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Media Blaster's 5th Release is:


chen lung

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This was a very confusing movie, but cool. A Brave Archer dvd could benifit by including some footnotes. It would be great if MB would do what Animego did for their Lone Wolf & Cub series and add some notes explaining things related to culture or history that would befuddle the viewer. Like, I wish I understood the scene where the screen flashes red & the seasons keep changing. I'd also love to know more about the source material the movie was based on.

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This was a very confusing movie, but cool. A Brave Archer dvd could benifit by including some footnotes. It would be great if MB would do what Animego did for their Lone Wolf & Cub series and add some notes explaining things related to culture or history that would befuddle the viewer. Like, I wish I understood the scene where the screen flashes red & the seasons keep changing. I'd also love to know more about the source material the movie was based on.

Ditto that HAZ. :)

There's a lot of this movie that left me scratching my head. I'd seen the crap, full-frame, dubbed version and thought it was just OK. But when Celestial released them I figured with subs and uncut it would make much more sense. So I bought the entire series. Then when I watched the first one again, I thought "Well, it's a nice widescreen picture...", but I still didn't get it like I'd hoped I would. :o So I never watched the rest of them (yet).

The Animiego route is a nice fantasy though. :angel:

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i thought this series sucked ass as a whole. Yes some good fight scenes on all of them but the lack of a cohesive plot and direction hindered me from me liking it. I think somebody like Chor Yuan would have done a much better job directing this. On a scale of 1-10, id give it a 5.

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The Amazing Psycho Per

I don't get it...

Though I've never seen The Brave Archer, I've never seen enough good comments to convince me to get it. The movie (and series) seems to have a very limited fan base overall.

So my question is: How does Media Blaster made their Shaw picks to release? I mean, there are so much highly regarded Shaws out there who have yet to see R1 or 0 release, why release such an unpopular title and complaint afterwards about bad sales? Do they do any research?

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Yeah I agree, some of these companies pick strange titles that no-one wants!

Maybe it's a legal thing, although I doubt it because it was Linn that hand-picked BCI's titles (possibly MB's too?).

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I don't get it...

Though I've never seen The Brave Archer, I've never seen enough good comments to convince me to get it. The movie (and series) seems to have a very limited fan base overall.

So my question is: How does Media Blaster made their Shaw picks to release? I mean, there are so much highly regarded Shaws out there who have yet to see R1 or 0 release, why release such an unpopular title and complaint afterwards about bad sales? Do they do any research?

Cause Celestial does their contracts in batches with certain stipulations. So let's say a distro wants 3 titles that are their first picks(and Celestial approves of it).. then they have to pick up 3 other titles that they probably don't want to sell but have no choice because it's part of the batch(that's not the exact ratio but im saying that for sake of illustration). Very smart on Celestial's part but real shitty for the distro's. Seems like Dragon Dynasty, Media Blasters, and maybe BCI have a lot better control on their contracts + have better dibs on the movies they acquire versus companies like Well Go USA or Image. That's info coming from Linn(RIP) and one of the guys at Siren Visual that I have talked to.

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I think the north american rights many of the best Shaw films are owned by other companies. MB isn't exactly scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I think they're getting leftovers that have been picked over.

Back to the movie - It would be great if MB could give their releases the animego treatment & have footnotes or some anecdotal info added to their special features. Brave Archer is one film that could benifit from that. I'm not a huge fan of the film, but I don't feel like I'm in a position to judge it really. The movie assumes that you know a lot of stuff about legends, other stories, and cultural things & wasn't really made with a western audience in mind. I know I'm missing out on a lot of things, which affects my enjoyment of the movie, but when I decided to just go along for the ride & take in the spectacle, it was cool.

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There's part of the source material translated here:

http://wuxiapedia.com/novels/jin_yong/eagle_shooting_hero

Chang Cheh admitted he did a disservice to his friend's novel with this film adaptation. Both he and Jin Yong (Louis Cha) had been friends for some decades and he liked to use his bud's novels as source material for his movies. It was actually Jin who came up with the name "Changgong" (CC's first indie co.)

It was inspired by Jin's own pseudonym made up the radical 'Jin' and the radix 'Rong' of his given name. Changgong gave CC's family name 'Zhang' an interesting twist by reciprocating the radical 'Chang' which means long and the stem 'Gong' which means bow. IOW, "Changgong = long bow" which is why you see Chi Kuan Chun pulling a strong bow to shoot an arrow which became the company logo (pic below). BTW, anyone recall which movie featured this trailer? I've seen it but couldn't find to post a screencap.

changgong.jpg

Anyhow, teako seems to have gone off on a tangent. Sorry. As for Brave Archer, its definitely a better read I've been told (but what book isn't when compared to its film adaptation?) Here's what Chang Cheh had to say about this....

