"Cheetah on Fire"

[ewaffle]

The source of these pictures was pretty poor. Even though there are some that I should easily get--Leung Kar-Yan, Jue Tit-Woh --I gave up. Here they are

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/images.mhtml?id=7620&display_set=eng

[Fan]

Gwok Tak-San

[Brian Thibodeau]

Hey Ed, would this be included in one of those Donnie Yen collections I'm constantly tempted to pick up at Best Buy when I'm in the states? Prints look blech, but might be the only way I'll get to see a couple of the films. Drawing blanks on what's in those sets at the moment.

Also, I don't see Leung Kar-yan in your gallery. Perhaps this is an edited version?

[ewaffle]

Brian--they are from a Donnie Yen Collection. The in addition to Cheetah on Fire there is Hero Among Heroes, Dark City and Holy Virgin vs. Evil Dead. This disc (one of two) has the first of the four on it, part of a rental from Netflix. The quality is beyond bad--the usual soft edged images, horrible contrast (faces looming out of the dark), scenes shot at night too dark to see anything, but the running time has been compressed. The speed of the playback has been increased, possibly to make sure they got two movies on each disc or it may simply have been what the duplicators had when it was time to let it rip.

Extremely annoying presentation, so much so that I may skip the second movie on the disc.

A real fan of Hong Kong film faces some of the same difficulties as does the opera afficianado. There are some classic movies (these four aren't classics, of course) that can only be seen on cropped, sped up, dubbed and choppily edited versions but the flash of genius that shines through is worth it. Much the same with some opera performances. If someone wants to hear "La Traviata" with Maria Callas from Mexico City in 1952, he will have to listen to a dupe of the original tape made from backstage with all its imperfections.

[Brian Thibodeau]

A real fan of Hong Kong film faces some of the same difficulties as does the opera afficianado. There are some classic movies (these four aren't classics, of course) that can only be seen on cropped, sped up, dubbed and choppily edited versions but the flash of genius that shines through is worth it. Much the same with some opera performances. If someone wants to hear "La Traviata" with Maria Callas from Mexico City in 1952, he will have to listen to a dupe of the original tape made from backstage with all its imperfections.

That those moments come shining through all the crud indeed makes even the worst transfers bearable. These are not movies that will likely see reissues any time soon, so if you wanna see 'em, you have to find 'em where you can. And short of digging up an old made-in-Hong Kong VHS or VCD or LD release in the musty corners of some Chinatown shop or while poking around the recesses of various Asian online dealers, this is about the only option available. I've seen HOLY VIRGIN and DARK CITY, but haven't seen the other two, so this set might be a (cheap) purchase if I knew I could get even a modest price at resale (since it doesn't sound like a keeper). Unfortunately, no Netflix here in Canada, and the service we do have, zip.ca, isn't the greatest . . .

[Michael Kistner]

4 IDs and 2 cast additions