If I wanted to watch the VCD, I'd have bought it instead!
Dr. Sean M. Tierney | Hong Kong | 04/21/2005
(1 out of 5 stars)
"My major objection to this DVD is that it was made from the VCD of the same title. VCD is a popular format in Asia, and most Hong Kong films on VCD (and DVD) have two available dialogue tracks; Cantonese and Mandarin. VCD players allow you to choose which you want. But when you burn a DVD from a VCD source, which is what hapened here, you get BOTH languages running constantly. It inspires a kind of linguistic epilepsy. I'm sure I could have manipulated my video system to get only one, which is what I do with VCDs, but THIS IS A DVD. Granted a DVD whose licensing rights must be as dubious as their packaging; I've seen better looking bootlegs. The film itself is widescreen, but because its a copy of a VCD made from a pretty washed out print, the picture quality is low. The only memorable thing about the film is some jaw-droppingly racist plot machinations: Yuen Biao and Takeshi Kaneshiro put on blackface to fool an African American villain into thinking one of them is his brother. Yuen Biao wins this dubious honor by defeating Kaneshiro in a 'quiz' about Black people; the questions and answers are practically unrepeatable. The worst part of it is that the villain actually is fooled. Luckily for me, I bought this only for the above mentioned material, which I needed for a research study. Otherwise _I_ was thoroughly fooled by this DVD.
"
Better than I expected
Ace | California | 07/09/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"On the minus side, it appears to have been filmed on a cell phone, the sound was processed in an underwater echo chamber and the subtitles were created by someone who is clearly not a native English speaker. And there's a scene in blackface which keeps referring to African-Americans as negroes. On the plus side, Kaneshiro Takeshi. And it's a sort of charming window into lowbrow Hong Kong humor. Did I mention Kaneshiro Takeshi?"
Outrageous quality
Donnar | 07/03/2009
(1 out of 5 stars)
"As someone mentioned already, you can't make much of the movie, as you can't hear, what they are talking about, as there are two sound tracks playing together, and subs are taking one third of the screen, as they are both english and chinese together and you can't switch them off. Otherwise the movie is okay, typical for that time and aim, so it's quite funny sometimes (in the good way), and sometime just silly - would get three stars, if you can see it at all. But stay away from this companys' products!!! For your own sake!"