Help: looking for... A BETTER TOMORROW and FIST OF LEGEND laserdiscs - Anyone have them? I need the soundtracks for restorations. Also GOD OF GAMBLERS and DRUNKEN MASTER 2.

Gents, laserdiscs are increasingly hard to find and unfortunately, for most Hong Kong films, the only proper soundtracks are on the laserdiscs. The remixes we keep being forced into are complete garbage.

I’d like to start work on proper versions of the following films and am in need of the Hong Kong or Japanese laserdisc releases for their original PCM mono soundtracks…

A BETTER TOMORROW 1 & 2, POLICE STORY, POLICE STORY 3 (one Hong Kong release had the original stereo instead of the mono), GOD OF GAMBLERS, DRUNKEN MASTER II and FIST OF LEGEND.

The KILLER and HARD BOILED are being restored by this forum’s CSchmidlapp and I am happy to provide the PCM soundtracks to both of those films (I have those LD’s).

Should anyone have these titles an be able to record the sound, please let me know. If you cannot record the sound, I can and would be happy to return them once they have been recorded.

Thanks everyone. By the way, subtitles are a problem and I would very much like to have proper subs for all the films I tackle so I am open to suggestions. I know there are a lot of fan subs out there.

Later…

Matt_Stevens said:

 

A BETTER TOMORROW 1 & 2, POLICE STORY, POLICE STORY 3 (one Hong Kong release had the original stereo instead of the mono), GOD OF GAMBLERS, DRUNKEN MASTER II and FIST OF LEGEND. 

I can help out. I have a few HK and Japanese LDs including the below that may be of interest:-

• ABT I, II and III - HK LD
• Police Story I and II (but not III) - Japanese LD
• God of Gamblers I and II - HK LD
• Drunken Master II - Japanese LD
• City on Fire - HK LD
• City War - HK LD
• Prison on Fire I and II - HK LD
• Once A Thief - HK LD
• Tiger on Beat - HK LD

I have an LD player and assuming that it still works I should be able to capture the audio.

Drop me a PM

For Drunken Master II I will need to use multiple sources. It's gonna be a bear to deal with and I am not yet sure how I will handle it. I need cleaner video and would like to get access to the Warner VD, which is the best (if memory serves). I don't know of any Blu-Rays. 

However A BETTER TOMORROW will be my first go at it. If anyone can allow me to borrow the Blu-Ray that'd be great. I sold mine since I hated the remix so much. I regret that now! I'll re-buy if I have to. 

I'll edit from the 1080p BD and use the PCM laserdisc sound wherever possible. The Anchor Bay DVD has a mono track at 192k and if there are any area on the PCM that are shotty I can pull the sound from that DVD track. ONLY when absolutely necessary. There will be no remixes on my version. 

Same goes for ABT2. 

GOD OF GAMBLERS should be fairly easy. I'll keep the 5.1 remix in-tact. I'll also combine the original 2.0 mix from it with the PCM from the laserdisc. The LD is cut by about 7 minutes so it's not possible to use only PCM for that title. 

I'd also love to have an even better subtitle translation. The Mei Ah DVD is the best I've sen, but not exactly perfect English, if you get my meaning. 

FIST OF LEGEND is a favorite and I am hoping it' easy to fix.

BULLET IN THE HEAD would so crazy difficult that I just can't take the time to deal with it. I don't really like the film all that much (too oppressive for me). That being said, I do have a VHS version taken from a private telecine of John Woo's personal extended print. It's the longest version I know if and has the full urine drinking scene. If anyone had the time and ability they could capture the VHS, use avsynth to clean it up and then splice in the extra bits from it. It'd be a huge job. 

I used the ASIO feature on my sound card (bypasses the Windows Sound Mixer that greatly reduces recording quality) to record a bit-for-bit accurate copy of ABT (JPN LD) and The Killer (US Criterion LD) from the digital coaxial output of my Pioneer CLD-D703 LD player and I'm amazed at how good the mono tracks sound.

I'm willing to provide the audio tracks if someone would be kind enough to return corrected copies to me so they are synced to a copy of the movie that I could buy. I am having a very hard time trying to sync the ABT audio to a R1 Anchor Bay DVD that I own as the audio seems to go progressively out of sync, even before the LD disc change so I'm confused as to why this is happening.

If anyone would like these files, please let me know.

I've contacted you via PM. YES YES YES. We can make this happen. 

Just an update... I am back from my overseas trip, have caught up on work and will now get back to business with this and other projects. 

DRUNKEN MASTER 2's only HD release is here in the U.S. (Legend of the Drunken Master) and it's a bloody VC-2 encoding. So it crashed my Premiere Pro the second I try to import it. 

:(

I have to figure out how to use it. 

If you remux'd it as a .TS file using TSMuxer, would Premiere accept it?

Good question. I'll have to try that.

If memory serves, Anchor Bay cleaned the subs up for their DVD releases, but it's been a long time so I am not sure. 

Ok, now even more to be excited about ! Thank you all !

Matt_Stevens said:

If memory serves, Anchor Bay cleaned the subs up for their DVD releases, but it's been a long time so I am not sure. 

Correct. ABT 1 and 2 have good subs, original audio and nice anamorphic video from Anchor Bay (R1).

I'll be seeing DRUNKEN MASTER 2 in the big screen later this month. Supposedly the original Hong Kong release.

Matt_Stevens said:

I'll be seeing DRUNKEN MASTER 2 in the big screen later this month. Supposedly the original Hong Kong release.

Enjoy! I saw it, back in the day, on a double-bill with HARD BOILED, no less.

Last night I saw a 35mm print of OPERATION CONDOR. It was from the HK theatrical run and therefore, riddled with scratches. The reel changes were a disaster. But it was still a blast. 

Despite the print being old and worn it was clear that the detail in the Fortune Star BD is lacking. 

Later this week... POLICE STORY 1, 2, 3 and DRUNKEN MASTER 2.

You are a lucky man!

Grab a flight to NYC! All of Jackie's films are being shown this week. Most via 35mm prints.

If I remember correctly the Anchor Bay releases have that annoyance of the frame jumping slightly with each and every cut. It makes the films unwatchable to me. But it's been years and years since I viewed them, so I could be wrong about ABT2.

So, how are these projects coming along? I'm pretty excited for these.

I wish I could report progress, but it's been a difficult road for me. I have SO MUCH going on with work that I'm friend each night. 

What would be helpful is a new, working, non-lazy translation of the extended Police Story. If I get that I will take the time to finish up my POLICE STORY Extended restoration. 

Drunken Master 2 would be next, but it's going to require some serious hard drive space as I have to convert all the various HD versions to lossless before editing. Ugh.