How are the new Deltamac DVDs of old HK chestnuts?

[Michael Wells]

The POLICE STORY and PROJECT A movies, BULLET IN THE HEAD, etc. The packaging looks pretty slick, anyway. How do these discs hold up, in picture and sound and particularly in quality of the subtitles? I'm hoping these finally mean that there are good versions out there of these movies.

A gentle kiss on the cheek to all kind enough to reply.

[Bob Lindstrom]

I purchased the Police Story set recently and finally got around to watching the first in the series this week.

I thought the video quality was remarkable on an 8-foot-wide front projector. Really beautifully transferred and much better than I've ever seen this movie look.

The reengineered DTS-encoded Cantonese soundtrack was just fine. A few surround effects that, frankly, weren't integrated all that well into the mix. But nice impact overall.

Plus, I really admire the packaging of this set.

From presentation to mastering, this is the kind of treatment these pictures deserve.

OK?

Now.... plant one on me, baby!!!!

This post has been edited by Bob Lindstrom on Nov 6 2004, 04:01 PM

[Michael Wells]

Smmmooch!

Thanks, Bob. Can you or anyone give an opinion on the subtitles? The much-hyped charm of the classic pidgin-English subs has long since worn off for me, although I can tolerate them when I have to. I'm glad to see many HK films and DVDs doing better in this regard in the current era. I would be particularly happy to get my hands on a BULLET IN THE HEAD whose subs didn't unintentionally push the film's maniacal excesses over the line into comedy.

[Dave Cheung]

If you are a BULLET IN THE HEAD fanatic, you should consider getting the R2 UK special edition put out by Hong Kong Lengends. See DVD Times review:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=12059

There were lots of talk and bickering about if this or the HK disc look and sound better at the old incarnation of Mobius and other forums, comparisons to different versions, etc.. But both of them contain the same cut and not the fabled "film festival/director's cut" that's so far can only been seen on bootleg. I only have the HKL disc and it's perfectly fine A/V wise with informative interviews from cast & crew with another good Bey Logan commentary. The subtitles are good, a new translation that's more faithful to the Cantonese dialogue.

[Bob Lindstrom]

Michael:

My wife just confirmed my memory that the subs were in good English on the Police Story disc. There may be a couple typos but no pidgin English.

Another thing I especially liked was that they did not Americanize the Chinese names in the subs. I get tired of Chan's character always being "Jacky" in the English subs and dubs.

PS -- I just saw this thread, however, in which the subs come under more expert scrutiny that I can give them:

http://p088.ezboard.com/fhongkongdvdsrevie...icID=3421.topic

This post has been edited by Bob Lindstrom on Nov 7 2004, 01:52 PM