ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN blu-ray review

Hong Kong Region A blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 1.85:1

Cantonese: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (original)

Mandarin: Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (dub)

Subtitles: English, Mandarin

IMDB

MOVIE: 8.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 7

AUDIO QUALITY: 6.5

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 7.5

EXTRAS: 1

As many know, Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain is a Hong Kong 1980s classic. If there is one movie to own from Hong Kong 1980s action cinema, this is one of them. The movie has impressive special effects which are more charming than dated, quick-cut scenes edited in the most creative way that is not even close to being compared to the annoying style found in recent MTV-cut Hollywood films, and non-stop energy from beginning to end. All the actors stand out from the small to main roles. The choreography and movement of the actors, action, special effects, and scenes all blend together in a totally wacky creative way without throwing off the film. There is a lot going on in this film, but it’s not as confusing as one might expect after reading other reviews. And Bridget Lin is hot in this film (for a change from playing dudes).

The blu-ray! Guess what? It’s what you expected! Fair video and fair audio! What did you expect – Fortune Star actually remastering the films in their catalog that are considered HK classics? Of course not.

I compared my Hong Kong Legends DVD to this blu-ray and they both have their advantages and disadvantages. I really didn’t see a huge difference between the video quality on both versions. If you want the warmer colored version (skies are blue on the DVD), then buy the Hong Kong Legends blu-ray. If you want the brighter overcast colored version (skies are overcast on the blu-ray), then buy the blu-ray. Zu Warriors From the Mountain also has tons of dark scenes in the film. So you know what to expect with Fortune Star and dark scenes – not too impressive. For anyone that has bought previous Fortune Star blu-rays, we all know that the blu-ray only sort of looks good during day scenes. I looked at backgrounds and foregrounds and closeups and long shots between both versions, and I still didn’t see a great big difference. Sure the blu-ray is more or less clean, but so was the Hong Kong Legends DVD. They both look different but I can’t honestly say which one looks better. It’s sort of like the Predator Ultimate Edition scenario – some people like the old blu-ray with the grain, while others prefer the new Predator blu-ray with the grain-free DNR video. The same goes for this blu-ray of Zu Warriors. I like both the blu-ray and DVD for different reasons. I only have a 37 inch HDTV, so maybe the DVD will look worse on a bigger screen, but on less than 40 inches, they both look similar. I think I prefered the look of the old school special effects on the blu-ray more than the DVD but that’s just a personal preference. The special effects looked good on the DVD too.

The audios on both DVD and blu-ray aren’t that impressive. It’s a tie of mediocrity. They both have a muffled wierdness to them. But it certainly doesn’t distract from enjoying this film on video, and at least the blu-ray audio is mixed well in which I don’t need to deal with the volume control.

Extra-wise, the Hong Kong Legends DVD wins due to the English dub and the audio commentary, while the blu-ray only has a trailer and an interview…. but wait, there’s a big positive surprise on the blu-ray. While I sort of officially swore to stop buying old HK movies put out by Fortune Star due to lousy English subtitles, I took a chance with Zu. On the back cover, it shows Chinglish subtitles that would make your Chinese food delivery man proud, but I still took a chance. I reminded myself that English subtitles on HK DVDs/blu-rays from movies released in the 1960s to late 1970s have good English subtitles. Zu Warriors came out in 1983 so I took the chance that 1983 would round out to 1980 (aka the last year of the 70s) and I gambled well – the English subtitles are very good! The English subtitles are not only smoother and better translated than the wordy Hong Kong Legends DVD, but they look better as well. The subtitles on the blu-ray has regular style font font, while the English subtitles on the Hong Kong Legends DVD are this ugly-looking captalized font that looks like font that’s used for the Fast and the Furious posters. So overall, I prefer to watch the blu-ray mainly because the English subtitles look better and have a more natural translation.

If you already own the Hong Kong Legends DVD, then it’s perfectly fine to stick with that.
If you never owned the Hong Kong Legends DVD, then I recommend the blu-ray mainly for the English subtitles.

Note: I never owned any of the Hong Kong Fortune Star NTSC Region 3 DVDs, so I don’t know how they compare to the Hong Kong Legends PAL DVD.