"My adaptations did not do his work justice. The reason is that we are people of very different nature. Jin Yong is composed and profound; his novels flow with the mightiness and grandeur of a great river. Myself, however, is rebellious and ferocious; like rapids and falls. And I could only recreate episodes of his novels the screen. The better ones are
BA3
which involves the subplot between Emperor Nan and Lady Ying and
Leg of Fox
which focuses on the art of poisoning. Still, I failed to capture the original's expansiveness. I knew my limitations and had since not attempted any more Jin Yong adaptations."

loucha.jpg

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There's part of the source material translated here:

http://wuxiapedia.com/novels/jin_yong/eagle_shooting_hero

Chang Cheh admitted he did a disservice to his friend's novel with this film adaptation. Both he and Jin Yong (Louis Cha) had been friends for some decades and he liked to use his bud's novels as source material for his movies. It was actually Jin who came up with the name "Changgong" (CC's first indie co.)

It was inspired by Jin's own pseudonym made up the radical 'Jin' and the radix 'Rong' of his given name. Changgong gave CC's family name 'Zhang' an interesting twist by reciprocating the radical 'Chang' which means long and the stem 'Gong' which means bow. IOW, "Changgong = low bow" which is why you see Chi Kuan Chun pulling a strong bow to shoot an arrow which became the company logo (pic below). BTW, anyone recall which movie featured this trailer? I've seen it but couldn't find to post a screencap.

changgong.jpg

Anyhow, teako seems to have gone off on a tangent. Sorry. As for Brave Archer, its definitely a better read I've been told (but what book isn't when compared to its film adaptation?) Here's what Chang Cheh had to say about this....

"My adaptations did not do his work justice. The reason is that we are people of very different nature. Jin Yong is composed and profound; his novels flow with the mightiness and grandeur of a great river. Myself, however, is rebellious and ferocious; like rapids and falls. And I could only recreate episodes of his novels the screen. The better ones are
BA3
which involves the subplot between Emperor Nan and Lady Ying and
Leg of Fox
which focuses on the art of poisoning. Still, I failed to capture the original's expansiveness. I knew my limitations and had since not attempted any more Jin Yong adaptations."

loucha.jpg

Good read, teako. At least he admitted his shortcomings and didn't hide behind a veil of "You can only do so much in adapting a novel into the big screen" or justify taking liberties.

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gravedigger666
It's quite a good film actually. The sequels less so, especially the last one.

sequels are also great if you can stand bit confusing story and far too many characters.p.fu sheng vs. Mr.Toad in end of 3 is magic.

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BTW, anyone recall which movie featured this trailer? I've seen it but couldn't find to post a screencap.

The Made In Hong Kong tape for SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS had the Long Bow fanfare.

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ironfistedmonk

I'm not a fan of the Brave Archer series storytelling wise, very confusing due to there being so much plot crammed into 4 movies. The action in the first 2 movies is quite dull too, the end fight in Brave Archer 3 tho is one of the best fight scenes I've ever seen and often gets overlooked cos the rest of the film is so shit, ditto Brave Archer and His Mate, great action, crappy film. If you know the novel or have seen the Legend of the Condor Heroes TV series (the TVB series from the 70's is really good) then the films will make more sense but I saw the films first and was very underwhelmed.

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I don't get it...

Though I've never seen The Brave Archer, I've never seen enough good comments to convince me to get it. The movie (and series) seems to have a very limited fan base overall.

So my question is: How does Media Blaster made their Shaw picks to release? I mean, there are so much highly regarded Shaws out there who have yet to see R1 or 0 release, why release such an unpopular title and complaint afterwards about bad sales? Do they do any research?

My guess is that the fact it's a HD title is one of the reasons they chose it.

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The Amazing Psycho Per
So let's say a distro wants 3 titles that are their first picks(and Celestial approves of it).. then they have to pick up 3 other titles that they probably don't want to sell but have no choice because it's part of the batch(that's not the exact ratio but im saying that for sake of illustration).

:S I'm so naive... Should've tought about that... The Hollywood majors do the exact same thing when distributing their blockbusters. If you the summer hits in your cinemas, you've got to take a couple crappy ones too (not that the hollywood blockbusters aren't crap, but, you know what I mean).

As for Brave Archer, its definitely a better read I've been told (but what book isn't when compared to its film adaptation?)

Well, from what I heard his novels span on more then a thousand pages, so you can imagine it is impossible to cram everything in a 1:30-2:00 movie. The Shaw studios didn't have the artistic ressources to pull that off... Only Kubrick back then could do a novel adaptation that makes you forget about the book... But I disgress.

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The Running Man

The cultural history notes on this movie is a very good idea fellas. :)

You guys should get together and make it happen. Get gfaknikkifi (spelling) to read the message and send it to MB so that they can consider it since the release is closing in and before it's too late.

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Shaolin Patriot
Brave Archer:D.

It's been said the film's a bit shit, but I donno as I've not seen it.

I thought the first one was better than the rest. If anything, see the first and don't bother with the rest (unless you really want to follow the entire series).

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What was the fourth release? I thought it was only Heroes Two, The Master, and Challenge of the Masters.

'Deadly Duo';).

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