The Japanese Jackie Chan Blu-ray thread

[reason108]

Comparison Shots:


Warning: Contains some partial nudity:


All other nude shots in the film are the same between both prints but for some reason, this one shot has been edited in the Japanese print.


HK Print:

[Show spoiler]AOG 2 - HK Print - 5.jpg

Japanese Print:

[Show spoiler]Japanese Print 6.jpg

[reason108]

Comparison Shots:




HK Print:

AOG 2 - HK Print 8.jpg




Japanese Print:

Japanese Print 8.jpg




HK Print:

AOG 2 - HK Print 9.jpg




Japanese Print:

Japanese Print 9.jpg

[reason108]

Comparison Shots:


It`s interesting because it seems that the HK print was just a tiny bit sharper throughout the film but when the credits appeared, the Japanese print became a little sharper and the HK print became slightly fuzzier.



HK Print:

AOG 2 - HK Print 10.jpg




Japanese Print:

Japanese Print 10.jpg




HK Print:

AOG 2 - HK Print 11.jpg




Japanese Print:

Japanese Print 11.jpg

[reason108]

Now, for some of the extended shots that can only be found in the Japanese print. These were taken from various points in the film. I have only included a few. And, as I mentioned before, almost every scene has been extended; up until about the last 50 minutes. The longest extended scene is where Jackie and the girls are dining at the hotel in the desert. That is several minutes long.

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 3.jpg

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 5.jpg

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 6.jpg

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 7.jpg

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 8.jpg

[gbk666]

reason108, thanks so much for taking your time to provide us with those screenshots.

you were right, the quality of the japanese print is really not that great, it's overly dark looks a bit washed out.

are there also some additional fighting choreographies till the last 50 minutes?

[reason108]

And just a couple more:

[Show spoiler]If you notice the scene where Jackie and the girls are at the hotel in the desert, these are the people directly behind Jackie when they are eating. Since this is a longer scene, it cuts over to them.

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended 9.jpg

[Show spoiler]This is way too dark I think but just extra shots from the opening cave sequence.

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended Print .jpg

[Show spoiler]Japanese Extended Print 2.jpg

[reason108]

Originally Posted by gbk666

reason108, thanks so much for taking your time to provide us with those screenshots.

you were right, the quality of the japanese print is really not that great, it's overly dark looks a bit washed out.

are there also some additional fighting choreographies till the last 50 minutes?

Thanks! The fight scenes are all the same from what I could tell. The only differences are the non fighting scenes. There is however, more action though at the beginning where Jackie is being chased by the natives.

[Muck47]

Originally Posted by reason108

All other nude shots in the film are the same between both prints but for some reason, this one shot has been edited in the Japanese print.

It was censored like this in several old releases: The HK DVDs from Mega Star & Deltamac had this zoom and some of the older German DVDs as well.
On a re-issue of Mega Star in HK the shot of Elsa's naked back in the beginning was cut too but the zoom in Ada's shower scene is more "widespread". So it's not a specific Japanese edit.

Thanks a lot for the screenshots! As you said it doesn't look very nice and doesn't give us a new perfect HD master but the longer version itself is the main selling point.
Picturewise this has been a difficult case any way with the pinkish look that you also mentioned. A perfect version would be mixture of the French and the US blu-ray (both cut in different places but combined you get almost the whole movie in full HD - just a few additions from the Fortune Star upscale necessary). Now you could add in the Japanese bonus stuff as a goodie.

[newgen2005]

Thank you reason108 for taking the trouble to upload screen shots, very much appreciated.

I think the Japanese cut has a lot more detail, my only criticism would be the darkness of the picture.

Please could you confirm that it doesn't have English audio or subtitles?

[Ken81]

Thanks for the screenshots. The darkness sure ruins a little here yes. But my eyes still cannot decide if the the Japanese print is true HD or not. When having the HK screenshots to compare with, it seems harder to determine if the JP version is true HD or not. Really excited about the extended scenes though

[newgen2005]

Have you checked the screen shots for the desert? looks miles better than the HK upscale.

[reason108]

Originally Posted by Muck47

It was censored like this in several old releases: The HK DVDs from Mega Star & Deltamac had this zoom and some of the older German DVDs as well.
On a re-issue of Mega Star in HK the shot of Elsa's naked back in the beginning was cut too but the zoom in Ada's shower scene is more "widespread". So it's not a specific Japanese edit.

Thanks a lot for the screenshots! As you said it doesn't look very nice and doesn't give us a new perfect HD master but the longer version itself is the main selling point.
Picturewise this has been a difficult case any way with the pinkish look that you also mentioned. A perfect version would be mixture of the French and the US blu-ray (both cut in different places but combined you get almost the whole movie in full HD - just a few additions from the Fortune Star upscale necessary). Now you could add in the Japanese bonus stuff as a goodie.

