Hong Kong Cinema

[pistolwink]

In case anyone is still waiting on a Hong Kong Rescue order, here's a new tactic to try?

https://twitter.com/MrGlinis/status/1548028428326031360


*In case there is context missing that would make this clear, this is a joke.

[feihong]

Looks like the German Vision Gate blu ray of Royal Warriors came out in April. Reviews on the Bullets n Babes forum say the disc is, unfortunately, an upscale. A real shame, because the company has a slate of in-demand HK titles coming up, with English subtitles and alternate English dub tracks––all with what looks to me like a new naming convention. So "Royal Warrios" becomes "Ultra Force," "Yes, Madam" becomes "Ultra Force 2," "Full Contact" becomes "Cover Hard," "City on Fire" is "Cover Hard 2," "Tiger on Beat" is "Born Hero 2," "Once a Thief" is "Killer Target," and "In the Line of Duty IV" is "Red Force." They're also "Peace Hotel," which gets renamed "John Woo: Never Die," and another company in Germany has a blu ray of Hapkido coming next year. They all are advertised as having "2k remasters," except for "Yes, Madam"––excuse me, "Ultra Force 2," which say it'll be based on a new 4k restoration. Maybe that one will turn out better?

What Royal Warriors blu-ray came out in April? I presume you mean Tiger Cage (whose German title was confusingly Ultra Force - Teil 4) ? The real Royal Warriors (In the Line of Duty II) was only released this month by the same company. Words I receive are it's from a genuine 4k master, which bodes well for the other two releases from the series in the coming months.

Hm, can't find the review now, so I think your source is more reliable on that. I'll be happy if that's the case. I've got Royal Warriors and Tiger on Beat in a shopping cart, but I'm pretty leery of dropping $75 on these films if the quality isn't better than what I've already seen.


Just found a trailer for the German blu ray, which looks pretty awesome. Definitely looks like some restoration work went into the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS1-Ice ... rdsGermany

Then there's this trailer for the Tiger on Beat release, which looks a lot softer to me. Of course, it's only Youtube, so who can say. The Hong Kong blu ray of Tiger on Beat was upscaled and DNR'ed to death, as I recall, and it looked pretty soft. I've never seen a print of this film; I wonder if it's shot with some soft-focus, or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peD34EG ... rdsGermany

[feihong]

andyli was totally right, the new German Royal Warriors blu-ray ("Ultraforce 1 - HongKong–Cop – Im Namen der Rache," as it says on the box) looks pretty amazing. The film looks crisp and full of depth. There's a 2.0 Cantonese, German and English soundtracks, and English subtitles as well. Now you can clearly see the stunt drivers in all the cars; no confusing them for Michelle Yoeh or Hiroyuki Sanada.

Since ordering that disc worked out well, I'm ordering Tiger on Beat to see how that goes. Once a Thief and Full Contact are being released later this month, and Yes, Madam! and City on Fire are coming out in October. Tiger on Beat and Full Contact are listed on Amazon Germany under a different company (the others come from Mr. Banker Films, Tiger on Beat and Full Contact are under Vision Gate). On blu-ray.com they're listed as having the same specs as the other discs, though.

[andyli]

Tiger on Beat comparison at caps-a-holic. Interestingly, it seems that the 2011 Hong Kong blu-ray was using the same '2k remaster' (except with heavy DNR).

[qw0aszx]

Tiger on Beat comparison at caps-a-holic. Interestingly, it seems that the 2011 Hong Kong blu-ray was using the same '2k remaster' (except with heavy DNR).

It looks like German blu-ray used the same DNR source and add fake digital grains on it, those grains looks weird based on these caps.

[andyli]

That's definitely possible. By "weird" do you mean the grains were too fine for an otherwise blurry image?

[feihong]

I am not an expert, but the German blu of Tiger on Beat looks really, really good in motion. The image doesn't look blurred at all. The long shots look very sharp and full of depth––it doesn't look re-grained to me, in the way of, say, Children of Paradise.

