Foreign language 3D Blu-ray releases without English audio or subtitles

[jchung30]

Here's a few foreign language releases I've been gathering for the past couple months....along with their English friendly alternatives:



My summer project is to rip them onto my NAS and merge the audio/subtitles.

I truly have no idea what I'm getting into. I hope a many of them will be pretty straightforward: Blu-to-Blu, same time length. I've noticed a few DVD releases are also frame for frame the same as the Blu-rays. But many titles have been sliced-and-diced for the U.S. release, with usually shorter time lengths-- some significantly. What's really annoying is that many have just a few frames that are off, here or there that didn't affect the movie much, making me wonder what was the point of the distributor even messing with it?

Anyways, this should be interesting.

[Box for Pee-wee]

Originally Posted by jchung30

Here's a few foreign language releases I've been gathering for the past couple months....along with their English friendly alternatives:



My summer project is to rip them onto my NAS and merge the audio/subtitles.

Great collection there! I've seen Kirikou in 2D and thought it was pretty fun. Did you watch it yet? Are there any movies here you would especially recommend?
Good luck with your project!

[jchung30]

Originally Posted by Box for Pee-wee

Great collection there! I've seen Kirikou in 2D and thought it was pretty fun. Did you watch it yet? Are there any movies here you would especially recommend?
Good luck with your project!

I also enjoyed Kirikou, especially since I'm a fan of the creator having enjoyed his Tales of the Night. I don't recall the 3-D being anything special, mostly 3-D layering, instead of 3-D modeling, but my memory may be faulty.

I can honestly say I think nearly all the titles were worth purchasing because the prices for most were pretty reasonable. So if you're a 3-D fanatic, it was worth it. Many were purchased in multi-movie orders so shipping was spread out. The exceptions to my thriftiness were the 3-D versions of Flight Crew (purchased with Salyut-7 that lacks an English friendly release), Spacewalker, Mune, and 1920 Battle of Warsaw, where I paid $$ to get them. (Full price and/or overseas shipping)

The one I urge people not to buy is 1939 Battle of the Westerplatte, which is a horrible auto-conversion. I will not be muxing that one.

I cheated on the animation. I really did not watch them fully. I planted my kids in front of the set, kept a general eye from the background looking for glitches, and occasionally looked at the screen, while I was busy doing other stuff. Sorry. That being said, I did enjoy watching most of Capture the Flag and Tad the Explorer 2 (Secret of Midas). Gladiators of Rome had some nice pop outs. My kids were too old for Maya the Bee: Honey Games. Feel free to ask about the other animated films.

Among the regular films, the one diamond in the rough was the 3D Horror Collection from jpc.de. It consisted of the movies Cult (JP), Crone (JP) and Sleepwalker (CN). All appeared to be filmed in real 3-D, all were region free, Cult & Crone had English subs, and it was less that 15 euro because I think JPC removes the VAT. I'm not a fan of the horror genre but for 15 bucks, it was a steal. GET IT!

--Attraction (ok sci fi, nice conversion, hot babe)
--Battle Royale (decent conversion of a 20-yr old film; great movie)
--Darker than Night (good real 3-D I think, hot Mexican babes, so-so movie)
--Detective Dee's (must buys)
--Flight Crew (watchable Russian yarn, English-friendly Italian release cuts a lot out)
--Out of Inferno (good HK/China with pleasant 3-D. No real popouts but nice immersion and typical cliche story-- two estranged brothers, one a firefighter captain, one a former firefighter, bond while fighting a fire in a high rise while saving their pregnant wife and fiance, greedy murderer, lost child, etc...)
--Sleepwalker (good real? 3-D, I recall a couple very nice 3D dream scenes; story generally kept my interest) (This title is duplicated in the 3D Horror Collection)
--Spacewalker (nice low to lower medium 3-D conversion probably my favorite Russian movie, cause the bar is set so low. )
--Viy (some very nice 3D moments though not a huge fan of the film. Worried about muxing cause the German/English friendly version cuts out a lot)

And I should add 1920 Battle of Warsaw (Polish release) probably doesn't belong here. It comes with English subs and is a treasured (and pretty rare?) title. I purchased it on ebay.de, had it sent to a friend in Poland, who shipped it to me. It was quite an ordeal and I paid $ for the privilege, but that's what we do for our hobby, eh?

Sorry for my ramblings. You win a cookie if you made it this far.
Jason

P.S. You were right, Natalie sucked, and this is coming from a Korean. Even with the nudity, it's a turkey. BUT, it was still totally worth it! Have you watched the Brazilian Planes: Fire and Resuce yet? Thought it was better than the reviews.

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by jchung30

Out of Inferno (good HK/China with pleasant 3-D. No real popouts but nice immersion and typical cliche story-- two estranged brothers, one a firefighter captain, one a former firefighter, bond while fighting a fire in a high rise while saving their pregnant wife and fiance, greedy murderer, lost child, etc...)

It's worth noting that Out Of Inferno was released in Hong Kong with English subs - that edition is not so easy to get hold of now, but it is out there.

[chrisp32]

Originally Posted by the13thman

It's worth noting that Out Of Inferno was released in Hong Kong with English subs - that edition is not so easy to get hold of now, but it is out there.

You bet it's not easy to get hold of. I was over the moon when I found a copy on eBay a couple of weeks ago, but it sold for £82! Wonder whether it was anyone here that put in the winning bid ... I have a copy of the French release, which lacks English subtitles.