October 12, 2011
Categories: Z . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR blu-ray review

Germany Region B blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 1.85:1

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (dub)

Subtitles: German (removable)

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 8

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 8.5

EXTRAS: 1

 

I forgot how dark this film is. It’s actually a pretty creepy movie actually – sort of like a combination of a Twilight Zone episode and a typical live-action Disney film. The kid falls down, wakes up to realize that he’s been missing for 8 years and hasn’t aged, and then he’s taken away from his family that he just reunited with to be tested by the govt and NASA. All this creepy dark stuff happens before he starts his adventures in the spaceship. And there’s even some curse words in this film that wouldn’t be found today in a PG-rated live-action Disney film. Pretty damn good sci-fi film for kids and adults!

The German Region B blu-ray is excellent quality for a movie that came out in 1986. There are some spots and dirt that pop up, but the video quality is a huge upgrade from the DVD. I have the NTSC DVD as well and I did a side-by-side comparison and the blu-ray video quality really shows a dramatic difference. The DTS-HD 5.1 audio is pretty good as well. It’s pretty active and does a solid job but don’t expect an amazing audio remastering. No complaints at all!

Flight of the Navigator is an intelligent movie for kids and still pretty entertaining for adults. It’s certainly the most watchable Sarah Jessica Parker film i’ve seen!

October 12, 2011
Categories: F . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

SOLDIER BLUE blu-ray review

Germany Region B blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (original)

German/Italian/Spanish: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (dub)

Subtitles: German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 8

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

EXTRAS: 0

 

Soldier Blue is a fictional re-enactment of the infamous 1864 Sand Creek massacre in Colorado by the U.S. Cavalry on a Cheyenne Indian village and the events that lead up to it. It’s a pretty decent movie with a pretty violent ending that is considered shocking and controversial. Although it was pretty sad to see the Indians get massacred at the end of the movie, the whole tone of the first and second acts weren’t serious or focused enough to make the ending as powerful as it should be. The acting by the leads, Bergan and Strauss, is certainly interesting. I’m not sure it’s good acting, but it’s got that 1970s vibe. This was the first time I saw Candice Bergan as a young woman in a movie. She’s got great hair, but other than that, she really isn’t such a good actress. She sort of reminded me of Sarah Palin in the movie – she’s got this “okee dokee” tough attitude about all the traumatic events going on in the film which was sort of off-putting. Peter Strauss was a bit better – when his whole world falls apart in the film, he sort of goes Planet of the Apes bonkers. And Donald Pleasence pops up in a really bizarre awkward role. Eventhough he’s trying to hunt down the two main protagonists in the film, he just doesn’t come off as scary or intimidating – just more like a joke. The best actor in the film, John Anderson, plays the Colonel that is in charge of the massacre of the Indian village. He’s sort of similar to Patrick McGoohan’s Longshanks in Braveheart. It’s too bad that his character wasn’t developed and only pops up at the end of the film. Furthermore, the Indian characters should have been developed more as well. If this was a longer, more epic film, with the villains (cavalry) and the victims (Indians) developed, it could have been much better. The music of the movie even has an interesting dated 1970s soundtrack.

The Region B German blu-ray is excellent – popping colors and great sharpness. There is high detail in foregrounds and backgrounds, and there is a very tiny amount of original grain which flatter the image. The DTS-HD audio is very solid for a 1970s film – it’s mixed well and the action scenes do provide a good enough punch. There are no extras on this blu-ray.

The only thing funny about this blu-ray is the cover – I don’t know why they chose such a generic looking cover. The cowboy on that cover is not even in the film. This is one blu-ray that can certainly get a custom cover!

I’ll take Dances With Wolves over this film any day, but Soldier Blue is still an interesting, bizarre, violent, and historical film worth checking out.

October 12, 2011
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VALLEY OF FLOWERS dvd review

Thai PAL dvd

Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1

Hindi/Japanese DD 5.1 (original)

Thai DD 5.1 (dub)

Subtitles: English

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 8.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 8

AUDIO QUALITY: 8

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 10

EXTRAS: 2

 

Valley of Flowers is a pretty underrated gem which leaves you with unforgettable imagery in your mind for weeks after watching this film. Pan Nalin also directed another underrated film Samsara, so if you’ve seen that movie, expect Valley of Flowers to be slightly similar but more exciting. This film is literally a Buddhist western/love story (sort of like a cross between Seripham Falls and The Fountain)! This movie is full of eye candy – from the picturesque scenery to one of best-looking international actresses I’ve seen in a long time – Mylene Jampanoi (the main actress in the French horror film, Martyrs). Both of Nalin’s films are spiritual-related flicks with sprinkled with sex and violence. While Samsara is the deeper and slower movie, Valley of Flowers is the more intense, exciting adventure one. Nalin is a very skilled writer/director and is an expert at filming beauty. The acting is great as well. If you want to see a new kind of “robbery” movie, this is for you – they ain’t just robbing the bank here. They want “something” more than just the money. And now, I’ll say no more!

