Jackie Chan Hong Kong restoration project UPDATES (Released)

Gang, sorry for the long absence. Been busy. Moved. Current net connection is damn near dialup. 😦

<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>POLICE STORY</span> has been finished for quite some time. BD50, custom menus (courtesy my editing partner, who’s awesome).

<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>HARD BOILED</span> is also finished, as many of you know. Not Jackie Chan, but clearly an important HK film.

<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>DRUNKEN MASTER 2</span> is back on. The audio is mid-way and a royal BITCH! Hundreds of edits and shifts so far with hundreds more likely.

However I won’t quit. It’ll be finished by the fall.

After that we will move onto <span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>SUPERCOP</span>. Likely the U.S. version (there are no true HD sources for the original cut), but with both the 5.1 DUB and restored original audio taken from the Chase Stereo laserdisc (it sounds the best).

<span style=“text-decoration: underline;”>If anyone would like to volunteer to work with me on a 5.1 hybrid audio version</span> I am ready and willing. My dream would be to use the original dialog wherever possible, but with the 5.1 sund mix (effects & music). Obviously there is no real way to make that work 100% due to not having actual sound stems, but we can create a hybrid with limited dubbing. The 5.1 is miles ahead of the original (unlike most 5.1 mixes, which are lazy shit).

Maybe someone out there has the software to edit using a demuxed 5.1 track???

More titles will come, but they will definitely be in 2015.

A lot of the credit goes to others. We are a team, though it varies from title to title. 

Loved your Hard Boiled work, it was amazing. Excited to see DM2 being worked on.

Are you planning on re-inserting the original ending to Drunken Master 2?

Yes, absolutely. The issue is there is not a single decent source for the ending. The Chinese DVD is cropped and heavily MPEG artifacted. The laserdisc is non anamorphic and so naturally will look quite poor. 

We are assessing the best options now. 

I can't wait to see your Drunken Master II restoration! One of my absolutely favourite movies.

The work on audio sounds incredibly time-consuming! I once synced a mandarin track and the original VHS english dub audio track to Drunken Master 1 HDTV release and it took me hours and hours (I'm a complete amateur though).

I have a fan made DVD of DM2 with Cantonese, Mandarin and English tracks synced. Doesn't have the extended ending though. Can't wait for your version!

Apparently, Film4/HD in the UK will air Police Story 3: Supercop on Friday, August 29th at 11:05 PM. This is supposedly the original HK cut in HD. I have a suspicion that it's only the upscaled Fortune Star transfer, but I think it might be worth capturing if it happens to be in real HD.

Interesting. But of course I have no clue how one could snag that. 

PCM audio now completed, with over 500 edits. We are going to QC against the video with subtitles and see where we are at. 

If anyone wants to be involved with QCing, please PM me. We have so many titles in the works it is overwhelming. 

I have an observation about subtitles. I noticed on your Police Story custom that the subtitles were placed on the black bar below the 2.35:1 frame. Of course, this is just down to personal preference, but, personally, I prefer to have the subtitles placed inside the frame (at the bottom of the frame). Maybe it would be worthwhile to have two subtitle streams, one below the frame, and one inside the frame?

You should have a look at the german Jackie Chan Blu-rays from the "Dragon Edition". These are in no way in English friendly but they most often contain different cuts/versions of the movies (all reconstructed from the best available masters). Like the Taiwanese Extended cut of "Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars" in HD or the export-version of "Young Master" (identical to the englisch version) that isn't even available on DVD except for that bad vhs-sourced bootlegs. Police Story 2 does contain the old theatrical (reconstructed from the HD master) and there are many others. Original cantonese/mandarin mono mixes are included plus the 5.1 upmixes. Its probably a bit hard to find out what titles are available, but ofdb should help. Like Lucky stars 3 is called Powerman 2 for example http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=fassung&fid=3812&vid=381746

This could be a usefull resource for some of your projects and its an ongoing series, they are still releasing new titles every month.

Will they be true HD sources? Most of Jackie Chan's films on Blu-Ray are just upconverts of the older 480i transfers. Fortune Star, those cheap bastards, simply will not spend money on real HD transfers and unfortunately they license this shit out as HD time and time again.

The German Blu-rays mostly use the upscaled Fortune Star transfers, but at least 'Heart of the Dragon' and 'City Hunter' are true HD. A lot of them have original Cantonese mono, but not all of them do. Some include alternate cuts. I also think they're releasing some films that haven't been out on Blu-ray before, so who knows what those look like.

Matt, will you be including the English dub of DM2 as well as Cantonese?

No English dub on DM2. At least we don't plan on it. I don't want to waste any time with it, but I'll ask my editing partner if he is willing to make sure it lines up and can be included. 

As for the German releases... Upconverts a complete no-go for me. These projects take so damn long to do that we are sticking with HD only sources. 