What it does look like to me is that the film is shot with some general soft-focus. The lighting is high-key, with a lot of neons and pastels, and a general Miami-Vice-aesthetic, so the soft-focus is plausible. But I have no idea how the movie looks in a theater. But there's no ghosting, no macroblocking I can see, no artifacts in motion––and you very clearly see all the different textures of every surface. Some scenes have a little more soft light leak than others. The daytime cafe scenes have obvious soft-focus, with light bleeding from the front windows. By comparison, the scene in Ti Lung's tavern is quite sharp-looking––as is the scene in Philip Ko's apartment. In the scene where they introduce the windsurfer's shop there are clearly soft-focus shots for the exterior and sharper shots for the interior. The chase with Philip Ko looks just amazing. Honestly, I'm a little stunned by how beautiful this film looks on the whole. The previous HK blu ray looked like it had vaseline smeared all over the image. This thing is crisp and gorgeous throughout. It doesn't have as dark and gritty an image as Royal Warriors, but it boils down to cinematographic aesthetics. I think this is Lau Kar-Leung's best-looking movie, and, so far as I can see, the blu ray does it a lot of justice.

[feihong]

I got the French blu-ray set of Holy Flame of the Martial World and Demon of the Lute, put out by Spectrum Films. Like many Spectrum discs, these are unusual cult films people would really like to have on blu-ray, but released with significant quality compromises. And there are no English subtitles––but subs for both films are widely available on the interwebs.

I bought the set for Demon of the Lute, which is a Shaw Brothers children's film which seems to be based on a comic book. It's a trippy, visionary fantasy, full of bizarre images––you can witness a guy with an enormous sword, riding a chariot being pulled by two german shepherds, who as a fighting move grows a huge mane of bright red hair. There is a three-armed pickpocket, and a guy who has a dick for a head. Very strange stuff. It features big, fun roles for Kara Hui and Chin Siu Ho––neglected actors who should have been bigger kung fu movie stars, in my view. Philip Kwok shows up with his third arm and a little kid who travels by a helicopter made of dragonfly wings. It is a treat. The picture on the disc looks frequently sharp, with visible grain. Some shots do not look that strong. There is a mildly weak look to the image--the colors look rather wan, and there is a lot of soft-focus, which never looks good on blu ray. But there are sharp edges, there is depth of field, and it does look like a big improvement on the IVL DVD. The film is mega-fun, very psychotronic. It ends with a guy wildly strumming a weaponized lute, and the heroes are trying to break this musical instrument, like the grandmother in Coco.

The set is really meant to promote the other movie, though. The slipcase features the poster for Holy Flame of the Martial World, and it's the only title on the outside slipcase (I had a scary moment when I thought maybe I hadn't understood how to order Demon of the Lute). The inside case has a reversible sleeve. I don't like Holy Flame of the Martial World at all, and so I quickly reversed the sleeve, and I'm putting the film onto my shelf with the slipcase facing the wall, because, f*ck that movie. Incredibly, even though Holy Flame is the clear emphasis of the set, the film is treated much worse. It hardly looks like a blu ray at all––it looks closer in quality to the IVL DVD of the film. The image is very soft, with no visible grain at all, and there is little depth of field. The colors are maintained pretty well, so the difference between the films may boil down to different cinematographic approaches––but really, the two discs look like they were authored by different people––one who recognized that grain was a part of filmmaking, and the other who sadly didn't seem to believe in it. It is a shame, but I think Holy Flame is a movie that really, really sucks. Poor Max Mok gets used very badly in the picture, and the women in the film collectively represented a stunning dearth of talent and charisma. They seem very much like the B-team of Shaw actresses––like the actresses playing the prostitutes in the background of scenes in Dirty Ho. Here they get different colored sashes and run around doing sword formations. These films are grouped because they're both pretty psychedelic, I think––but Holy Flame wears psychedelic visuals just to show off, and then presents a very uninspired, straightforward story. Whereas Demon of the Lute is bonkers from frame one––making it the genuine article.

I don't know that this is anyone's essential Shaw Brothers set, but if another company releases Demon of the Lute, I'd recommend it. Spectrum has a few more Shaw bros 2-disc sets coming––for What Price Honesty? and the excellent Gang Master, and another set for The Lady Assassin and Secret Service of the Imperial Court. I think I remember Lady Assassin being pretty good. Gang Master I remember being quite good. They're also doing a single-disc release, An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty––a weird, sexy movie starring captivating reclusive actress Patricia Ha––who will also be dazzling us in On the Run when it comes out in another month or so.