The Thai DVD is anamorphic widescreen and has the original Hindi/Japanese DD 5.1 audio (and Thai DD 5.1 dub). This is the type of movie that needs a blu-ray release. Unfortunately, there aren’t any current plans to release this film on blu-ray so your best best is this DVD or the more expensive Australian PAL DVD.  The DVD is just good – color and contrast are solid, and elements like fog are presented with very little artifacting. Night scenes are of course not as amazing as the day scenes, but overall the breathtaking visuals will distract you from any other anomalies that were barely present. The DD 5.1 soundtrack is very solid as well for this type of film. The sound is very dream-like with a lot of active directionality to the soundtrack. A DTS option would have been nice, but the DD 5.1 does the trick just fine. The English subtitles are perfect. The only extras are a trailer and photo gallery.

If you are interested in Buddhist/Tibeten/Karma mysticism, then Valley of Flowers is for you. If you end up liking this movie, then you should definitely check out Samsara on DVD as well.

October 12, 2011
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KERALA VARMA PAZHASSIRAJA blu-ray review

India Region-free blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

Malayalam: Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Subtitles: English

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 6.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 8.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 7.5

EXTRAS: 0

 

Kerala Varma Pazhassiraja aka India’s Braveheart starring fat, hairy dudes!

I can understand the importance of this film for Malayalam cinema. I guess that part of India is not known for their films. So from that perspective, this is a good film for them. But…

But for the rest of the world, this is a very amateurish fair film. There is nothing wrong with the historical story. There is nothing wrong with the cinematography. There is nothing wrong with the music. Here comes the part that throws off the whole film:

1. The British actors (or actors pretending to be British) in this film which make up a good majority of the film are awful, awful, awful, awful actors. Bad bad bad bad. There is no excuse for such bad acting if the majority of the movie is going to include British actors. I wasn’t rooting for the evil British colonists to be killed because they were evil. I was rooting for them to be killed because I was waiting for them to get off the screen. But when one main British actor gets killed, he gets replaced with another bad British actor. Just plain awful. If the British acting would have been good or just neutral, the film could have been good. But in turn, it makes the film seem like an amateurish tv movie.

2. For anyone that has read online reviews and praises the action in this movie, it’s because they are Indian and they are just proud of any type of action choreography in their movies. The action is just plain bad, bad, bad, and bad. This movie has some of the worst laughable wirework that I have ever seen. And I like wirework. The actors are just nongracefully flung around like ragdolls. It looks totally amateurish and stupid. Furthermore, these fat warriors think they can just attach themselves to wires and do some Asian moves and think that they are all smooth and awesome looking. It wasn’t. It looks like these fat-ass warriors never did any type of training or physical activity in their lives. I don’t know who’s to blame but it’s a combination of the actors not caring, the director, and the fight choreographer. It was like watching fatties in a bloody version of a medieval live action role-playing game. There is only one actor in the movie that somewhat cared (you can tell that he lifted weights, unlike the other warriors who could care less how they looked). For anyone that even mentions this movie in the same realm as any Chinese martial arts film is truly retarded and can’t tell the difference between amateur fight choreography and professional fight choreography. The producers should have hired Sammo Hung (a well-known martial arts actor and fight choreographer who is heavy himself and knows how to make heavy people look suave in fight scenes).

3. The Indian acting is pretty good, but you just don’t feel for any of the characters – just not that gripping. People die, but you just don’t care. That’s the fault mainly with the screenplay.

Other than that, even though it’s an amateur B-movie, it’s certainly entertaining, not boring, and worth seeing what the big deal was for Malayalam cinema. The only direction to go from here is up. So they have to start somewhere. And since this is one of their most successful films, you got to give them credit for trying. Hopefully, they will correct some of the mistakes they made in this film in their future films.

The blu-ray is pretty good. After watching the whole film, I saw a bit more faults with it, such as white specs through out (not a big deal though) and the video quality was grainy and not as good during night scenes (once again, very common with many blu-rays). But for a Moserbaer blu-ray, this is a very impressive blu-ray since their DVDs are just plain awful. When you put the blu-ray in the player, it goes pretty much straight to the menu. The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Malayalam rocks though – the sound was really good! Not one advertisement before the menu and no ads or logos popping up during the movie or songs. This is what a regular blu-ray is supposed to be like. And there is a song menu (just 3 songs). This company obviously did their blu-ray research!  The English subtitles were okay. I don’t understand why Indians can’t get native English speakers to work on their subtitles. It will make the movie a lot better if the English subtitles make sense, don’t have spelling mistakes, and are grammatically correct! And there are no extras on the blu-ray.