[2ndvizio]

Originally Posted by chrisp32

You bet it's not easy to get hold of. I was over the moon when I found a copy on eBay a couple of weeks ago, but it sold for £82! Wonder whether it was anyone here that put in the winning bid ... I have a copy of the French release, which lacks English subtitles.

I own a version without subtitles. Pleasantly surprised though that after getting my Vero 4k+ working with 3d mkv, it can show the 3D with subtitles that Plex added from opensubtitle.org. Should open up alot of 3d movies that I didn't bother getting due to lack of english. I got the Vero 4K+ mostly to future proof if my region free player dies and also to have the whole collection to view without looking for the disk.

So this is perhaps a cheaper alternative then buying OOP blu rays.

[jchung30]

It's been a dizzying week and a half:



Truly an international effort. The top two rows are from Germany (medimops and jpc). The third row was from the good old USA-- the Criterion's and One Piece Film Gold from Target.com / HK titles CZ12 and Inferno from an incredible 3D buddy !!! Rows 4 & 5 are from Japan-- Suruga-ya.com.

The majority aren't English friendly but that's ok. I've plowed through most of the Japanese titles and none of the titles disappointed. In particular, my boys loved Kaibatsu-Kun. The Criterion King of the Hill and Tampopo are must see 2-D movies and it was pleasant to watch them finally in HD-- I can finally retire the laserdiscs! The HK titles (CZ12 and Out of Inferno) were even better the 2nd time around since they have English subtitles. Gonna start on Germany this weekend.

[Box for Pee-wee]

Originally Posted by jchung30

I cheated on the animation. I really did not watch them fully. I planted my kids in front of the set, kept a general eye from the background looking for glitches, and occasionally looked at the screen, while I was busy doing other stuff. Sorry. That being said, I did enjoy watching most of Capture the Flag and Tad the Explorer 2 (Secret of Midas). Gladiators of Rome had some nice pop outs. My kids were too old for Maya the Bee: Honey Games. Feel free to ask about the other animated films.

Thanks for the detailed reviews! I got a lot out of your message Jason. There are some movies here that I had not heard of that are definitely on my radar now.

Your kids have the attention span to sit through animated movies that aren't in English? Haha. Do you have any feelings about Underdogs/Futbolin/Fussball?

[jchung30]

Originally Posted by Box for Pee-wee

Thanks for the detailed reviews! I got a lot out of your message Jason. There are some movies here that I had not heard of that are definitely on my radar now.

Your kids have the attention span to sit through animated movies that aren't in English? Haha. Do you have any feelings about Underdogs/Futbolin/Fussball?

The boys will watch anything in any language, but not my daughter. I use an old laptop to play the English friendly dvd versions with audio while the 3D is playing on the big screen LG with the sound muted. This is how I learned which English friendly versions are are totally uncut (i.e. Dolphin, Legend of Kung Fu Rabbit), which ones are off by a few frames (Rescue Rabbit) and which ones are aggravating with the numerous edits (Underdogs). I'd adjust the laptop playback on the fly when the dvd and 3-D go out of sync. Looking forward to the day when this is all a moot point after muxing everything.

I haven't watched Underdogs from start to finish, so I'll have to cry uncle. My oldest likes it a lot and has watched it numerous times. I'm not sure why I've been zoning out the animated movies lately, though I'm a huge fan of many of the Pixar, Disney, and Dreamworks titles over the years.

My apologies if I put too many turkeys on your radar. At 700 3-D's, I'm at the point where I'm getting all the 3-D content I can, and what's left are the foreign titles and the dregs (just ordered Spiders ).

[Blu-Ray 3D President]

Originally Posted by jchung30

My apologies if I put too many turkeys on your radar. At 700 3-D's, I'm at the point where I'm getting all the 3-D content I can, and what's left are the foreign titles and the dregs (just ordered Spiders ).

A fan of Spiders here.

[jchung30]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ray 3D President

A fan of Spiders here.

I was on the fence with Spiders because of Patrick Muldoon, but when I saw it was directed by Tibor Takacs, I asked myself what am I waiting for.

Actually, having googled Takacs, it looks like he's had a productive and competent career, so sorry to all the fans of Takacs and I'll STHU.

[jchung30]

I received these at the end of last month but finally got around to posting them. Any questions? Ask away:



The top row is from Vinegar Syndrome. Row 2 is from medimops.de (with the dvd and "I am Dragon" purchased domestically for eventual muxing). Row 3 is from amazon.de (placed with a pre-order of Happy Family 2).

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by jchung30

I received these at the end of last month but finally got around to posting them. Any questions? Ask away:



The top row is from Vinegar Syndrome. Row 2 is from medimops.de (with the dvd and "I am Dragon" purchased domestically for eventual muxing). Row 3 is from amazon.de (placed with a pre-order of Happy Family 2).

Not all of these are English-unfriendly. I must admit I enjoyed Asian School Girls but the 3D version is just an autoconversion and it's heavily cut, so for that film I stuck with the 2D version.

[jchung30]

Originally Posted by the13thman

Not all of these are English-unfriendly. I must admit I enjoyed Asian School Girls but the 3D version is just an autoconversion and it's heavily cut, so for that film I stuck with the 2D version.

Any questions about the Largo Winches, Goat Story, Dragon, Monster Jagd, or Die Schonen Tage von Aranjuez, ask away.

For the others, PM me or ask on the general thread and I'll answer there.

Sorry for the brain fart guys. I was guess I was thinking, almost all the titles were from Germany, so post them here....doh.

Thanks