Greetings everyone I'm getting into film preservation and I couldn't be more excited to start working with people in here!

Howdy!

I've been a long-time lurker here for a few years.  My love for Star Wars introduced me to the fan edit/restoration community and I'm very passionate about movies in general.  As a creative myself, I feel its important that the work of the original artists and technicians is treated respectfully on home video.  Glad to see I'm in good company there!

I have a background in audiovisual restoration and transfer work, though there are many brilliant and more experienced members here who have provided me with a lot of valuable advice and insight through their posts which I am very grateful for.  I have some experience working with matrixed audio formats for film and television and hope to be of help in future projects.

Live long and prosper
-Plaid

So lately I've got Wong Kar Wai on the brain, and I randomly stumbled on an odd little rabbit–hole that has been sort of nagging at me since I've discovered this, but I noticed that on YouTube you can find a handful of Japanese WKW trailers, and the thing that struck me the most about them was that they looked very much akin to what I would expect from a print?

I'm embedding all three down below (Days Of Being Wild, Chungking Express & Fallen Angels in that order). Unfortunately from what I can tell though, they seem to not really be playable on the site here, so you'll have to jump to some other tab to check them out.



Anyways, given I know that the color situation for WKW's works have always been a mess to keep straight, I thought I'd drop these here if anyone's remotely interested in attempting some sort of oddball blanket regrade to any other existing UHDs out there.

That said, I imagine you'd have to track down the original encodes of these trailers to get anything workable out of them from something like Dr. Dre's color matcher. I don't suppose any WKW fan would know where these trailers were included, do they?

The Singapore LD has English audio and is NTSC.

https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/61364/5002/Felidae

What are the chances of someone finding this to make a hybrid remux with the UHD? The UHD doesn't have the English dub on it.

Thanks for better versions of great movies.

The Terminator '84

Since this comparison above shows there's been so many different looking color grades across the home video history of the film, I found it appropriate to just fine tune to my personal preference. I may continue doing improvements and updates, and further adjust certain scenes if enough people are interested. But for now I think it's time to release this little bastard, I've been working on it for too long.

Excited to be a part of this community!

Hi all,

I'm new here, but excited to become a part of this community.

All the best!

I've been holding back on this project for a while now, but at this point, I don't think any better sources will become available any time soon.

About the film

This movie is known by three different titles

1. Born to Defense
   
2. Born to Defence
   
3. Born to Defend
   

Yes, those first two titles actually exist and I can confirm there are sources with each spelling.   Thankfully, my reconstruction uses the third (and grammatically correct) title.

This 1986 film is the first and only movie Jet Li ever directed. And it's a shame that he hasn't directed anything ever since, because I actually think this movie showed he can be a great director, even if the movie itself isn't a masterpiece. 

Anyways, the plot

After fighting against the Japanese in World War II, "Xiao Jie" (Jet Li...and that's the last time I'm pretending his character has a name  ) goes back home to Qingdao, only to find that it's not the home he once knew. The town now heavily caters to utterly rapacious American soldiers, as orphaned children sell themselves on the street, and many Chinese women prostitute themselves (that last one isn't so bad actually, eh?   ). One day, Jet Li decides that he has had enough of bullying from the American soldiers. He accepts a challenge to fight one of the soldiers: Bailey (played by Paulo Tocha). Although he struggles, Jet defeats him in a boxing match. However, the conflict between the Chinese townspeople and the American soldiers escalate, as Bailey wants revenge for his humiliating defeat. The conflict escalates further when the tall Captain Hans (played by Kurt Roland Peterson) intervenes, hoping to break Jet's spirit (and that of the Chinese). The escalating tit-for-tat conflict eventually leads to destructive and tragic results between Jet, his friends, and the American soldiers.

The fight scenes in this movie are based on real physics. None of that typical "wire-fu" stuff you see in Jet Li's films. And they are VERY well choreographed! Jet Li is in his prime and top shape in this movie. And it's all well-directed too. This is probably the youngest I've ever seen Jet Li in a film.

The Miramax Version

This martial arts film is another one of those films that Saint Harvey Weinstein (via Miramax) got his hands on back in the day. He created a new dub and made a 5.1 mix. However, at least the Miramax dub keeps the original score and sound effects, but Jet Li's voice is unrealistically deep    !

The cuts by Miramax weren't too extensive. I've found that Miramax never butchered Jet Li's films as much as they butchered Jackie Chan's! If you're curious to know more about the cuts and changes, just read this Movie-Censorship article. But I can summarize.

1. Miramax created a new opening credits sequence using some WWII-inspired artwork (albeit blurry and abstract). The original version of the movie just had a black background with bi-lingual Chinese/English credits
   
2. They also added some ACTUAL scrolling end credits (in English only) on the last shot's freeze frame. Some sources of the uncut version just linger on the freeze-frame for 10 seconds, then cuts to a bi-lingual title card saying "The End". The DVD I used for my reconstruction (more on that later) lingered on the final freeze frame for about a whole minute!
   
3. Cut out a shot of a prostitute's boobies   (but the film still ended up being rated-R anyways with no theatrical release! WTF?!)
   
4. Shortened a scene where Jet Li donates blood for extra cash.
   
5. Deleted a shot of Jet Li peeling a blister from his foot.
   
6. Various scenes involving urine (I think Jet might have a fetish, but who am I to judge   )
   

How did I make the reconstruction?

I found a 720p version of the Miramax cut by "Bluebird" online, although I think it was an upscale of the Dragon Dynasty DVD. Then I found a British R2 DVD (which I think was actually scanned from this VHS) which was uncut and in the OAR.

• 2.0 LPCM (stereo), Cantonese, Hong Kong laserdisc (excellent quality)**
  
• 2.0 LPCM (mono), English export dub (from R4 Australian DVD).
  
• 2.0 LPCM (stereo), Miramax dub with export dub filling in certain parts.
  

'dog' is a big insult many Asian cultures  

• English for Cantonese track
  
• English for English dubs (signs and text only)
  

new here pleasure meeting you all!