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Bodyguard from Beijing (中南海保鑣), aka 'The Defender', Film Whisperer ultimate package |
Posted by: The Film Whisperer - 2023-08-28, 09:48 PM - Forum: Released
- No Replies
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Please check out my other projects, via the link in my signature! And PM me for link requests!
Do you believe in what I do? I appreciate donations (links/info in my signature)
Bodyguard from Beijing, Film Whisperer ultimate package
If you're interested in other projects of mine (which I posted on this website), please click on the link in my signature! It's just a harmless TXT file which lists everything and gives you links you can copy & paste into your browser
WTF is this film?
Bodyguard from Beijing is one of Jet Li's less famous films, but is worth having in your collection if you're a martial arts/HK film fan and/or a Jet Li Fan. It takes place in the "modern day" (1994). And the action in this film is much more "gun fu" heavy than martial arts heavy (without the John Woo slo-mo). No "wire fu", except during the climactic fight scene between Jet Li and Coliin Chou/Ngai Sing. They obviously didn't think we could see the wire
Synopsis
Jet Li plays Hui Ching-yeung, a bodyguard from Beijing (who I guess is part of the Chinese army? I dunno ). Ching is tasked with protecting Michelle Yeung (Christy Chung), the girlfriend of a rich businessman James Song Sai-cheung (Ng Wai-kwok). Michelle is the last surviving witness of a murder by assassin Chiu Kwok-man (Wong Kam-Kong), in a case involving more than $10 billion (HK) of insider-trading.
Ching arrives at James' mansion, and his strict rules cause him to immediately butt heads with Michelle's loyal HK bodyguards Charlie Leung Kam-po (aka "Fat Po", played by Kent Cheng) and Keung (Joey Leung). He puts tight restrictions on Michelle's movements and whereabouts, and Michelle cannot stand it.
Then yada-yada, Ching protects Michelle from a bunch of killers, yada yada, she begins to fall in love with Ching. They even almost have sex but Ching wimps out. Ching eventually dies protecting her from the deadly assassin Killer Wong (played by Collin Chou/Ngai Sing), but not before leaving Michelle and "Fat Po" with a little something special to remember him by.
Versions
Miramax/Dimension
This film was of course one of many to be altered by Saint Harvey Weinstein. It was given a new stupid title ("The Defender"), along with a new dub, score, and sound effects. Only about 2 minutes were cut, and most of the cuts appeared to be for violence-based censorship. However, the movie was never released in theaters in North America and was still given an R rating.
You can read/see more about it here.
Export version (via VCD)
Someone online was kind enough to share a VCD from a distributor called "Diskovery". It ran at the PAL speed and frame-rate, and it contained an export dub which kept the original score and sound effects. This version actually cuts out A LOT more footage than Miramax did, although none of them appear to be for violence-based censorship (almost all of what was cut from Miramax remains in this version) Instead, a lot of the cuts seem to be for pacing, and eliminating conversations about the upcoming retrocession (this movie came out in 1994, when Hong Kong was still a British colony, but the scheduled retrocession was 3 years away and is a topic of conversation between some of the films' characters).
The VCD, when converted to the HD frame rate and speed, runs at about 1:15:34 (credits included). My reconstruction runs at 1:32:43 (credits included).
I honestly do not know if this is the ACTUAL export version of the film, or if these cuts were made by the distributor "Diskovery". Is there anyone who knows if this is the truth?
Do you have a longer or uncut "export version" of the film with the export dub? If so, please tell me (and share)!
My Sources
Visually, I used two sources
- The Dragon Dynasty DVD (part of a Jet Li 4-pack), which has the Miramax version. This version was anamorphic remastered, with a little bit of film dust and scratches, but nonetheless a solid print. This version had the best look overall in terms of coloration and sharpness.
- The French DVD from Metropolitan. This was version was uncut and anamorphic. However, colors were quite ugly, and some scenes aren't lit very well. Nonetheless, I had to use it for the scenes cut by Miramax.
