3 New Early Jackie DVD'S From HKL. A First Look.

[David G Rees]

Just got through copies of 3 Lo Wei Jackie films, Shaolin Wooden Men, Snake And Crane Arts Of Shaolin and New Fist Of Fury from Hong Kong Legends.
Have just scanned through them at the moment but they all look like ok releases.
All anamorphic widescreen, good picture quality , remastered but it looks like the negatives were in bad shape to start with so not pristine prints by any means.
Not sure if the prints are complete, the opening scenes from both Shaolin Wooden Men and Snake And Crane are complete (i think these were missing from some releases), The audio is 5.1 Mandarin and English and original Mandarin Mono (dont sound like downmixes).apart from Shaolin Wooden Men which is Cantonese (thought this was supposed to be Mandarin?)..also sound like original dubs to me.
No extras to speak of, except an alternate opening for New Fist Of Fury.
Will look at the discs in detail later but if there are any questions about these releases just post them here and i will try and answer them as it is a long time since i have seen all 3 films.....

[morgoth]

Running time for Shaolin Wooden Men?

[David G Rees]

1 hour 42 minutes (PAL)

[silver hermit]

screen caps????

[killer meteor]

Running time for New Fist Of Fury please

Shaolin Wooden Men should be Mandarin. According to a friend of mine, the HKL DVD is a downmix only. Can you confirm that and also confirm the other two are genuione mono and in-sync

[Markgway]

Just to confirm... the original language for all of the Lo Wei movies SHOULD be Mandarin except The Fearless Hyena. It seems HKL are just taking whatever they're given and don't know or care about the difference.

[dager in the cotton]

Dragon fist , Spiritual kung fu and fearles 2 should also be orig cantonese lang.
The Madrarin vers for Dragon fist is called "Sun Chuen "(God's fist)

no orig canton for snake and crane , new fist, i think half a loaf and wooden men have proper cantonese dubs.

[killer meteor]

No, Dragon Fist and Spiritual Kung Fu are Mandarin films

[chen lung]

I contacted them months in advance of the releases, and they only replied a few weeks ago to another email saying that they're more-or-less not in a position to do anything else (economically e.t.c). Requesting Mandarin mono for the films (and the original English dubs in mono) that are the same length as the visual presntation they get, should only take a few seconds as FS already have them. Not hard at all.

Our only hope now is Dragon Dynasty to see what they'll do.

[Markgway]

Dragon Fist and Spiritual Kung Fu were released in Hong Kong with Cantonese dubs because they were released after Jackie's success at Seasonal with SITES and Drunken Master (both original Cantonese). The market had changed and so Lo Wei accepted that local fans wanted to see Jackie in their own language. But these movies had already been shot in 1977/8 with Mandarin spoken on set before Jackie went to Seasonal. And they were released in Mandarin in Taiwan. Only Fearless Hyena was originally Cantonese because it was made in 1978/9 and by that time Jackie had been given control to do what he wanted with the film. I've never seen the sequel which had little to do with Jackie anyways so can't offer any knowledge on the language; I would presume it would be Cantonese, because, as I said, Lo Wei switched to using Cantonese by the time it was released and did so for the remainder of his films up until Blade of Fury.

[luckystars]

Fearless Hyena II is Cantonese too. It wasn't released til 1983.

The only way it would've been started as a Mandarin production would be if it had been made before the first one. Unlikely I think ;)

Re: HKL. I posted to the chatroom and emailed them about the dialects a month ago. Both were either ignored or 'lost'.

[dager in the cotton]

But these movies had already been shot in 1977/8 with Mandarin spoken on set before Jackie went to Seasonal.

this is incorrect information

[luckystars]

It's not. Jackie is clearly speaking Mandarin in all the Lo Wei films, and Cantonese in DM1, SITES, and FH 1 and 2. No question.

[chen lung]

Wouldn't even matter what language the cast spoke (can't really determine 'original' language anyway), it's down to 'Lo Wei Productions' and the likes who determine the 'original' language.

[luckystars]

Well that's academic. You could argue that any film was one or the other then.

[chen lung]

Well that's academic. You could argue that any film was one or the other then.
Both points are true :) .

[Markgway]

Spiritual Kung Fu and Dragon Fist were made whilst Jackie was in Korea (1977-78) and that was before he returned to Hong Kong to make movies with Seasonal. All his subsequent movies were made in Hong Kong (though he did go back to Korea in 1982 for Dragon Lord). As Lucky Stars says watch the lip sync and bear in mind that many of the performers in the Lo Wei films couldn't even speak Cantonese.

[charpchoi]

HKL were crap once Contender took em over.

[killer meteor]

I think they truly lost it when Brian White and Bey Logan left, but even with them they were a load of missed opportunities, with poor presentation of the films disguised by excellent menus and decent extras

[The Running Man]

Shaolin Wooden Men should be Mandarin. According to a friend of mine, the HKL DVD is a downmix only. Can you confirm that

I can.

It is a downmix.

[killer meteor]

I'm still waiting to here the running time for New Fist Of Fury

[The Running Man]

I think they truly lost it when Brian White and Bey Logan left, but even with them they were a load of missed opportunities, with poor presentation of the films disguised by excellent menus and decent extras

Thumbs up killer meteor. ;)

[morgoth]

Thanks for the info David.

[chen lung]

'Shaolin Wooden Men' DVD has Cantonese, not the correct Mandarin.

[Markgway]

The BBFC have just passed two versions of NEW FIST OF FURY.

English Dubbed/Full Frame @ 105:28
Subtitled/Widescreen @ 79:05

I can only assume that HKL will use the longer of the two prints and then sync up what's available of the Chinese track.

Either way it ain't gonna be uncut.

[chen lung]

HKL must have either gone into the additional effort (!), or a bootlegger of some kind has gotten to it.

[luckystars]

In theory, HKL could have an uncut print on the way, or they thought they were going to get one, and submitted a shitty old (uncut) print to the bbfc in advance??

[chen lung]

In theory, HKL could have an uncut print on the way, or they thought they were going to get one, and submitted a shitty old (uncut) print to the bbfc in advance??
The subtitled one is highly likely to be FS's Cantonese reissue version :) .

[killer meteor]

According to Dave Foster of DVD Times, HKL's New Fist of Fury is 79min. That's 45min in PAL missing!

[spannick]

so they got the "Remastered" Print by Fortune Star again, the cut-up crap. Germany is proud to have gotten it, too. and Japan. Thanks, Fortune Star!

[Markgway]

HKL also have an English dubbed version that runs 105m but obviously no Cantonese track (like the 79m edit) to go with it. It's obviously still missing 8m (which, ironically, I think are included as an extra) but would have still been better than the Cantonese abridgement (as that's not even the correct language anyways). If my calculations are correct there's 27m of footage that isn't represented on the HKL disc in any form (feature or extras). Poor show. An uncut (boot) version was available on VHS in the UK in the late 90s.

[spannick]

so the OOP Columbia RC1 Disc remains the best - and quite acceptable - bet.

[chen lung]

HKL also have an English dubbed version that runs 105m but obviously no Cantonese track (like the 79m edit) to go with it.
Do you not mean a Mandarin track?

What puzzles me is what this 105 edit is if the 119 is uncut (providing Columbia is PAL>NTSC) and the Cantonese reissue is 79m...

so the OOP Columbia RC1 Disc remains the best - and quite acceptable - bet.
Yep :( .

[Markgway]

Do you not mean a Mandarin track?

It SHOULD be Mandarin, but what I'm saying is that Fortune Star have given HKL a Cantonese dub for the 79m version only and not even for the 105m print, which probably didn't come from FS.

What puzzles me is what this 105 edit is if the 119 is uncut (providing Columbia is PAL>NTSC) and the Cantonese reissue is 79m...

I think Eastern Heroes' DVD was 105m. Missing 8-9m of footage.

[killer meteor]

The Eastern Heroes was missing all the pre-credit scene, along with Jackie being tended to by a doctor, and the Japanese banquet prior to Chen Sing's arrival.

I suspect HKL sourced the opening from Eastern Heroes's reissue, which is the same source as the Columbia

[chen lung]

I suspect HKL sourced the opening from Eastern Heroes's reissue, which is the same source as the Columbia
The Japanese DVD included the alternative opening so it's Fortune Star that gave it to HKL.

What exactly was cut from the Columbia DVD? The credits sequence was from Jimmy Shaw I think. Only the Eastern Heroes DVD maintains the original 1976 credits sequence (and in a misrepresented 2:35:1>4:3 anamorphic widescreen too).

[dager in the cotton]

just wathced HKL's WOoden men and Snake and Crane,
worst sound , the Mandarin track was about 2 octives to high
and sounded like it was mixed in a cement mixer, wooden men no mandarin and alo badly mixed, both the english tracks were dull sounding .
whats the point in having crisp picture with shite sound
they went out their way to F--k em up, Why?
my advice avoid em .

[chen lung]

worst sound , the Mandarin track was about 2 octives to high
PAL is roughly an octive higher than NTSC, but are you sure 2 octives?

[dager in the cotton]

no doubt

[killer meteor]

Shaolin Wooden men is a downmix from a 5.1 mix, I think