The LONE exception that I will make is with PROJECT A. That film is such a classic that I'm willing to make a hybrid. 

Does your BD50 of Police Story have the original Cantonese cinematic audio track? I'm also interested in HARD BOILED and if you ever get around to it, THE KILLER.

How about Heart of Dragon, Who Am I? (120m version), and Crime Story?

POLICE STORY's audio comes from the original Japanese laserdisc. It's 2.0 mono, restored and synced better than the original film. It needed more work than any other track in regards to noise and hum, but the end product sounds fantastic. It kills the terrible 5.1 remixes.

THE KILLER is not possible. The 1080i Dragon Dynasty BD was sourced from a noise reduced 1080i 50Hz transfer. It's an abomination. This forum's very own CSchmidlapp worked on a restoration using the best 480i source available plus the laserdisc sound and did a phenomenal job. While it isn't HD, it upscales nicely. I know he had planned on doing more work with it, but I do not know the status of that project.

I doubt if I will get to Heart of Dragon or Crime Story. Neither are films I care to see again and from all I know there are zero true HD sources. I need to concentrate on films that are doable and ones I myself won't mind slaving over. 

I'm unaware of any HD source for WHO AM I? If there is a true HD source and it is uncut, point it out to me, please. I love that film.

The POLICE STORY 3 Laserdisc 2 channel audio is now edited and synced to the 2.35:1 Echo Bridge HD release of the SUPERCOP cut. 

We will rip the 5.1 from the original Miramax DVD (the Blu-Ray's all seem to have a tiny DTS 2.0 track) and include it as an option. 

But I am also going to capture the 16 bit PCM stereo surround sound from the Criterion laserdisc and do a hybrid mix between it and the original. 

Why not?

Glad to hear your progress Matt. I find English soundtracks hard to sync up so I can only imagine the difficulty with HK soundtracks which were never in sync to begin with.

PDB said:

Glad to hear your progress Matt. I find English soundtracks hard to sync up so I can only imagine the difficulty with HK soundtracks which were never in sync to begin with.

 Imagine pulling your hair out in frustration. It's insane how bad the foley work and dubbing was. There will be a sequence with two gun shots, four kicks and three punches. Half will be spot on, 1/4 just off and the other 1/4 way off. So now try and fix that. 

Then you have the dialog. It's never spot for the earlier films because they were all dubbed in post. What a nightmare. 

SUPERCOP was easy in comparison to Drunken Master 2 but had its own challenges. That was Jackie Chan's first HK film to utilize on set sound recording and so for dialog scenes it was possible to get it exactly right. Except for when certain lines or scenes were dubbed, which happened here and there. Particularly during action scenes where it was impossible to get rid of rubbery lips that were always there. If music is being played, you just can't mess with it. 

By the way, most HK films have the sound of a punch or a kick occurring one or two frames before the action. The Hollywood (Miramax) English dubs have sound work that is typically frame accurate so a gun shot occurs at the exact frame of the muzzle flash. But for some strange reason punches and kicks are typically a frame after the actual contact is taking place. So a full 3 or 4 frames after the original mixes. 

The final fight scene in Police Story 2 is particularly bad in terms of audio sync. If you sync up the sound effects, the dialog falls significantly out of sync and vice versa. What software do you use when syncing audio and video?

Also, does anybody know if the 1080p versions of First Strike and Who Am I? on iTunes are OAR and have decent image quality?

Matt_Stevens said:

PDB said:

Glad to hear your progress Matt. I find English soundtracks hard to sync up so I can only imagine the difficulty with HK soundtracks which were never in sync to begin with.

 Imagine pulling your hair out in frustration. It's insane how bad the foley work and dubbing was. There will be a sequence with two gun shots, four kicks and three punches. Half will be spot on, 1/4 just off and the other 1/4 way off. So now try and fix that. 

Then you have the dialog. It's never spot for the earlier films because they were all dubbed in post. What a nightmare. 

SUPERCOP was easy in comparison to Drunken Master 2 but had its own challenges. That was Jackie Chan's first HK film to utilize on set sound recording and so for dialog scenes it was possible to get it exactly right. Except for when certain lines or scenes were dubbed, which happened here and there. Particularly during action scenes where it was impossible to get rid of rubbery lips that were always there. If music is being played, you just can't mess with it. 

By the way, most HK films have the sound of a punch or a kick occurring one or two frames before the action. The Hollywood (Miramax) English dubs have sound work that is typically frame accurate so a gun shot occurs at the exact frame of the muzzle flash. But for some strange reason punches and kicks are typically a frame after the actual contact is taking place. So a full 3 or 4 frames after the original mixes. 

 Yeah that sounds right. Well I'm glad you have the patience to see it through. That would drive me nuts.