Shout! Factory / Scream Factory

[therewillbeblus]

Ah looks like they grabbed the remaining David Chung movies except for his best, It’s a Drink! It’s a Bomb!

Is it part of the Golden Princess library?

Well, that sure might explain it if not!

[Finch]

Some of the 25 September titles already dropped on Amazon.

Salvador 4K
Mama 4K
Amazon exclusive steelbooks of Halloween 1-2 and the first Ouija

Hopefully it gets better with the rest of the announcements!

[yoloswegmaster]

Frank Djeng confirmed that the Aces Go Places series will be released as a boxset, which I guess shouldn't be that much of a shock. I thought that the first film was a fun and goof rip of the James Bond series. Sadly the rest of the titles feels like a lazy copy-and-paste of the original film, even if I appreciate Lau Kar-Leung trying to change up the final film by injecting some well done martial arts fight scenes at the end.

I do wonder if they will include the 6th entry, which I believe is an unofficial entry in the series and the only one that doesn't star Sam Hui or Karl Maka.

[Finch]

Samurai Resurrection (BD only) and the already confirmed Peking Opera Blues 4K+BD are two other titles that are showing on Orbit so far.

[dwk]

Samurai Resurrection was a Shout site exclusive in 2023.

[Finch]

The remaining titles for September are The Girl Who Leapt Through Time BD (the 4k is an Amazon exclusive like Summer Wars was) and a BD of My Life as a Zucchini.

[swo17]

a BD of My Life as a Zucchini

Which is included as an extra on Criterion's release of Petite Maman

[jt938]

I know I say this a lot but wow what a a shitty month, bravo Shout.

[bad future]

Most months they have nothing I'm interested in and this month they have one of my favorite movies (Peking Opera Blues) so it's a good month for one person at least. Maybe someone, somewhere is having the same reaction but for their favorite Oliver Stone movie...on UHD at last!

[Finch]

I'm very happy about Peking Opera Blues myself but that had already been known for two months, as was the Girl Who Leapt Through Time 4K. Not interested in Oliver Stone (and I despise James Woods) and Blumhouse horror which were the only genuine new titles other than Peking Opera Blues; everything else was superfluous reissues. I'm honestly surprised there is enough of a market for those garish steelbooks. Sony at least add Dolby Vision.

[Mark L.]

Looks like they've also put up a huge Ghibli bundle on their site. Clearing out old bluray stock to make way for 4Ks?

[yoloswegmaster]

Has anyone hear listened to the commentaries of James Mudge? It was nice at first to see a different commentator show up and breakup the stranglehold that Frank Djeng and Mike Leeder/Arne Venema seemed to have with the commentaries for the HK titles, but lately he seems to be the defacto commentator for the HK titles from Shout.

[Finch]

A Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy 4K box set and a Hongkong Gamblers and Gamers Bluray box set of six films have been announced by Shout Factory for late 2025.

[dwk]

Dylan Cheung posted the following on Blue Sky

The new City on Fire subs suck. Hong Kong Cantonese is as vernacular as it gets and translators are still so adverse to slang, expressions, and humour. They're tonally inconsistent and technically off as well. So many lines are too fast or cut off too early just to match a cut.

[Finch]

Would be good to know if this is for the English dub or the original Cantonese track. I've got my preorders of City of Fire and Peking Opera Blues in already with Orbit so I'm locked in with those. And it could be months before we know if Arrow's subs are going to be any better or if the translator covered both the US and UK labels.

FWIW, to expand on what dwk already posted. Here is what dylan thinks the lines should have been:

Lee: If I were you, I'd find myself an honest job and never look back. Too bad I didn't know any better.
Chow: I know better than you, then! That's why my girl just dumped me for another guy.

Shout subs:

Lee: To be honest, if I were you, I'd find myself another job. Too bad I wasn't thinking straight.
Chow: My thinking is better than yours. However, my girl just left me for another guy.

[dwk]

He posted later that these are from Shout's digital version on itunes and that these are for the Cantonese track and there is a set of SDH subs for the English dub.

[Finch]

Bummer. Ah well, if they don't fix the on disc subs (unlikely at this point with City of Fire due next month) and Arrow's subs turn out to be better, I'll just have to off-load the Shout (though hopefully not Peking Opera Blues). Not pre-ordering anything else from Shout's HK lineup for the time being. Frustrating really.

[yoloswegmaster]

Dylan Cheung posted the following on Blue Sky

The new City on Fire subs suck. Hong Kong Cantonese is as vernacular as it gets and translators are still so adverse to slang, expressions, and humour. They're tonally inconsistent and technically off as well. So many lines are too fast or cut off too early just to match a cut.

Do we know who it was that did the subs? I know Markgway said that he was going to be doing the subs for A Better Tomorrow I and II, and I believe Frank Djeng said he was also going to be doing the subs for certain titles.

[therewillbeblus]

Maybe I won't try to offload my HK blus after all..

[dwk]

Do we know who it was that did the subs? I know Markgway said that he was going to be doing the subs for A Better Tomorrow I and II, and I believe Frank Djeng said he was also going to be doing the subs for certain titles.

I haven't seen anything about who did the subtitles.

[andyli]

Maybe I won't try to offload my HK blus after all..

You mean HK-produced blus? Their English subs are notoriously elliptical...

[beamish14]

Maybe I won't try to offload my HK blus after all..

The Hong Kong Rescue discs? I’m keeping them, too. I STILL wish I’d gotten Drunken Master II

Green Snake isn’t part of Shout’s deal, right? A new restoration is screening in Vancouver

[Finch]

Since they have divided the task of subtitling among different people (markgway for A Better Tomorrow etc etc), City of Fire may be an outlier if whoever did those subs was only assigned to that film. Here's hoping!

[therewillbeblus]

These

[Finch]

Originally Posted by Irongod2112 View Post
Hey guys! Just wanted to clear things up regarding the subtitles for these upcoming Shout Factory releases.

This whole thing that the subtitles suck is totally off base and it's very disappointing to hear after so much work has gone into them.

Please also be advised that the streaming versions are most likely earlier drafts and the discs will have gone through additional QC.

The subs for both CITY ON FIRE and HARD-BOILED were done by someone who has done tons of great subtitle translations for both 88 Films & Eureka and works with Markgway as well helping him out with his sub translations.

I also had some input to make sure that some of the older translations that we have grown to love stayed in, but subs still remained accurate.

Below are some of the translator's feedback
on his work on CITY ON FIRE and the negative comments made, hopefully everyone can rest a bit easier that the subtitles for these films are in good hands.

As Dylan said himself that 'Cantonese is as vernacular as it gets', there is no perfect equivalent in English most of the time. It's up to the translators to make a choice, and it's usually very subjective. There's no definite right or wrong answer, and any translations would have room for improvement.

Dylan gave one example of City on Fire and made his suggestions. Some of his lines are improvements, sure, and some other word choices can be seen as second-guessing the character's intentions and spelling it out for the audience. When it comes to the translation, it's a choice between translating it straight and as close to the original language used as possible, or reading between the lines and clarifying everything, including any unspoken information. It's a personal preference, and clearly, there are different opinions out there.

Maybe I'm leaning towards accuracy instead of a more poetic approach. The audience can also make up their minds whether Chow was being self-deprecating or not by watching his tone and facial expressions. Film is a visual medium after all.