October 12, 2011
Categories: K . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

THE MYTH blu-ray review

UK Region-free blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

Cantonese: DD 5.1, DD 2.0

English: DD 5.1

Subtitles: English

IMDB

MOVIE: 8

VIDEO QUALITY: 9.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 10

EXTRAS: 8

 

THE MYTH is a ten-times-better version of the TOMB RAIDER movies, a hint of NATIONAL TREASURE, a bit of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, and of course a touch of Yimou Zhang. Some say the mixing of the period piece genre with current time period is awkward – I say phooey…I love the mixing of genres and I thought it worked great. The period piece story with Jackie Chan as the killing machine general was just as interesting as much as the nice guy Jackie Chan archeologist contemporary story, and eventually how they both connected. It was well written and totally entertaining for a fun movie. This isn’t supposed to be an Oscar movie, it’s just a great fun movie, showing the Jackie Chan that we love in his trademark clownish kung fu scenes and jumping around in dangerous areas (with wire work which is okay considering his age) and we get to see a new Jackie Chan kick ass, kill hundreds of men, fight with swords, and fall in love. Stanley Tong isn’t Yimou Zhang, so don’t expect another HERO, but he did a pretty damn fine job with doing a period piece for the first time. Jackie Chan as the general did a very good job acting. As we watch the making-of feature, Jackie Chan was aggresively directed by Stanley Tong to act with no emotion or facial expressions, so it’s not Jackie’s fault if people think he acted as if he was constipated the whole time as I have read in other reviews. Jackie Chan is just a hard-working actor who does what his director tells him. Although he is no Russell Crowe, Jackie Chan still has potential to do some really fine acting if given the right director to work with. Look at one of the worst directors today, George Lucas – he was responsible for the lousy acting in all three STAR WARS prequels. All those actors from the prequels have done amazing work in other movies. It is the director’s responsibility to get excellent acting. Stanley Tong isn’t as bad director as George Lucas, he’s just a fun director, so you can’t really fault Jackie Chan if one thinks he didn’t do a good job or if no one felt emotion from the story. It’s just an entertaining blockbuster-type film. After watching the making-of featurettes for THE MYTH, it’s hard not to love Jackie Chan. He not only helps out all the actors and helps out cleaning the sets, he is the type of person that wants everyone to be comfortable and have fun on the set, yet do a professional job. With all the different nationalities involved in this film (China, Korea, India), it’s nice to see that Jackie is the one keeping everything together and making people happy.

The movie moved along very fast and was extremely entertaining. I didn’t notice any filler in the story at all. I’m a bit confused why people call the Mallika Sherawat scenes in India unnecessary. The best part of the movie was when Jackie Chan was in India. All of the Indian scenes were important, because:
1. Mallika is hot, gets topless for a split-second (they airbrush her nipples off when she is topless) and makes the movie even more rewatchable by just her presence. She has that bombshell cinema presence in which you can watch any of her movies with the mute button on. She is in a class of actresses such as these other actresses around the world – Monica Bellucci, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Connelly (pre-Beautiful Mind movies), Sofía Vergara, Leonor Watling, Angelina Jolie, Chalize Theron. Stanley Tong understands casting. He could have just stuck with Hee-seon Kim, the Korean actress playing the princess in THE MYTH, and not get Mallika, but this Korean actress has as much presence as a tree. Trees are pretty and nice to look at but they are just there and have no presence. There is nothing special about Hee-seon Kim when comparing her to Mallika.
2. Mallika kicks ass in some short but quality fight scenes.
3. the glue factory Jackie Chan fight scene
4. Mallika is one of the few actors (eventhough she is bad actress) in India that does controversial things in Bollywood movies, such as kiss in movies (how X-rated). In THE MYTH, she was one of the first Bollywood actors to do some martial arts and look good doing it eventhough the fight scenes are very short (in most Bollywood movie, the fight scenes are painful to watch). She represents the potential of what Bollywood actors should be doing if they didn’t have such traditional movie obstacles typically found in Bollywood.

