Hong Kong films-where to find information on the best versions

[captainsolo]

I recently stumbled across some HK films on laserdisc in the wild and found myself again wondering if there is a place or area to find definitive listings of which editions are worthwhile or best to watch. I’ve been tempted to buy rare John Woo releases in the hope of finding better audio or other elements but you never quite know if the transfer will be worth it or if the film is uncut.

I find myself wondering if I should have gotten all the discs the store had but some were just one part of a film and some were edited versions according to their lddb info. Some were analog audio only which I try to avoid unless necessary.

If anyone knows certain lds to be on the lookout for let me know so I can add them to my list.

[LucasGodzilla]

I recently stumbled across some HK films on laserdisc in the wild and found myself again wondering if there is a place or area to find definitive listings of which editions are worthwhile or best to watch. I’ve been tempted to buy rare John Woo releases in the hope of finding better audio or other elements but you never quite know if the transfer will be worth it or if the film is uncut.

I find myself wondering if I should have gotten all the discs the store had but some were just one part of a film and some were edited versions according to their lddb info. Some were analog audio only which I try to avoid unless necessary.

If anyone knows certain lds to be on the lookout for let me know so I can add them to my list.

Is there a particular difference between DVD and LD releases for the Criterion John Woo titles? I always wondered if one of them was particularly superior in audio quality.

[Serums]

I recently stumbled across some HK films on laserdisc in the wild and found myself again wondering if there is a place or area to find definitive listings of which editions are worthwhile or best to watch. I’ve been tempted to buy rare John Woo releases in the hope of finding better audio or other elements but you never quite know if the transfer will be worth it or if the film is uncut.

I find myself wondering if I should have gotten all the discs the store had but some were just one part of a film and some were edited versions according to their lddb info. Some were analog audio only which I try to avoid unless necessary.

If anyone knows certain lds to be on the lookout for let me know so I can add them to my list.

Out of curiosity, which films did you find on LD?

[wongfeihung]

Many of the films that we work on for Eureka and 88 Asia use laserdisc audio because it tends to be better quality than what the rights holders supply themselves.

[captainsolo]

The Criterion LD and dvd for The Killer And Hard Boiled use the same master. The LDs have the better audio because of pcm.

The store has a few. They had the main pressings of Bullet in the Head, Full Contact and one or two others that you usually see. Most of them were very overpriced. Even though the Warner archive BD is now available I did buy the Drunken Master II disc they had because it was very cheap and I couldn’t believe it was there.
I was tempted by City on Fire and ABT1 but those were only the original standard analog only pressings. I was sitting in front of the shelf looking up all of them on lddb so I could make sure which were English friendly, which were cut and what audio they had.
I never realized how many titles did apparently get some later USA reissues via Tai Seng.

[wongfeihung]

Barring some unexpected breakthrough, the Woo films will remain in rights limbo hell (along with most of the Golden Princess catalogue) so those lasers will still be rather collectable, I think.

And if the rights do become available it'll be good to know someone has the lasers for source materials.

[Evit]

Many of the films that we work on for Eureka and 88 Asia use laserdisc audio

Please, tell us more about yourself!

[wongfeihung]

Many of the films that we work on for Eureka and 88 Asia use laserdisc audio

Please, tell us more about yourself!

I do subtitles for those companies.

[Stamper]

I suggest saving as many LDs as you can from the HK 80's era. As far as I am concerned, there's no suitable version of those films on home-video anymore because they used to be shown with burned-in dual language subtitles.

For more than a decade, that was the only presentation these films had, on VHS and LDs.

Then when DVD appeared, they began to release them with optional subs.

It takes away a lot of the charm, and also, many of the badly subs translations which sometimes were hilarious, got lost in the process.

[stwd4nder2]

I suggest saving as many LDs as you can from the HK 80's era. As far as I am concerned, there's no suitable version of those films on home-video anymore because they used to be shown with burned-in dual language subtitles.

For more than a decade, that was the only presentation these films had, on VHS and LDs.

Then when DVD appeared, they began to release them with optional subs.

It takes away a lot of the charm, and also, many of the badly subs translations which sometimes were hilarious, got lost in the process.

With PGS subs it would be possible to re-create the look and translation of the burned in subs in HD. Would be an interesting way to watch a lot of these, especially as someone who didn't get into the genre until well into the DVD era.