tale and its impact in podcast form so if the blu ray supplements are a bit light on that, there's still some fellas to listen to talking about the film: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-directors-series-29-mabel-cheung-alex-law-an/id570544212?i=1000470556670

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Niklaus Vogel
4 hours ago, Knetan said:

Frank is machine, but even he has to decline doing commentaries every now and again surely? 

Yes of course, but then again I don't see him declining commentaries on the Eureka titles.  The only recent Eureka HK title that doesn't have his commentary was WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES but that has to be intentional since Leeder/Venema weren't on that one either? Samm Deignan did the commentary on that one. 

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I'm surprised Frank manages to do as many commentaries for Eureka as he does. He said he gets a week's notice, before the tracks need to be sent in. Madness.

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bickle14

88 raised the free shipping thresholds. It's now £125 instead of the previous £35 to the US!!

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starschwar
Posted (edited)

Scenes from the Taiwanese Version

 

No option to watch the longer version of Island of Fire?  That's a huge let-down.  Even if the Taiwan scenes only exist in SD, it'd have been great to watch an extended hybrid cut. 

Edited by starschwar
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Niklaus Vogel
6 minutes ago, starschwar said:

Scenes from the Taiwanese Version

 

No option to watch the longer version of Island of Fire?  That's a huge let-down.  Even if the Taiwan scenes only exist in SD, it'd have been great to watch an extended hybrid cut. 

It has been explained in other forums that copyright disputes prevented 88 from getting a HD scan of the Taiwanese cut.

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starschwar
1 minute ago, Niklaus Vogel said:

It has been explained in other forums that copyright disputes prevented 88 from getting a HD scan of the Taiwanese cut.


I'd still have settled for a hybrid cut with the Taiwan footage in reduced quality.  Not blaming 88 by any means, but I'm not really enthused about this now.

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Pandaman

I'm alittle shocked Frank is able to do these commentaries.  I wish Mike Leeder could'ev done the audio commentary Fist of Legend, I listen to a podcast he was in where he talked about himself visiting the set of Fist of Legend during the Jet Li vs Yasuaki Kurata watching them work on set.  I understand why Mike isn't involved with 88 anymore along with  Arne who know either do stuff with Eureka or Kino these days, but still there times i wished they were involved like Double Impact  since Mike and Arne discussed Double Impact during their Stone Cold audio commentary for Kino.

 

I take it that they just seem to find anyone to give out good commentaries. Frank does a great job but there is so much he can do since he's in more high demand these days.

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ChillyChong
3 hours ago, starschwar said:


I'd still have settled for a hybrid cut with the Taiwan footage in reduced quality.  Not blaming 88 by any means, but I'm not really enthused about this now.

I pass this. Extended cut is so much better movie would never watch shorter version again. Pity it turned out like this but at least 88 has lots other interesting  titles coming out.

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Pandaman
1 hour ago, ChillyChong said:

I pass this. Extended cut is so much better movie would never watch shorter version again. Pity it turned out like this but at least 88 has lots other interesting  titles coming out.

Good thing i still have the Tawanese cut of Island of Fire on dvd.

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starschwar

It looks like the German Blu-Ray has the Taiwan version with burnt-in English subs.  Can someone confirm if that's an SD upscale?

Regardless, I'm going to have to pass on the 88 version this time.  I can't really justify buying the short version again.  Maybe this is one that can get a better Region A version down the line by Criterion or Shout or whoever.

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I don't own the German blu (but have the Taiwan dvd of Island Of Fire) but I would guess they didn't do any fancy upscaling and just presented the full cut in standard definition, straight from the Taiwan dvd. 

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Yggdrasil
15 hours ago, bickle14 said:

88 raised the free shipping thresholds. It's now £125 instead of the previous £35 to the US!!

You peeps really paid 35 quid to ship over to the other side of the pond?

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One Armed Boxer
25 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

You peeps really paid 35 quid to ship over to the other side of the pond?

Nope, that’s just the (previous) spending threshold to qualify for free shipping.

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spannick
11 hours ago, starschwar said:

It looks like the German Blu-Ray has the Taiwan version with burnt-in English subs.  Can someone confirm if that's an SD upscale?

Regardless, I'm going to have to pass on the 88 version this time.  I can't really justify buying the short version again.  Maybe this is one that can get a better Region A version down the line by Criterion or Shout or whoever.

Taiwan Version in German Set was a DVD only Bonus Disc.

full info here:

https://www.ofdb.de/fassung/873,429290,The-Prisoner/

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PandaPawPaw

Do the extras scenes of Island on Fire add much to the film or are they not that important?

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ChillyChong
2 minutes ago, PandaPawPaw said:

Do the extras scenes of Island on Fire add much to the film or are they not that important?

They add darn lot to character development. Action is intact in short version but taiwanese cut is much more interesting.

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2 minutes ago, PandaPawPaw said:

Do the extras scenes of Island on Fire add much to the film or are they not that important?

From my point of view, this is a Taiwanese film, so this is not a case of a preview/extended cut that was shaped and finalized when opening in Hong Kong but rather the director's original vision.

True, it's a way longer watch but it's also better on a character-level and the Hong Kong edit robbed the film of that drama in my view. Was after all a good 25-30 minutes shorter. I realize the Hong Kong version will always remain the MAIN version of the film as the Taiwan cut is more elusive (and clearly not obtainable, at least not in HD, at the price 88 were willing to pay) but I do prefer it, and consider it the original cut. Tok Chung-wa, Tony's cellmate, in particular has a greater backstory and impact in the full version.

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Even though a lot of scenes are stolen from other films, gleefully so, the 2 hour version is still the better one for me, and the director's original vision.

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PandaPawPaw
7 minutes ago, Knetan said:

From my point of view, this is a Taiwanese film, so this is not a case of a preview/extended cut that was shaped and finalized when opening in Hong Kong but rather the director's original vision.

True, it's a way longer watch but it's also better on a character-level and the Hong Kong edit robbed the film of that drama in my view. Was after all a good 25-30 minutes shorter. I realize the Hong Kong version will always remain the MAIN version of the film as the Taiwan cut is more elusive (and clearly not obtainable, at least not in HD, at the price 88 were willing to pay) but I do prefer it, and consider it the original cut. Tok Chung-wa, Tony's cellmate, in particular has a greater backstory and impact in the full version.

Oh wow I never knew it was a Taiwanese movie! I've always thought it was a HK flick! Yeah I always thought the actual characters were interesting so it's a shame the HD longer/original version won't be on the set.

Thanks to you and @ChillyChong for the info. :)

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You will at least get the scenes as supplements and it's likely not very difficult to look up the film online in case you can't find the Taiwanese dvd or German blu/dvd set.

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