The audio for the Cantonese mono track is superior on the French DVD, so I used that for the original track
Specs
- File type: MKV
- Size: about 7GB
- frame rate and speed: 23.976fps
- Resolution: NTSC DVD (720 x 480)
Audio
- Cantonese mono, 2.0 LPCM (Metropolitan DVD)
- English hybrid, Miramax-majority dub sync. This is a "hybrid" dub, with an attempt to use the Miramax dub as much as possible while using the Export dub from the Diskovery VCD to fill in for spots missing from the Miramax version. I often had to loop music in places where the Miramax dub was just totally wrong ! Or I would just use the export dub even if Miramax didn't have anything missing there.
- English hybrid, Export-majority dub sync. This is also a "hybrid dub", with an attempt to use the export dub as much as possible. However, the Miramax dub had to be used A LOT, given how much shorter the export version is (on the Diskovery VCD)
- French dub, 5.1 Dolby Digital. This dub is not part of the MKV and must be downloaded separately.
Subtitles
All subtitle options come with a "no bi-lingual option", to avoid having bi-lingual English/Chinese lyrics when the theme song plays
- English for Cantonese track.
- English for "hybrid" Miramax dub majority
- English for "hybrid" export dub majority
Anyways, ENJOY!
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Ripping audio from Cinema DTS discs |
Posted by: Banderson - 2023-08-26, 05:57 PM - Forum: Requests, proposals, help
- Replies (8)
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Hello,
This is my first post and I found this forum by accident. Having worked as a Projectionist/Technician for the last 30 years and now working with DCPs, I remember the early days of DTS, starting with the 4 channel version in our theatre with Jurassic Park and then the following year being pushed to the 6 channel when True Lies was released. I'm glad I found this forum since what many of you have been doing with restoring tracks is exactly what I've been trying to do for awhile now (along with experimenting with film scanning).
I recently have been trying to work with Cinema DTS discs and getting the soundtrack off of the disc to sync up with a bluray or UHD video file. I know over at Film-Tech they have an extractor program which was mostly designed for compiling trailer disc files and creating a custom trailer disc for your preshow. Even with the advent of the DTS 6D, having the 3rd CD Rom was a great help when they started to encode for trailers in the late 90s, but you still had those problems where all those trailer tracks may not have been available on one disc, so it was a good program to have. I didn't need it by that time since we were using Dolby Digital. I've never used that program before and being a Mac OS user, most of these custom programs aren't available for MAC.
I've tried to get a DTS CD to mount even as a data disc but only have been successful in getting the B disc to load where the A disc just ejects. The B disc looks to have reel files starting with reel 2, so I'm assuming the A disc has reel 1 and the attached trailer files. I was experimenting with the track that I did pull off the disc and I ended up with an .AUD file. I know there is a program called Foobar2000 that can read them, but again, only for Windows.
Some of the new bluray and UDH mixes are aweful and I remember theatrical DTS releases sounding incredible! Even the first year 4 track mixes sound better than some of the newer near field mixes.
Any suggestions on where to start to extract and convert the file is greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I'll keep on looking through the archive.
Thanks
Bernie
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Friday (1995) Theatrical Cut |
Posted by: oh_riginal - 2023-08-23, 09:51 PM - Forum: Requests, proposals, help
- Replies (1)
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As far as I know, the theatrical cut has never been available on Blu-ray, and I haven't found any preservations or recreations of it online. I'm sure I'm not the only one who grew up on this cut. I personally prefer it over the Director's Cut, as the pacing is thrown off in that version.
It would be amazing if anyone were to bring the theatrical cut back.
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Variable Framerate & 2:3 Pulldown |
Posted by: alexpeden2000 - 2023-08-22, 11:23 PM - Forum: Converting, encoding, authoring
- Replies (5)
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Hi all,
Looking to upscale some animation DVD's I have. Got them ripped and was ready to deinterlace until I noticed in Mediainfo that they're Progressive, with a variable framerate (24.58fps apparently) and 2:3 pulldown.
I tried upscaling the file as is but got some nasty combing effects. Just wondering what the best way would be to encode them as true progressive files ready for upscaling?
Thanks
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Mr. Nice Guy (一個好人), Film Whisperer correction and enhancement |
Posted by: The Film Whisperer - 2023-08-22, 06:59 PM - Forum: Released
- Replies (4)
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Please check out my other projects, via the link in my signature! And PM me for link requests!Do you believe in what I do? I appreciate donations (links/info in my signature)
Mr. Nice Guy, Film Whisperer correction and enhancement
Background
Premise
Mr. Nice Guy is a 1997 Jackie Chan film. Although it was a Hong Kong production under Golden Harvest, the script is almost entirely in English, and it takes place in Melbourne, Australia.
