Save HK movies from Disneyfication

[Chang Style Novice]

Mods - I know this really belongs in the media section, but it doesn't get much traffic, and think a lot of people here will be interested. Probably even you, Gene!

http://www.petitiononline.com/warthkf

Sign the petition and keep Asian version soundtracks, cultural references, and chinese language tracks on DVDs of your favorite fu flicks.

[GeneChing]

Myopic, but cute. Do you really think a web petition will have any effect on Miramax? I'm skeptical web petitions have any effect at all, much less on a megacompany like that. The only people who know the difference are the people who have already seen these movies. Just see the originals and be happy that HK film even caught the attention of Miramax.

[ewallace]

A couple years back the company I then worked for put out an online petition that emailed our state reps everytime someone digitally signed the petition (I think each one got about 30, 000 emails over a two month period). It was in regards to southwestern bell's undergound plan to charge long distance fees to dial-up internet users regardless of their ISP. This made SWB absolutely furious with our company (one of the most rewarding projects I have ever been involved with) and the plan died soon after.

Just an example of what can happen with these things.

[apoweyn]

hell, i'd be content if they'd just leave the bloody titles alone, rather than making me sit in the blockbuster trying to deduce that 'jet li's memoirs' is actually 'fong sai yuk.'


stuart b.

[Chang Style Novice]

Miramax will do their dangedest to keep the original versions out of the country, so as to prevent them from cutting into their profits. It may have no effect, true. But not signing will definitely have no effect, and it's not a huge inconvenience to sign.

How do you figure it's myopic to try?

[yenhoi]

Genes right, but Ill sign. :D

I just want to see the kung fu anyways.

[kungfu cowboy]

I am shocked and amazed that they are supposed to be serious film, or that they thought they had made serious film. Those movies may have good kung fu occasionally, but they are usually awful in other areas. I thought they were intentionally low budget. This petition is referring only to kung fu movies, right?

[Silumkid]

Whether it changes anything or not, I signed. The Fist of Legend dub was so horrible, I couldn't believe it was real. What's next, Jackie Chan in Drunken Master 2 asking "How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?"

[David Jamieson]

Purism.

It's a good thing to maintain the film as it was originally produced.
Same applies to a great deal of other genres.

Films often have their titles changed when they ship out of the originating countries.

There is likely a lot about the structure of asian languages and cultural ideoms that would not be understood by the "average westerner" so I can see a little licence in regards to how the dialogue is structured in order to be understood without sacrificing the essence of what is said.

Then there's marketing to consider and of course the money involved in making it a worthwhile venture to consider bringing films from overseas and for those who would sell the titles.

Personally, I like the campy kung fu flicks as they are, mutually unintelligable, disjointed plot lines and sometimes really good kung fu demonstrations and movie fu.

To bring western thinkers in line with metaphor that bridges culture is good to.

You would prefer the power rangers perhaps? :D
peace

[dezhen2001]

Power Rangers kick ass!:eek:

david

[GeneChing]

...it can't hurt.

But personally, I feel that all of us can get to the originals, so what does it really matter to us. In a way, it's a source of power for us, secret knowledge if you will, that we can get the real stuff and the rest of America is left with sugar-free caffeine-free non-alcoholic cinema. Just imagine how many people you can lure into your lair with the real deal. If that doesn't impress the chicks...

But seriously, I used to write for Hong Kong Film Magazine until it had a disasterous turn when it went to newsstand distribution and died. The perils of publishing. It was also around '97 so the industry dried up. Anyway I must say that HK film (including KF movies) is a very serious genre - groundbreaking in many ways. Hk produces some absolutely amazing stuff from the late 80's to '97. True, a lot was low budget, and a lot stank, but we are still seeing the fall out of that era in Hollywood. It was a cutting edge frontier in film, but due to cultural expectations (and a lot of bad apples) it hasn't been taken seriously until recently. Those expectations, when broken, are often interpreted as campy, but I'll argue that much of that extends from general differences in Asian and Western Theatre. Now I think the frontier is Bollywood, but it's even harder to decode than HK.

[David Jamieson]

mmmmm...non alcoholic cinema. :)

You got that right G.

Bollywood has some seriously disjointed flicks! hahaha.

The HK cinema, while "campy" (imho) offers quite a lot of otherwise excellent materials.

Unfortunately, a large collection of Chinese KF films has never gotten a girl over to my apartment.

Luckily I'm married now, with no help from the HK KF films I might add and my friends really enjoy watching a few of these in a row during a game of cards.

Nothing like aces and eights with that funky twangy james bond/bruce lee guitar riff going on. Somebody has to rappify that stuff eventually.

peace

[Jimbo]

IMO, some of the old-school (mid-'70s to early '80s) kung fu flicks weren't any more cheesy than a lot of American movies then and even now. Some did have good stories (especially ones like Chang Cheh's Boxer Rebellion, etc.). The stories often became formulaic, but so do lots of American action films. Blade II is a very fun film, but face it, most of the plot is set up for the HK-like fight scenes.

When they dub the more recent ('90s to present) HK movies now, the old-school dubbers are gone, so for the most part dub jobs suck now. I rather enjoyed the old dubbers' voices, and some of them actually had voices that fit the characters, and seemed to have some degree of "acting" ability, compared to the dubbers of today.

Jim

[GeneChing]

Disney is the law. They have the kind of captial that can crush any small time distributer. That is an empire. A small HK distributor isn't even a hamlet in comparison.

And if they buy the distribution rights for a certain country, they can do what they please with it. But for what it's worth, we can always go around it. I'm sure we all have our own little chinese connection and can get our hands on the originals.

And pigs are the closest the humans by dentition (we have the same teeth and diet.) In fact pig sexual pheromone is equivalent to human sex pheromone. A few years back there was a big expose on a UK company that marketed industrial farming pig pheromone to as a humans aphrodesiac. They say humans even taste like pork - human meat is often nicknamed 'long pig.'

[@PLUGO]

What does that say about Human Police?:rolleyes:

And if the Pig kingdom had cops would they be called humans?

I see Animal FARM in a whole new light!!!

[dezhen2001]

now i know why i don't eat pork anymore :)
remind sme of the movie "alive" :eek:

dawood