[tenia]

I like what Spectrum are doing in unearthing rarely-seen movies on Blu-ray, but there's no wonder nobody bothered upgrade most of those considering the state of the HD material available for many of them.
And those 2 actually aren't that bad but it's clear both are dated masters, Holy Flame a DNRed one and Demon a EEd one.

[feihong]

I like what Spectrum are doing in unearthing rarely-seen movies on Blu-ray, but there's no wonder nobody bothered upgrade most of those considering the state of the HD material available for many of them.
And those 2 actually aren't that bad but it's clear both are dated masters, Holy Flame a DNRed one and Demon a EEd one.

I wonder if that's why we haven't seen most of the Chor Yuen titles get blu rays? There's a disc of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, but I know that one got a 35mm master back in the day, and a lot of the Chor Yuen pictures I believe only received digital remasters.


The new German blu ray of Once a Thief (aka Killer Target???) is more variable in quality to my eyes than the Royal Warriors and Tiger on Beat discs. Quality and treatment seems to vary from shot to shot. Generally-speaking, the long shots look pretty rough, and the mediums and closeups look about a thousand times better, but it isn't quite that cut-and-dried, with passages of the film that look a lot sharper in general than others. This was my experience seeing it in 35mm, as well, in an aged print––that the long shots looked soft in general. It was also my experience with the theatrical cut that the cinematography looked very different from scene to scene (the scene when they steal the painting from the wine-cellar, for instance, are shot in considerable soft-focus, varied per setting, but the scenes of them infiltrating the villa and escaping have much more clarity), but this is a weird-looking transfer. On the whole it looks sharper and more colorful than the HK Kam&Ronson blu ray, but it seems as if it was taken from the same source material, hence the variable output. Some sections look as if they might have been re-grained––and then other sections look very natural.

The English subtitles are fine, though in this translation there are main characters named Red Bean and Read Bean Bun, so it gets a little hard to distinguish. If you know the movie, the subs aren't a problem, and they are, on the whole translated a little better than what I've seen in the past. There appear to be a HK cut on the disc, and also a German one. The German cut doesn't have English subtitles, or Cantonese audio––but it does have both German and English-language dubs. I haven't checked this out to see if there are major differences––I'm not sure I'd be able to tell where the differences were, unless they cut out all of Chow Yun-Fat's comedy, or something like that.

This wasn't a movie I was very gone on when I first saw it. Later on, though, I saw it in the New Beverly Theater, and I came to appreciate what an enormous crowd–pleaser the film is. And with Leslie Cheung now gone, this is one of his sweetest and most charismatic performances, and we're not getting any more of those. So my mind has changed about the movie, and I appreciate it a whole lot more than I did. The disc is very nice to have. I think I'm going to be watching all these Hong Kong movies a lot more, now that they are coming out and looking so much better––not perfect, but way, way better than they did. I have Full Contact pre-ordered as well (under it's fun German title, "Cover Hard"!!! What?!? "Cover Hard"????), and there are discs of Yes, Madam! and City on Fire coming in October.

[yoloswegmaster]

A couple of posts by Kung Fu Bob on why we don't see a lot of new interviews with the stars/directors on a lot of the recent home video releases of the HK titles:

This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but an enormous amount of filmmakers, actresses and actors that worked on the films we love have no interest whatsoever in speaking about them. They either don't really remember them, don't care, are embarrassed by them, or just think it's old and irrelevant. I've been told several times that Hong Kong people are not nostalgic like, for instance, we here in the US are. Marylin Monroe and James Dean are still known, talked about, and loved here many decades after their passing. But in the early '90s when I was in Chinese video stores asking about '70s and even '80s movies they'd often laugh and dismissively reply "That's old. No good. Too old."

