MovieChat Forums > Tau man ji D (2005) Discussion > The U.S. DVD sucks!

The U.S. DVD sucks!

posted 18 years ago by WallyWaffles
11 replies | jump to latest

I am not the least bit Asian, but I LOVE Eastern cinema! This movie however...I took a break half-way through, a couple of weeks ago, and haven't yet gotten around to watching the second half. I found it hard to get excited about the most exciting scenes, but then that could have because when the movie started I was already incredibly pissed off about having to wait through 10 minutes of unskippable previews! You know, I do like to watch the previews, but only after I've watched the movie!

I just realized: Whenever I finally get around to watching the second half, I'm going to have to wait another 10 minutes just for the bloody menu to come up! Didn't disgruntled consumers already scream angrily about this kind of thing years ago?

[–] silblaze 18 years ago

I had the same problem with previews except it was on my sister's Shrek 2 dvd. It wouldn't let us skip, but we could fast forward.

By the way, how are the english voices?

This blank space is my sig. But since I typed this this blank space ain't my sig anymore is it?

[–] WallyWaffles 18 years ago

how are the english voices?

Don't know. After unsuccessfully finding the "correct" language I finally settled upon Mandarin, since it's a non-English Chinese movie and I understand more Mandarin than Cantonese. (It was likely filmed in Cantonese, but the Cantonese audio track didn't snyc right.) It's hard to say whether or not I'll ever get around to watching it in English--I still haven't finished watching the movie all the way through, and if my package from Amazon.de arrives tomorrow, it'll be even longer before I decide to go back to it. (And besides, English dubs of foreign films always suck--it's an unwritten industry rule.)

[–] sighupnull 18 years ago

Don't stick to mandarin, the original dialect of the film is Cantonese. Sounds much better. I tend to be a bit of an audiophile whe it comes to films and soundtrack. I hate dubbs.

[–] RyuuKanshin 18 years ago

Mandarin speakers don't understand Cantonese, sighupnull...

[–] Meven_Stoffat 18 years ago

I saw this at Animethon today, and it was friggin' awesome. It sounded cool in Mandarin (that's the language I watched it in).

Formally known as Denzel Lockheart.

Best movie ever: BATTLE ROYALE (2001)

[–] RyuuKanshin 18 years ago

I can confirm Cantonese is the correct language. How? Because all the actor's voice are very reconizable if you watch enough HK films (and this is one BTW), from Anthony Wong to Chapman To to Kenny Bee to Edison Chen to Shawn Yue, it's all their voices, hell even Jay Chou did his lines in Cantonese and any Cantonese speaker can hear out his thick Mandarin accent immediately. Those of you who think the voices don't synch up probably paid too much attention to Anne Suzuki's character or any of the other females, because they are all Japanese and did their lines so in Japanese (only in the Jpn version will you be able to hear their actual voice). So no, Mandarin is not the correct language, and watching Initial D in that language is about as correct as watching it in English.

[–] gundanium2002 18 years ago

The movie is cantonese period. The director was cantonese anyways. Saying it sounded cool in Manderin is probably like saying you like watching old jackie chan movies because his english is perfect...

[–] drunknmaster28 18 years ago

Yeah, seriously. They need to be skippable!

And yeah, Cantonese is the original track. The only thing is that it probably wasn't shot in sync sound, so everything was probably dubbed later on.

[–] jeaniebaby001 18 years ago

I hate the non-skippable part, so I press the MUTE button, and go do something else until the menu pops up. ;)

~~~http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html ~~~

[–] theVIP 18 years ago

Well, I'm chinese & I live/grew up in Canada. Ordered the DVD from HK; which was Region ALL by the way. And yeah, the original language is in Cantonese. Except for the jap chick, the gas station owner who were talking in their language.

Since a while, the menus on asian DVDs (not the bootleg ones, although they also do) are in the respective asian language & also in english. No need to worry about not understanding anything.

Oh yeah, don't ever get US version of Asian movies; american distributors screw everything up.
Be resourceful, find it yourself & get informed. The internet is here for that.

[–] aminhawk 12 years ago

10 mins is unbearable yeah, but at least on a couple different DVD players I found out that if you hit the STOP button then PLAY you can actually skip the whole damn trailer reel and go straight into the menu.

Hope this works for you guys, the US dvd is great otherwise, it's almost identical to the great HK release except we get English subs on the deleted scenes and the cover looks cool too!