I have a Megastar Mercury Entertainment dvd that uses the same zoomed-in edited shot like on this release. Perhaps 2 butt shots were 1 too many.

Originally Posted by newgen2005

Thank you reason108 for taking the trouble to upload screen shots, very much appreciated.

I think the Japanese cut has a lot more detail, my only criticism would be the darkness of the picture.

Please could you confirm that it doesn't have English audio or subtitles?

Thanks! When I first watched them, I was thinking that the HK print had a little more detail. But, when I re-watched them together, it seemed that the Japanese print had a little more detail. But, I was not sure if the detail that we see in the Japanese print is there or appears to be there because it is darker. I think that some scenes look better in the HK print and others look better in the Japanese print.

There is no English dub or subtitle.

Originally Posted by newgen2005

Have you checked the screen shots for the desert? looks miles better than the HK upscale.

I posted a couple of desert shots but can post more if need be.

[Markgway]

The JP cinema print maybe mediocre (and certainly too dark) but it still manages to look better than the FS upscale (see example below).

You guys really think the upscale is sharper?

HK Print:

Attachment 104532

Japanese Print:

Attachment 104533

[reason108]

Originally Posted by Markgway

The JP cinema print maybe mediocre (and certainly too dark) but it still manages to look better than the FS upscale (see example below).

You guys really think the upscale is sharper?

HK Print:

Attachment 104532

Japanese Print:

Attachment 104533

I honestly think that the HK print may be too bright and the Japanese print is too dark. So, where is the one that gets it just right?

[gbk666]

Originally Posted by Muck47

A perfect version would be mixture of the French and the US blu-ray (both cut in different places but combined you get almost the whole movie in full HD - just a few additions from the Fortune Star upscale necessary). Now you could add in the Japanese bonus stuff as a goodie.

the perfect transfer picture quality wise would be the us print if it was the unaltered hk cut.
the french print has inferior pq. and if you'd insert all those missing shots from the french print into the us cut it would be a hell of a lot work because miramax shortened something every 15 seconds.

[OldPangYau]

All right, my two cents

The way it appears is that the HK blu ray has better colors while the Japanese blu ray has better texture.

As others have mentioned, the US blu ray seems to have the best of both worlds (just the standalone blu ray, the combo pack has a cropped 16x9 version), but is limited to having the 90 minute cut. As Paramount Japan/Twin was stuck using a print rather than a negative, it's no surprise that the black levels were crushed to hell.

As for the cut itself, this seems like a repeat of what happened with Police Story 2. My theory in both cases is that Golden Harvest was pressed to get a cut ready for a Japanese deadline (Mitsubishi popping up in so many of these movies shows where a lot of their money came from), so they pieced together a glorified workprint. Then, Chan would have final say for the HK cut, in which he would tighten the film up further. However, unlike Police Story 2, AOG2 came out in Hong Kong a month sooner than in Japan... so yeah, it's a bit confusing

[Markgway]

Japan was a key market for Jackie and so he/Golden Harvest would prepare exclusive extended versions for them - sometimes with extra scenes, sometimes only outtakes, but always something more. Op Condor is just another example of that. We can consider the HK cut the director's cut.

[OldPangYau]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Japan was a key market for Jackie and so he/Golden Harvest would prepare exclusive extended versions for them - sometimes with extra scenes, sometimes only outtakes, but always something more. Op Condor is just another example of that. We can consider the HK cut the director's cut.

Good call. Well, if all goes according to plan, I should have my three blu rays show up by tomorrow, including Dragon Fist from the latest batch. As far as I know, the biggest differences in that edit are that the opening montage with Hsiu Hsia fighting challengers has been replaced with footage of the final fight as the opening credits play on, as well as the catchy Japan-exclusive additional music cues such as "Dragon Fist", "Do or Die", and "Alone In The Night" (not the same as the Tower of Death song.)

[Muck47]

Originally Posted by gbk666

the perfect transfer picture quality wise would be the us print if it was the unaltered hk cut.
the french print has inferior pq. and if you'd insert all those missing shots from the french print into the us cut it would be a hell of a lot work because miramax shortened something every 15 seconds.

Yeah, I know. The US has the best PQ, not sure yet if the French or Japanese print gets the second place. The US has 95 cuts, the FR 22 cuts - so yeah, it's a mess.


Thankfully, reason108 gave you a good first impression on "Project Eagle". Mrs. Muck was out today and I also took a day off from work, that's why I decided to completely waste my day comparing the Japanese cut to the regular one and writing this TL;DR post.
In the end there were 60 additional moments, like reason108 wrote they are only in the first half of the movie. If you are interested in this you'll be able to see the full report in the next weeks on Movie-censorship.com (my original German text will probably be released earlier on Schnittberichte.com, someone else will translate it in the meantime).

