| Once again, king of releases with questionable legality, PanMedia releases a DVD from Taiwan (with Chinese credits at the back!) in the US.
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen. The picture is quite good, surprisingly. It's better than my previous bootleg version. Specs and scratches are almost completely gone, as are glaring colour fluctuations. The colours are pretty accurate and fairly strong. The problem, though is that the picture is far from being sharp, with the level of detail being pretty bad. The picture definitely lacks clarity. You can tell who Paul Chiang is, so I suppose it's not too bad.
Audio: The only track is a Dolby mono track (2.0) in Mandarin. It's not the best. When high notes come around, the track can get screechy. Other than that, it’s okay. The dialogue is clear and the score never overpowers it. The effects are also mixed in pretty well. The track is pretty clear overall and the screechy sounds only come in a few times, so it's not that bad.
Extras: There are three trailers. '18 Fatal Strikes' (3:29), which looks like a mishmash of about a thousand different Jackie Chan movies, 'Thou Shall Kill… But Once' (3:51) and 'Point the Finger of Death' (4:13), a pretty bad-looking rip-off of 'One-Armed Swordsman', have trailers.
OVERALL: ...The DVD is of questionable legality but is fair quality considering the movie. The picture is adequate and pretty nice, and the sound, though not perfect, is also good. The extras are a bit skimpy, but at least you'll be able to see trailers to some really obscure flicks. If you're tired of the old bootleg VHS you have, this is probably the best way to go. |