Shaolin Soccer?

I have read about this movie, Shaolin Soccer, and want to purchase the
DVD. I recently read that it would be released March 26, but can't
find it listed anywhere. Does anyone no the actual release date,
and/or where I can purchase it?

Randy

Randy <Randy@?.com> wrote:
> I have read about this movie, Shaolin Soccer, and want to purchase
> the DVD. I recently read that it would be released March 26, but
> can't find it listed anywhere. Does anyone no the actual release
> date, and/or where I can purchase it?

It was supposed to be released into *theatres* on March 26.
Miramax pushed the date back (one more time) to April 2,
so right now it's out in limited release in the US (6 theatres).
It's in original Cantonese with English subtitles, but Miramax
edited out 25 minutes from the longest cut of this film.

However, the film itself has been out on DVD for quite a
while. The DVD from Hong Kong of this film has been out
since Fall of 2001. It comes with an anamorphic transfer,
DTS and DD5.1 soundtracks, English subtitles, the original
Hong Kong trailer, and an English-subtitled Making-of
featurette.

The English subtitles are a bit dodgy, with bad spelling
and grammar popping up, but it's understandable. The
DVD also has an "Infinifilm" like feature that let's you
see extended scenes if you push play when a logo pops
up while watching the film. With the extended scenes,
the film runs for 112 minutes.

Due to licensing agreements, This DVD cannot be carried
by any North American based retailer. However, several
Hong Kong based retailers carry this title for cheap (around
$10), and ship to the US. The ones that I would
recommend are:

www.dddhouse.com
www.hivizone.com
www.layayo.com

I've ordered from all 3 retailers and have had good
experiences with each.

-Jay

Jay G

Derek Janssen <> wrote:
> Jay G wrote:
>>
>> It was supposed to be released into *theatres* on March 26.
>> Miramax pushed the date back (one more time) to April 2,
>> so right now it's out in limited release in the US (6 theatres).
>> It's in original Cantonese with English subtitles, but Miramax
>> edited out 25 minutes from the longest cut of this film.
>
> There's different reports of the cuts over the last three or four
> attempts, with the latest keeping the most in, but I haven't been
> keeping track--
> IIRC, the latest Miramax cut put the "street dance" sequence back
> in, which you could only get on the HK SE.

Nope, all the reported Miramax edits had that scene in it. The
most recent cut has more violence restored, which is how the
film got rated PG-13. However, these account for only a few
seconds of added time and for the most part the film is the same
as the PG dubbed version they tried to sell last Fall.

Here's a list of the cuts made to the French version of the
film:
http://www.monkeypeaches.com/020705B.html

The cynic in me beleives that Miramax finally went with the
original Cantonese instead of an English dub, not because
of fan demand, but because their dub tested so poorly. They
were just too cheap to produce another one.

Also, I think they added the violence in to get a PG-13,
since a PG rating is considered "uncool" by most teenagers.
Likely the film tested better with teens than kids, so they
upped the rating to better appeal to them.

Finally, while Miramax added in a few seconds of violence,
they didn't add in any significant scenes, or restore the film
to its full length, because they still want to use their English
dub for the eventual DVD release. Again, they're too cheap
to record new dub dialoge for any additional scenes.

But that's just the cynic in me talking.

-Jay

Jay G

Jay G wrote:

>>I have read about this movie, Shaolin Soccer, and want to purchase
>>the DVD. I recently read that it would be released March 26, but
>>can't find it listed anywhere. Does anyone no the actual release
>>date, and/or where I can purchase it?
>
> It was supposed to be released into *theatres* on March 26.
> Miramax pushed the date back (one more time) to April 2,
> so right now it's out in limited release in the US (6 theatres).
> It's in original Cantonese with English subtitles, but Miramax
> edited out 25 minutes from the longest cut of this film.

There's different reports of the cuts over the last three or four
attempts, with the latest keeping the most in, but I haven't been
keeping track--
IIRC, the latest Miramax cut put the "street dance" sequence back in,
which you could only get on the HK SE.

Derek Janssen (<fire in the eyes>)

Derek Janssen

It's playing down at the Arclight if you're in the Los Angeles area. I fully
plan on going to see it this week even though a friend of mine went this
afternoon to see it and said it's cut by 15min, has some English music added
into it. GO MIRAMAX!!! :/

I can't wait to see what they do to Hero (which has been pushed back AGAIN and
will be released as Jet Li's Hero or summtin like that ;?

I also can't wait to see what they do to Beat Takeshi's Zatoichi :/

Kimberly

Kimberly <> wrote:
> It's playing down at the Arclight if you're in the Los Angeles
> area. I fully plan on going to see it this week even though a
> friend of mine went this afternoon to see it and said it's cut by
> 15min, has some English music added into it. GO MIRAMAX!!! :/

As I said before, Miramax cut the film by 25 minutes from its
longest version. The English music is the song "Kung-Fu Fighting,"
and I think only appears over the end credits.

Seeing this film in theatres is a bit of a "damned if you do,
damned if you don't" piece of business regarding Miramax.
If you do go see it, you're supporting Miramax's policy of
editing Asain films. If you don't go see it, Miramax will
blame its low box-office on the film itself, and not on their
practices. If you write to complain to Miramax, they'll
label you a fanboy and ignore you.

-Jay

Jay G

Jay G, says...
> However, the film itself has been out on DVD for quite a
> while. The DVD from Hong Kong of this film has been out
> since Fall of 2001. It comes with an anamorphic transfer,
> DTS and DD5.1 soundtracks, English subtitles, the original
> Hong Kong trailer, and an English-subtitled Making-of
> featurette.

> Due to licensing agreements, This DVD cannot be carried
> by any North American based retailer.

Yet it is widely available as an import in many stores in Asian
communities. If you have a store that sells DVDs in the local
"Chinatown", it will be there. It's a great disk, and one of the funnier
Chinese movies I've ever seen. The final 15 minutes is worth the price
of the disk by itself.

Mark Spatny