So when you see Asian film releases from companies that are light on extras, please keep in mind, that doesn't indicate that 50 people weren't asked to grant interviews. Same holds true for a lot of US and UK produced films. People in the business have told me how difficult is ids to get interviews for a lot of stuff. That's why when a big star like Bryan "BREAKING BAD" Cranston contributes an interview on the recent 4K/Blu-ray release of ALLIGATOR from Shout/Scream Factory I am so surprised and happy. Especially since he wasn't even acting in it- he was a production assistant! Great, fun interview/extra, and so glad Shout got it.

After talking to a few Hong Kong actors and hearing their description of it being non-stop job after job, just all blending together, I guess it would be like if they asked me- "Hey remember that sale you made at that job you worked at when you were 22?" (over 30 years ago) Uh... no. I absolutely don't remember that, as it was just another day on the job for me. @teako170 told me that when he'd mention titles or plot-line specifics to Lo Meng he mostly didn't know what T was even talking about. It all ran together, one job starting as a different one ended, or even filming multiple films at the same time. So that makes it hard for them to answer interview questions.

[Finch]

Appreciate Kung Fu Bob's insights. I get the films blending all into one if you shot them in quick succession several decades ago but being embarrassed by them or thinking no one is interested because of their age boggles my mind. I wonder if some artists are worried about the reaction from the Chinese government overlords.

[tenia]

I like what Spectrum are doing in unearthing rarely-seen movies on Blu-ray, but there's no wonder nobody bothered upgrade most of those considering the state of the HD material available for many of them. And those 2 actually aren't that bad but it's clear both are dated masters, Holy Flame a DNRed one and Demon a EEd one.

I wonder if that's why we haven't seen most of the Chor Yuen titles get blu rays? There's a disc of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, but I know that one got a 35mm master back in the day, and a lot of the Chor Yuen pictures I believe only received digital remasters.

It can be hard to understand how some labels prioritise their choices of movies despite having to consider they're going to do BD releases and thus need to have material good enough to fuel a technically good one. There are multiple titles that seemingly fits within Spectrum's editorial line that are available in better digital material than several of those they've released, and yet. It's possible that they've set aside the worst offenders, deeming even such rarely seen movies still can't be released because it's really not in a shape good enough for a release, but I don't know what they're willing to settle with in order to make visible again a movie.

[feihong]

The German blu ray for Full Contact arrived today. In German the film is called "Cover Hard." At first I thought it was an attempt to associate the movie with Die Hard, but the more I look at the words, what I think happened was that the traditional English title, Full Contact, got translated into German, and then back into English by someone else, losing the context of the original title. "Contact" is close to a synonym for "cover," and "full" and "hard" can be fairly close synonyms...if the meaning is slightly garbled by, say, a quick translation. I don't know. That's what I think, anyway.

The blu ray looks amazing. I don't know if the film has been restored any––there are a lot of pops and scratches, especially towards the beginning of the movie. But the image is quite sharp, there is splendid depth-of-field, and the color separation is extraordinarily crisp. I've never seen Full Contact look like this before. There was a CN Entertainment blu ray of the film in Hong Kong, but it was DNRed to death. That hasn't happened here. There are a few shots in a few scenes that look a little soft, but the overall detail is stunning. To be honest? It actually makes the movie better. I realize I haven't been watching the film for years, because the quality of the home video releases was so poor. There is detail I never dreamed of in this picture. In the final confrontation between Chow Yun-Fat and Ann Bridgewater, for instance, you can actually see street traffic moving out a window at the end of the hallway––a detail I had no idea existed before now. Overall, the cinematography has come clearest here, revealing a lot of layers of subtlety and nuance in a lot of sophisticated lighting schemes. More than that, I forgot how good the performances are in this movie, from the most comic-booky characters, like Deano and Virgin, to the most realistic characters, like Sam and Mona. The performances are all rather perfectly pitched, making for a fantastic interplay of opposing personalities. I think, what's more, that Ringo Lam's extraordinary visualization of the movie comes through in this edition like never before. I don't think I ever put together so well before the amazing way in which he ties together the scene where Jeff is maimed and supposedly murdered by Judge's crew with the way the dog sees everything. Every image is made so irritated and intense. This really is a tour-de-force for a vivid filmmaking style. It's a shame the movie wasn't more of a financial success at the time; I would have loved to see Ringo's movies go on in this direction. It's almost like Kenneth Anger and Ken Russell got together to make a Meatloaf music video. It's more than fun; it's an impressive movie, in a lot of ways. I don't think I made enough of the film when I was first exploring Hong Kong cinema; it was good, but the fact that people who weren't into Hong Kong cinema also liked it made it maybe a little less valuable in my mind. It remained my favorite of Ringo's movies, though. I think in the mix of Hong Kong movies I was seeing, and in very low picture quality, its' amazing attributes didn't stand out so much. Anyway, the film is great, and the disc is great, too. In October they're releasing City on Fire and Yes, Madam!, and some Cynthia Khan In the Line of Duty movies later in the year. Looking forward to all of that!

