Celestial IVL turns anamorphic

[Winfred]

The non-anamorphic IVL discs do not look good on my large LCD TV.

Can anyone remember at which batch the Celestials became anamorphic?

[chen lung]

'36th Chamber' and 'Challenge Of The Gamestars' were I think, but don't quote me on that :).

I can't imagine any of them look nice with the crap encoding.

[magicpoe]

Batch 9 was when the releases began with Anamorphic enhancements.

They included:

The Dancing Millionairess
Emperor Chien Lung And The Beauty
Intimate Confessions of A Chinese Courtesan
Legend Of The Bat
Let's Make Laugh
The Lizard
Love Parade
The Magnificent Trio
The Merry Wife
Princess Iron Fan

[Winfred]

Thank you for the info. Are all the new releases from Image & Dragon Dynasty anamorphic?

[HAZ]

Were they all anamorphic after batch 9?

[Killer Meteor]

the early IVL anamorphic DVDs look worse than the non anamorphic ones, with excessive edge enhancement and poor image alignment

[Winfred]

Batch 9 which was released on 10 April 2003 was indeed the batch that turned anamorphic like what Magicpoe posted except that it was Behind The Yellow Line that was released and not The Dancing Millionairess which was released in batch 11.

There is hope yet for the non-anamorphic titles released before batch 9. IVL's The Cave Of The Silken Web is not anamorphic. But Image has released it and Amazon lists it as anamorphic. The Boxer's Omen was a VCD-only release in HK but Image has released it on DVD. Is it anamorphic? Amazon does not specify in this case.

[bruiselee]

Image's release of The Boxer's Omen is indeed anamorphic. Here is a review of it from dvdtalk:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/25183/boxers-omen/

[Winfred]

Hi Bruise, it doesn't mention anamorphic anywhere in the review at all. It's funny but the releases in batch 10 are not anamorphic like Buddha's Palm, Shaolin Temple, Duel Of Fists. Passing Flickers in batch 11 is also not anamorphic.

[bruiselee]

it mentions it being 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen under the Video section of the review. I'm heading by Bestbuy tomorrow so I can double check it out for you.

I saw Shaolin Temple and Buddha's Palm in Batch #7 and Duel of Fists in Batch #8. Passing Flickers is the interesting one bc it was in Batch #10 with 36th Chamber and Behind the Yellow Line which were both anamorphic. Here is the batch list that I refer to:

http://www.asiandvdguide.com/shaw_brothers_2003.html

[Winfred]

The batch list I used for reference is this one.
http://sensasian.com/games/1068.htm