Why,
why, why touch the film?
A
big factor that really pisses me off being a big Asian
movie fan is how some of these companies release these
great movies cut and edited. Most of you probably
started like me, getting introduced into the genre
then going all out looking to get and watch everything
we can get our hands on. Unfortunately, if you didn't
have a good connection to get such movies, then you
would have to get what was released in American stores.
It wasn't that bad for me at first when I started
in 1997, but when I met my Hong Kong movie connection,
the light shed on me like a bomb. I learned that all
of Jackie Chan's films all had cut scenes and the
Jet Li movies, "Deadly China Hero" and "Lord
of the Wu Tang," I bought had different names
and were also cut. This leads me to the question,
"Why do American companies do crap like this?"
One of the worst things about searching for a good
Hong Kong title is to know what you are buying. I
don't mean in a movie content point of view, but the
true title to the movie. It seems like almost every
company that tries to release any Asian film has to
change the name. For example, the crappy company Xenon
who I admit was one of the major companies I was getting
my movies from. You can tell that they are renamed
with their phony title screens where they basically
delete the real beginning. Xenon has a great selection
of movies, not the greatest selection but a good number
of titles to distribute. In their nice collection
of titles, most of them revolve around "Wu-tang"
having names so ghetto that it makes me sick. It's
hard to find the real titles when a good amount of
the selection you have aren't even spelled correctly.
I rented a lot of movies from a lot of companies and
out of them all; Tai-Seng was the most honest of them
to have the truest form of the movie.
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"…It's
hard to find the real titles when a good amount
of the selection you have aren't even spelled
correctly."
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Nowadays,
with the boost of Hong Kong cinema in American screens,
more and more Asian films have been released. Big
companies like Disney bring out Jet Li's movies, but
re-title almost all along with a lack of subtitles,
sporting poor dubbing. I don't understand why they
think everyone in America wants to watch these movies
dubbed, but I'll talk about this topic a little more
later. The titles they gave to Jet's movies were some
of the lamest titles I have ever heard. "The
Defender," "The Enforcer," and "Twin
Warriors" are all garbage titles. Come on Disney,
with all that money and "so called" creativity
you have over there (cough, Lion King, cough) you
couldn't think of a better title than those? And not
only that, the box art is horrendous, having recycled
pictures on all of them. Then you have "The Legend"
which is okay but "Meltdown" for "High
Risk!?" There isn't anything about melting in
that movie at all. Next, you have "Red Dragon"
coming out which is "New Legend of Shaolin"
and I don't even really remember that much red in
the movie at all maybe except the blood sowing fight
with Chingmy Yau. I ask the heavens, "Why, Why,
do they do such things?"
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"...Twin
Warriors, come on Disney, with all that money
and "so called" creativity you have
over there (cough, Lion King, cough) you couldn't
think of a better title than those?"
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Dubbing
doesn't help either, even when I started watching
Martial Arts movies, I would look for the subtitle
versions because I hated dubbing. It just doesn't
seem right to me watching a Chinese guy speak out
of sync English and I don't understand why people
would rather watch it that way. The only exception
I give to dubbing is the Shaw Brothers films because
I don't even know if the subtitled versions to their
movies even exist.
For
those who don't agree with me about the changes that
take place when releasing these movies and say there
is no difference either way, at least hear my theory
on it. I look at movies how most directors and moviegoers
look at movies, like art. The director made this movie
this way and is to be seen this way. By changing or
altering some of the movie, disrupts the whole meaning
and sometimes even changes the movie itself. You wouldn't
want something you drew or wrote that was something
really good and want to show the world as someone
else thinks of it, would you? It's not how you made.
Your integrity was compromised. If you gave me a drawing
of a house that is blue with a happy family and dog
and I decided it would look better if it was rainbow
colored and the dog was really a pig and just erased
the youngest son because I felt it wasn't important
to the picture, you would be pretty upset, too, wouldn't
you?
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"The
only exception I give to dubbing is the Shaw
Brothers films because I don't even know if
the subtitled versions to their movies even
exist."
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Looking
back at these factors, I am grateful, like many of
you, that I have an Asian movie connection hooking
me up good copies of the movies with subtitles in
its original format. I am grateful that I have great
websites like KFC that give information on what is
coming out and sites where I can buy awesome Asian
Action movies where it is in their original form and
can enjoy them as they are intended to be. Its just
sad that most American viewers aren't like us and
wouldn't even give most of the remarkable movies we
love the time of day because it is foreign and Jet
Li or Jackie Chan aren't in it. I really hope that
with the release of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon," some of them will start respecting more
of these movies for what they are and release them
like they are.
Dan
Luna
03/21/2002