[Finch]

feihong, who is the licensor for Full Contact? Fortune Star? What were the English subs like (I'm assuming the disc has them and you watched with English subs)?

Yes Madam is coming from Eureka as well (as is Magnificent Warriors and Royal Warriors). I thought City on Fire and a bunch of other Ringo Lam films were off limits to European boutique labels but maybe not anymore?

[feihong]

The English subs were the ones that have been on the last couple of Hong Kong releases of the film, the Mei Ah remastered DVD and the CN Entertainment blu ray. They're very easy to parse and they seem accurate. I found one error at the end of the film, where. Judge says "My one regret is that I didn't get to sleep with you. Although you're no relation, I want to sleep with you," accidentally implying a new level of standard kinkiness for the character. The translation I've always seen is, "although you're no relation, I want to die with you," which leads pretty directly to Chow's immortal line, "well, you can masturbate in hell!" There's also English and German dub tracks, to complement the Cantonese audio. The music, I'm happy to say, is the famous wailing guitar stuff that was always the real soundtrack composed for the movie, that home video exec from Columbia Tristar can get bent, that guy who went after me so hard on the Asiandvdguide back in the day, when their DVD release had what was clearly just temp audio used in the cutting and not the correct soundtrack. That guy was such a turd...what was i saying? Oh yeah. The licensing.

You know, these discs are very strange. Not only don't they have any company logo on the box or when the disc starts, when you play the film it goes right to the Golden Princess logo, with nothing before it. Royal Warriors I believe had a Fortune Star logo in front of it, but I'll have to check again tomorrow to be sure. Pretty certain Tiger on Beat and Once a Thief went straight to the production company logos as well. This company––whatever it is––has other films coming up as well, including Peace Hotel, God of Gamblers Returns, In the Line of Duty 3 and 4, and Angela Mao's Hapkido. Looks like they've done DVD-only releases of Easy Money and Wonder Seven, for some reason. I suppose it makes sense to wait for Eureka to release Yes, Madam!, but it's going to be hard to wait for that one when this one will already be out.

Incidentally, I just saw a Chameleon films region B blu ray of Johnnie To's Exiled for sale, with allegedly 2 Frank Djeng commentaries. Does anyone have this disc? What's the quality like? I can't find a review of it anywhere.

[YnEoS]

I think––but Holy Flame wears psychedelic visuals just to show off, and then presents a very uninspired, straightforward story. Whereas Demon of the Lute is bonkers from frame one––making it the genuine article.

Slow in catching up on this thread, I haven't seen Demon of the Lute yet (though its been on my radar), but I'm in complete agreement about Holy Flame of the Martial World. Its been a while since I've seen it, so I don't have too many specific comments about its issues, but it struck me as one of those films people recommend just because of its set pieces without any consideration for how actually fun it is to watch as a genre film. The director Tony Liu Jun Guk did a handful of films in that style, and I thought Bastard Swordsman was by far the most enjoyable of them (it has a sequel, but I didn't think it was as good). Perhaps it helps that it was based off of a TV series written by wuxia author Huang Ying (wikipedia tells me he wrote the TV script first and then adapted it as a novel). Not sure how it holds up to the original story, but I thought it worked well as a standalone film.

