| [NOTE: This review was written before IVL/Celestial's remastered DVD was released.]
...Let me just say that no good DVD of this movie exists (that I'm aware of). This is all we've got though since it's the only DVD or VCD that actually has subtitles (so I'm told). The first problem with this DVD is that it's in a Mandarin dub - and who the hell wants to listen to Stephen Chow in Mandarin? If I only spoke Mandarin, I'd still want to hear it in Cantonese - I mean half of Stephen Chow's comedy is his voice. So I only found this film to be half as funny as I should have.
Another problem is the transfer - it looks widescreen, but it's cropped at the sides - you've seen them before - it looks like they were trying to compromise between pan & scan and OAR. Also - the picture jumps up and down - and in my mind I picture this old old transer reel that's all rickety and the film jostles around and the machine is in this dirty chicken plucking assembly line warehouse and people are yelling at each other and there's blood and feathers everywhere... that's what the transfer makes me think about.
Anyway - the picture jumps, but the subtitles don't (and neither do the end credits which start scrolling up the screen over the "black bars"!!?), even though they are burned-in. It's strange, but I've seen it a few other places before. The print is a bit dirty and scratchy cuz it was never restored, cleaned or properly cared for - however, since it did so poorly at the box office, it didn't look all that bad having not been run through the projector very many times.
I strongly recommend this film. However, I can't recommend this DVD because it sucks. The worst is not being able to hear Stephen Chow's voice - the transfer and subtitles would be forgiveable if they only used the original track. |