Ninja In Ancient China: Technical Notes

Picture: Non-anamorphic Widescreen. The 1.66:1 image is nothing that will dazzle. The print is pretty worn, spotty, and washed out. Aside form the focus being off in a few scenes, the overall pic is pretty soft. One has to be a little forgiving, it is a rare film, though technically I can think of no good reason for not making an anamorphic transfer of a print source.

Sound: 2.0 Stereo,Mandarin with burned-in English and Chinese subtitles. Acceptable audio transfer. Not the strongest source to work from, but the synth score is 80's rocking and the vocals have a minimal amount of muffle.

Unfortunately we have some on the print subs, typically headache inducing due to bad translation and weak legibility, fading into the background, and at times being cut off at the sides. I know DVD companies seem to frown on it, but I think if the only print you can get has burned-in subs, still include an option to display black-bordered, close caption styled subs on top of the wonky "Engrish" burned-in ones.

Extras: Dream Sword teaser. -- Image Gallery. -- Informative Liner Notes by Linn Haynes. Details the latter day evolution of Chang Cheh's career. -- Audio Commentary by Nick Watkins. A bit dry and prepared statement/ note-heavy, Watkins still does a nice job of going over the ins and outs of the film and how it fits within Chang Cheh's resume.

Conclusion: Even if this DVD presented transfer perfection I would hesitate recommending the movie to casual martial fans simply because it falls into entertaining but ultimately pretty middling territory. I am grateful and its welcome to have the film at all, but the transfer certainly wont wow anyone. Greenfan have a few other titles on the horizon, including Return fo the Deadly Blade, a film that I'm fond of, so hopefully they will improve in some technical areas and deliver some more kung fu rarities. Rent it if you are a casual fan. Buy it if you are a hardcore martial film junkie.

Greenfandvd presents the film in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, approximately (it varies a little throughout). Being a rare film, most of the print looks as good as can be with softness not being an overly apparent issue. Colours are for the most part fairly vivid and print damage light. At 3-4 points the quality drops a few notches into more darker and battered territory.

The Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0 track sounds clear throughout but for whatever reason, the audio jumps to the left channel for one minute around the 35-36 minute mark.

The imbedded Chinese/English subtitles chalks up a fair amount of grammar- and spelling errors during the 90 minutes but the translation can always be followed and the subs are rarely displayed against white backgrounds either.

A notable extras package (considering the film we're dealing with) starts with an audio commentary by Kung-fu film expert Nick Watkins. Having obviously prepared, some remarks are read out but the content of Nick's not very often screen specific commentary is thorough to the point that he invites new and old fans into the fact-attack. He goes through the connection with other ninja movies by filmmakers such as Robert Tai and Godfrey Ho, the Mainland history of Chang Cheh's filmmaking life (and the films), the real life historic events and Chang Cheh's style overall being present in his very last films. The most intriguing bits comes from quotes of the legend himself, saying that he didn't care much for accurate details in his films. A worthwhile and very solid track.

An image gallery (27 images) follows, presenting all its stills in a large format thankfully. Behind Dream Sword Taster you'll find a 2 minute, 36 second clip of their upcoming release of The Dream Sword. Presented in 1.85:1, Mandarin 2.0 sound and optional English subtitles, by the looks of it we're dealing with a dark, battered print but an undemanding, fun genre vehicle.

Look inside your dvd case and you'll find an excellent 4 page colour booklet featuring movie stills and a text piece by acknowledged expert Linn Hayes entitled "Fall From Grace: Chang Cheh after the Shaw Brothers". It's healthy in the way that it brings up a moviemaking life of the legend not widely known and several movies are touched upon that are not even in any online databases either. Terrific stuff. The Greenfan teaser trailer for Ninja In Ancient China does not appear but is available on their website.