Centre Stage: Technical Notes

Technical Notes Technical Notes:
Centre Stage
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    by So Good... - Hong Kong DVD Movie Reviews
    www.sogoodreviews.com



Towards the end, the film opens up to 1.77:1 but the majority of the film is framed at 1.66:1. It's definitely is in need of cleanup as we get patches of heavy print damage and at times grainy shots. Colours are only decent and high contrast makes black come off bad in certain shots.

The only language track on offer is a Dolby Digital 2.0 track consisting of both Cantonese, Mandarin and a little bit of English. It's unspectacular as far as mono tracks go and sound a little distorted. It does its job though and it's actually a sync sound soundtrack, making Center Stage the earliest 1990s example of a Hong Kong film of that kind to the best of my knowledge.

The English subtitles are excellent throughout with only few spelling and structure errors. The on screen text that pops up throughout is however not translated which was a mighty shame (it apparently was on the full length VHS). Traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles are also included. Only extra is the trailer.




    by So Good... - Hong Kong DVD Movie Reviews
    www.sogoodreviews.com

Stanley Kwan's Center Stage (a.k.a. Actress) is a much acclaimed drama that has suffered a cruel fate on home video. It played for cinema audiences at a length of 141 minutes but home video versions, including [the] Deltamac release, runs 121 minutes. Presumably, a decision was made at Media Asia to fit the movie onto 2 laserdiscs, back when it was released on that format, and the original running time was therefore compromised. Subsequently, a Mandarin dubbed VHS or VCD of the director's cut was made available but is now a great rarity. Maybe now that Fortune Star are striking High Definition Masters for some of their catalogue, they will also go back to Center Stage and assemble the cut Stanley Kwan presented to the viewing public in 1992.



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