Jackie Chan plays "Jackie", a famous TV chef, and a martial arts master (because why not?). One day, his life is turned upside down when he rescues TV reporter Diana, who is being chased by mobsters who work for the infamous Giancarlo (played by Richard Norton). Unbeknownst to Jackie, Diana accidentally drops a videotape of incriminating evidence against Giancarlo in Jackie's car! Then Jackie's young nephew takes the tape, thinking that it's just a cool movie to watch! Now Diana and Jackie are on the run from Giancarlo's men and a vicious street gang called "The Demons", who wish to get the videotape to extort Giancarlo. Matters only get worse for Jackie when the Demons kidnap his girlfriend to get the videotape.
Different versions
This film has 3 different "official" versions
- Hong Kong version. This version is uncut, except in one instance: it omits the entire dinner scene (in which Jackie and his adoptive family discuss the benefits of being a cop vs being a chef). FUN FACT: in the Cantonese/Mandarin dubbed versions of the movie, the "Demons" are called the "Wolves", although the bi-lingual credits still say "Demons" . Also, when Giancarlo confronts one of his henchman about dating a Demon, both dubs change the context of the conversation to make it more relevant to the film's opening scene.
- US/international version from New Line Cinema. This version was cut by about 9 minutes and heavily re-edited (read about it here via Movie-Censorship. It's a long article!). It includes a slightly edited version of the dinner scene. NLC also went as far as to overdub some of the characters. A new score was made by J. Peter Robinson, who also did scoring for the US versions of "Rumble in the Bronx" and "First Strike". FUN FACT: a little bit of music was recycled from "First Strike" in the US version of this film.
- Japanese version: This version of the film is entirely uncut, and also features the uncut dinner scene (which sounds like it was written by someone who clearly doesn't know how normal people speak ).
Personally, I can confirm that an un-dubbed and HD-remastered HK version is available on VUDU and Google Play/YouTube. The opening credits are entirely in English (newly made I'm sure) and no subtitles are provided for the Mandarin dialog.
Amazon Prime and iTunes have the US version in HD, and it's a genuine remaster. Although some film dirt/specs/dust appear occasionally.
In 2019, a special blu-ray was released in North America and Japan (and now it's available in more places) from the Warner Archives collection, featuring an HD-remastered Japanese version. It only has one audio track: a remixed 5.1 DTS-HD MA track. The original audio track is in simple stereo. The Mandarin dialog was subtitled, but according to my Chinese wife, it wasn't nuanced enough.
It would appear that WB didn't actually have a print that contained the original opening credits. So they recreated the credits. But instead of using Traditional Chinese (the type of written Chinese used in Hong Kong and Taiwan), they used Simplified Chinese! They also used a weird alternate Chinese title, which loosely translates into "Daring/Curageous Chef".
So what have I done?!
Here's a simple list of what I've done
- I rotoscoped the original TRADITIONAL Chinese language opening credits over the new ones. I took the original credits from the Japanese Towa DVD (which was a pretty decent quality DVD even though it was non-anamorphic). You can look at screenshot comparisons here. "Credits 1" is the only one that didn't need any fixing.
- I synced the stereo tracks from the Japanese laserdisc and Towa DVD. The Japanese laserdisc track is great quality and free from distortion. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA blu-ray track is still included.
- With the help of my wife, I provided more nuance to the Mandarin dialog.
- I translated the entire end-credits Cantonese theme song! You can choose a "non-bilingual" subtitle option if you don't want to see bi-lingual Chinese/English lyrics.
So that's it. PM me for the link!
Requests!
- Does anyone have the Hong Kong and/or Taiwanese DVDs of this movie? I used to have them, but I must have given them away before making copies of them?
- Rumor has it that there was a laserdisc made for the US version which has a commentary on it. What do any of you know about this?!
- Do any of you think I should make a "Film Whisperer edit" of this movie? There are actually some edits made by New Line Cinema that were understandable in my opinion.
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