Hi,
Just watched it tonight and wanted to remark that I thoroughly enjoyed it. What a fantastic little cracker it was. I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see it on the silver screen at the time, but it was still effective on my widescreen DVD setup, but obviuosly not as good as the real thing.
It took a bit of getting used to all the wire work that was deployed through the story, but eventually came around to the thought that it added that certain dream like fairy story edge to the whole thing. Hats off to Ang Lee me thinx, and to imagine he directed sense and sensibility, next thing we'll have Bernard Manning directing a remake of Malcolm X (not quite, but you catch my drift).
Anyway, really enjoyed it, shame the beer was a bit warm.
Oh, two things, If you've seen it has anyone noticed the sometimes shitty fade ins where the colour is all muggy for the most of it and then suddenly, 'Ta Da!' there it is. That was the only gripe about the film. And are there any DVD players out there that get rid of that annoying pause when the focus shifts layers? It must be so easy to build a small 1 second buffer to counteract it. Damn it, I hate looking for perfection, but still I thought it was a class release and look forward to more mainstream eastern releases.
Tim
The problem with the "pause" is not really down to the DVD player. It's really down to the encoding company that produced the DVD, I have seen some DVD's that the switch between layers is seemless and you don't even know it's happened, normally this is done during a cut in the scene or a fade. But on the other hand I have seen some that switch half way through someone talking which is unbelievable.
Regards
Lui
My Rocky Horror disk jumped the first time it jumped between layers and I thought "Huh? wtf was that?" & rewound to try & get it to do it again - but it wouldn't, & hasn't since. So I think it has more to do with wind direction & blind chance than anything else. But then, I haven't many Dual layer DVD's.
Phill.
None of my discs , region 0 , 1 , 2 or 4 skip between layers.
I use a dxr3 card and a panasonic dvd drive in my pc to watch all my dvd's.
The only real problems i've had are from discs like jim carreys region 1 , ' me , myself and irene ' which switches subtitles ( in spanish ) on and off every 7 sections throughout the film.
They cheated with the multiangle settings and it messes with some players as does ' x-men'. 'Gladiator' in the uk caused many of the same kind of problems.( the US region 1 version is fine )
DVD appears to be another standard that companies break with each new release.
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Gary MacKenzie
Audio Visual Technician
(email me if you want a quick reply)
If you haven't seen it, try "A Chinese Ghost Story" - I won't even attempt to explain the plot but with suitable liquid refreshment it's a lot of fun and has some very impressive wire work and other effects.
Also worth looking at are John Woo's movies before he went to Hollywood. Try "A Better Tomorrow", "Hard Boiled" and "The Killer" to see how a great action director could become a pale imitation of himself.
Yep, can definitely recommend "A chinese ghost story". Can't be explained, must be watched.
WB
I must agree that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a really good film and well shot but I still think Yuen Woo Ping (fight choreographer) has made better fight scenes (not talking about Matrix, his older Hong Kong films).
For cool fight scenes I would recommend films like Once Upon A Time In China, Prodigal Son, Legend Of Fong Sai Yuk, Iron Monkey, Drunken Master 1 and 2, Armour Of God and Police Story.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of Mr Vampire - just the original mind you, the follow-ups were poor stuff.
And for those who enjoyed the lavish nature of Crouching Tiger, I strongly urge you to check out Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero. Neither are made on the kind of budget that Ang Lee had to play with, but they're lavish movies nonetheless.
Cheers,
Pete