The action in THE MYTH rocked! There were countless scenes of awesome action: every single fight scene involving Jackie Chan was just amazing. There were funny fight scenes and some serious bad-ass fight scenes. There were funny fight scenes that were meant to be funny. And there were some serious fight scenes than turned out to be unintentionally funny (the horse-fu scenes…I thought that was creative, funny, and great!). Other creative scenes involved Jackie Chan people chased by thousands of Indians, Jackie Chan fighting against an Indian with Indian martial arts, Mallika’s fight scenes, the mega bow-and-arrow, the mountain of dead bodies with Jackie standing on top of them, the sew-up-a-wound with a lock of hair scene, the snowballing scene, the none-gravity climactic scenes, etc…on and on…I think this is Stanley Tong’s most creative movie yet, not only with the storyline, but with the most creative action and visuals he’s ever done.

There are few negatives in this movie. These negatives bothered critics and a lot of people who thought this movie was fair. I was aware of the negatives, but it didn’t bother me that much because there were too many other cool things in the movie to notice:
1. There was some pretty bad pre-Terminator 2 CGI scenes in this movie involving a snake, falling off a cliff, Zatoichi spurting cartoon blood, falling rocks, and the worst one, was a scene in which Tony Leung is sinking into metalic goo with something happening to the floor around him. I sort of figured out what was going on, but it was actually pretty poorly done – I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking at. At least, I knew that the snake was a snake. But Stanley Tong made up for his poor use of CGI with his skillful and creative wire-work in this movie. It’s not that the audience questioned whether something was wire work or not, the fact is that the wire-work looked good in this movie and was used creatively, and was not meant to look “real.” We all know that Jackie Chan used wire-work in this movie. If you wanna see real stunts, go watch the overrated Tony Jaa.
2. The most annoying aspect in THE MYTH was Stanley Tong’s descision to squish the image during the period piece scenes. It was a stylish choice which sucked! It was clearly seen when Jackie Chan was on the screen. It didn’t seem as squished when the Princess was in a scene. I’m not sure which is the most annoying filmmaking i’ve ever seen – the squished effect of the period piece scenes in THE MYTH or the shaky-cam scenes in THE BOURNE SUPREMECY?

Overall, Jackie Chan’s THE MYTH is a pretty good entertaining fun flick. It was nice to see Jackie Chan do comedic fight scenes and also nice to see him tackle a different style – acting, romance, killing, and doing serious fight scenes. Either way, the movie is worth it just to watch Jackie Chan and Mallika Sherawat!

The Blu-ray video and audio quality is pretty sweet. The 1080p video looked damned good, especially during Mallika’s scenes…and the audio sounded amazing. The blu-ray also includes a whole bunch of extras including interviews, making-ofs, deleted scenes, trailers, and outtakes.

I highly recommend this creative Jackie Chan film!

October 12, 2011
Categories: M . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA blu-ray review

Germany Region B blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 English

DTS-HD master Audio 2.0 German (dub)

Subtitles: German (removable)

IMDB

MOVIE: 10

VIDEO QUALITY: 8.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 8.5

EXTRAS: 0

 

I don’t know how a story could get better than the one in this movie – during World War 2, an Italian town elects the village drunk to become the new mayor of town. He sobers up once he realizes that the nazis are on the way to his town to take all the wine from the village, and he figures out a way to hide a million bottles of wine before they all show up! If you come into this movie without knowing too much, as I did, this film will be a real treat. I love it when Hollywood makes a film that’s more like a European film than a Hollywood one. Santa Vittoria stars an amazing international cast of Anthony Quinn, Anna Magnani, Virna Lisi, Hardy Kruger, and also a young Giancarlo Giannini. I had no idea I was watching Giannini since I’ve only seen him as a middle-aged man in movies. Santa Vittoria is funny, touching, and totally entertaining from beginning to end. It’s one of those films you don’t want to end and you can’t get enough of Anthony Quinn’s Bombolini. Quinn has such a powerful presence and is an amazing actor. I’ve seen him in some bad films, but he’s always amazing to watch, even in his bad films.

The German Region B blu-ray is very good. Don’t expect to be blown away as like with The Sound of Music, but the video and audio quality is very satisfying. Most of the time, the image looks clean, crisp, and bright. Only during night scenes, it won’t be so impressing, but still better than how a night scene would look on a DVD. Towards the end of the movie, some color discoloration and scratches pop up, but it’s so short, it’s not a big deal. The DTS-HD 2.0 is very good too – dialogue is clear and mixed very nicely. Listening to this audio, I felt right in the center of the Santa Vittoria town.

The German subtitles are removable and there aren’t any extras.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria is a totally underrated gem. I have never heard anyone mention this film in my life, even when they talk about films of Anthony Quinn. It’s too bad because this film is a must-see!

October 12, 2011
Categories: S . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment