Anyone have any good news on anime distributor Funimation's Shaw Brothers releases? All I know is that their ads have been all over this forum the last couple of days and the cover art is actually not bad. From the little information available, it seems as though each release includes the original language track and an English dub. I wonder how well these are going to sell since so many US distributors have already picked through the library, and all but the most hardcore fan has exhausted all the major titles (and the filmographies of the major stars and directors) available from them and from the Asian distributors. Still, more power to them.
Shame we lost the original thread on the Celestial releases. I remember there being lots of good recommendations in it.
Shaw Brothers on DVD
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NilbogSavant
- Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2009 3:15 am
Re: Shaw Brothers on DVD
Shaolin Rescuers is one of the best SB titles of all-time, would love to hear the English dub track on that one. Out of the first two releases, I've only seen Opium & The Kung-Fu Master which has some great fight scenes and one of only three films directed by Chang Tia (one of the best stuntmen at the studio) which are all pretty interesting. I'm pretty sure Shaolin Intruders got a R1 release recently. If you've seen that, it gives you an idea of what to expect.
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The Fanciful Norwegian
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Teegeeack
Re: Shaw Brothers on DVD
Word is that Funimation's 14 Amazons and Shaolin Hand Lock are frame-blended PAL-to-NTSC transfers, like the R3 versions and Image's Shaw discs. In a sense this is really Celestial's fault, since they did their masters at 50Hz, but other U.S. distributors (Media Blasters, Dragon Dynasty, BCI before Navarre shut them down) got around this by using the Alchemist method or whatever we're supposed to call it these days. The Funimation discs have English dubs and the original mono mixes, so they're still preferable to the R3s.