I didn't order "Dragon Fist" & "Half a Loaf of Kung Fu" since I own both old Japanese BDs of these and the versions aren't really that interesting. Both are cut compared to the regular versions (DF omits the whole credit fight scene in the beginning but weirdly adds other credits over fight scenes from the end of the movie / in HALOKF the different genre parodies in the beginning are shortened) but feature a special Japanese soundtrack which might be interesting for some. Hopefully, OldPangYau can give some brief feedback on "Dragon Fist" once he got it.

Since these were also in my delivery, I'll add a few words to "Fearless Hyena 2" and the "Lucky Stars" Box.

As these concerns might come up again: Yup, only Japanese/Chinese audio/subtitle options on all of them and therefore this should only be interesting for the hardcore fans.


Fearless Hyena 2

- The Japanese version only contains a Japanese audio track and does NOT have burnt-in subtitles
- The HD master looks alright but nothing special
- It runs about 79min => Somehow this is a cut version
- The last 2 minutes feature special credits over fight scenes from the movie with the Japanese theme song

The bonus "Jackie Fist" which was my main reason to buy this one is...completely weird. 20 minutes of scenes from Jackie's old movies in the 70s which are always interrupted for colourful Japanese credits and so on. All the time at least one guy jokes in Japanese, you hear people giggling. A quite confusing oddity.



Lucky Stars Box

Since this wasn't completely shown at the stock photo from amazon.co.jp, here are two photos with the design of the digipak (which BTW is quite robust, not just a thin piece of paper & plastic like some other digipaks!):


There are also 4 booklets with lots of nice set pictures and promotional stuff, like on the other new Japanese releases. I'll get to that later.


PQ in general is similar to the other releases. Lots of scratches, not breathtaking but true HD. Burnt-in subtitles on the side for all three movies and only Japanese or Cantonese audio. In contrast to the last releases they didn't bother the include the crappy Fortune Star standard master as well.


1. Winners & Sinners: runs 117:22 min
=> BUT the movie itself is only 101 minutes (= seems to be cut), after that there are 16 (!) minutes of NG stuff at the end of the movie stream:
* 2 minutes normal credits
* ~ 5 additional minutes from W&S with commentary
* ~ 10 more minutes from "My Lucky Stars"
Not exactly the ones that were shown on the old Japanese Blu-ray of "Twinkle..." and different from the bonus of older DVDs

This is the only new release that I looked deeper into (the different soundtrack is quite catchy) and made some screenshots of:

a) Main Movie


b) NG stuff



2. My Lucky Stars: runs 96:50
=> ~ 2 minutes of Outtakes in the end (seem to be a part from the ones that were also on the old Japanese BD of "Twinkle...")


3. Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars: runs 87:07 (= seems to be cut )
* NO outtakes in the end although there were also some from this movie at the end of the outtakes montage on the older Japanese "Twinkle..." Blu-ray. Quite disappointing


4. Bonus movie "Lucky Stars Go Places"
On DVD and as expected, sadly there are no English subtitles available as well.


----------------------

Originally Posted by gbk666

i'm curious about the promo stuff. if you have a cam and enough time maybe you can make so Pictures of the japanese packagings and goodies?
the japanese Distributors seem to be one of the few in the world who give Jackie chan movies the proper Treatment they deserve.

thx

Almost forgot about it but I'll get back to it now.

As the packaging itself can basically also be seen on the amazon.co.jp listings, I just made one photo:

You always get:
- Slipcase with own artwork
- Keepcase with two different covers
- The small gray bag with the movie title contains the reprinted promotional leaflet & the booklet
- Leaflet: Often has a different size/format, sometimes you can unfold it like a poster.
- Booklet: Lots of more promo stuff and e.g. set photos

I made some exemplary scans instead of more photos because my camera isn't that good:


Note: The new releases "Project Eagle" & "Fearless Hyena 2" are more or less bare-bones - only a keepcase, no booklet/leaflet/interesting other bonus stuff.

[OldPangYau]

Nice work as always Muck! Too bad the Lucky Star box set seems a bit hit or miss It's really confusing as to why TTLS doesn't have the outtakes montage from the previous Blu-ray. I would've figured that was actually taken from the theatrical cut.

Meanwhile, Fearless Hyena II sounds like an anomaly... no burnt in subs and Japanese dub only. Strange

Meanwhile, I did indeed get my three discs today! Young Master, Protector, and the aforementioned Dragon Fist. Not bad considering I just ordered them on Christmas

I'll try to get screencaps of Dragon Fist when I get the chance. Someone else posted caps from the Fortune Star upscale elsewhere, so I may use those to compare the two transfers. After skimming through it, I can say it's *definitely* in HD, and has some good texture/grain to it. Aside from the expected print damage and slightly blown out white levels, the only issue I've noticed thus far is the occasional ghosting in certain shots, but it seems infrequent thus far.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Japanese trailer and TV spot were both in true HD. I expected them to be from old VHS tapes