[Finch]

thank you feihong! The Chameleon Blu-Rays are just getting shipped out for the pre-orders. I haven't put my order in through deep discount or diabolik yet. Re Exiled, since I don't recall the specs mentioning a restoration of any kind, my guess is that both Exiled and Breaking News are sourced from older masters but you get English subs from native speakers and additional bonus material and commentaries.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The German blu ray for Full Contact arrived today. In German the film is called "Cover Hard." At first I thought it was an attempt to associate the movie with Die Hard, but the more I look at the words, what I think happened was that the traditional English title, Full Contact, got translated into German, and then back into English by someone else, losing the context of the original title. "Contact" is close to a synonym for "cover," and "full" and "hard" can be fairly close synonyms...if the meaning is slightly garbled by, say, a quick translation. I don't know. That's what I think, anyway.

I suspect Hard Boiled (which was released in Germany first, by the same distributor and under its usual English title) played a role here. I don't know how popular it was in Germany, but it got an uncut laserdisc release despite being indexed, so it must've been a pretty big seller. A whole spate of HK movies were subsequently given new titles with the word "hard," like A Taste of Killing and Romance (Hard Killers), Crime Story (Hard to Die), God of Gamblers Return (Hard Game), and Tian Di (Hard Game 2, bafflingly). Incidentally, by complete coincidence Tiger Cage II was released in Germany as Full Contact the year before Lam's movie opened in Hong Kong.

[feihong]

I suspect Hard Boiled (which was released in Germany first, by the same distributor and under its usual English title) played a role here. I don't know how popular it was in Germany, but it got an uncut laserdisc release despite being indexed, so it must've been a pretty big seller. A whole spate of HK movies were subsequently given new titles with the word "hard," like A Taste of Killing and Romance (Hard Killers), Crime Story (Hard to Die), God of Gamblers Return (Hard Game), and Tian Di (Hard Game 2, bafflingly). Incidentally, by complete coincidence Tiger Cage II was released in Germany as Full Contact the year before Lam's movie opened in Hong Kong.

I guess they sort of committed to the bit. I still wonder exactly how you cover someone "hard." I guess "hard cover" is a term in warfare, but it hardly applies to the movie, as far as I can see.

[jtarvainen]

I'm struck by how different the colors on the new German BD of Full Contact are compared to the older Mei Ah release:

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27070
https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27067
https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27071

For those familiar with the film, which of the color schemes looks more correct to you?

[Mr Sausage]

I'm struck by how different the colors on the new German BD of Full Contact are compared to the older Mei Ah release:

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27070
https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27067
https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/27071

For those familiar with the film, which of the color schemes looks more correct to you?

I saw a 35mm print a couple years ago, and the cooler tones of the German BD are what I remember.

[jtarvainen]

Thanks!

[Glowingwabbit]

Incidentally, I just saw a Chameleon films region B blu ray of Johnnie To's Exiled for sale, with allegedly 2 Frank Djeng commentaries. Does anyone have this disc? What's the quality like? I can't find a review of it anywhere.

I just got this and Breaking News in the mail. No mention of a restoration, but both are loaded with special features (and yes 2 Frank Djeng commentaries on Exiled) and booklets. Dylan Cheung who does a lot of the 88 films did the translation and subtitles so at least that will be good.

They've also hinted that they'll be releasing at least the first Election film. Because of the delays to their first titles I think announcements for newer titles will be delayed for bit.

[feihong]

Incidentally, I just saw a Chameleon films region B blu ray of Johnnie To's Exiled for sale, with allegedly 2 Frank Djeng commentaries. Does anyone have this disc? What's the quality like? I can't find a review of it anywhere.

I just got this and Breaking News in the mail. No mention of a restoration, but both are loaded with special features (and yes 2 Frank Djeng commentaries on Exiled) and booklets. Dylan Cheung who does a lot of the 88 films did the translation and subtitles so at least that will be good.

They've also hinted that they'll be releasing at least the first Election film. Because of the delays to their first titles I think announcements for newer titles will be delayed for bit.

Awesome. Thanks for reporting on these. Have you seen them yet? Is the picture quality pretty good?

The Election blu ray from Hong Kong was not very high-quality. If they can improve on that, it would be something, alright. I don't think the second Election movie works very well by itself, but the original is such good stuff.