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November 03, 2005
WEINSTEINS FINALLY RELEASING STEPHEN CHOW?
Last night in New York there was a test screening for Stephen Chow's 1996 movie, GOD OF COOKERY. The screening was billed as being a "work print" with an "unfinished score and special effects" but it was, in fact, just a projection of the Hong Kong DVD.
The audience was reportedly into it, and very enthused about the movie. Afterwards there were test cards given out with questions about whether the subtitles were any good or not - so it looks like there's some thought about just porting over the HK disc onto a Region 1 DVD or maybe just using the HK DVD subs if there's a theatrical release, which wouldn't be such a good idea since some folks find the GOD OF COOKERY subs really lousy.
Unknown if this was for a theatrical release or not, but they were pulling audience members to do a focus group afterwards.
(Thanks to a Brave Comrade for giving us a heads up about this one)
November 3, 2005 at 08:52 AM in News | Permalink
Comments
Can we presume this means that the Weinstein's retained ownership of some/most/all of the many, many HK films they acquired for Miramax? Or was this film not among the ones they purchased for Miramax?
Posted by: Paul | Nov 3, 2005 9:18:30 AM
damn, no one invited me! :(
the irony: they screwed him so bad that he didn't work w/ them on kung fu hustle and now they try to cash in on the success of that movie...
Posted by: su-su | Nov 3, 2005 9:48:40 AM
EXACTLY. They are just looking to make a buck off Chow since they blew the chance to do Kung Fu Hustle. I wish Donnie Yen would do an interview and explain to the fans why we should ever trust the Weinsteins again. I mean, holding up releases is one thing but add the recuts, retitling, dubbing, new soundtracks, etc etc etc AND then on top of that, read the article that says they bought up stuff just to put on shelf for accounting reasons and I really see no reason to ever trust their product again. THEY are the reason I bought an all region player cause I knew they would stall the Shaw Brothers releases. And guess what? That was 3 years ago. They suck and are anti-film, pure and simple.
Posted by: glenn | Nov 3, 2005 2:26:02 PM
I actually saw someone on the street handing out invites to this. I couldn't go because I had to work, but I did ask the guy, "Isn't this an old film?" He said, "No, it's the new film by the guy that did Kung Fu Hustle." I said, "Yeah, I know, Stephen Chow, but didn't he make this film years ago, like before Shaolin Soccer?" He said, "No, it's a new film." Guess I shouldn't be surprised he didn't know what he was talking about. Anyway, wish I'd been able to go.
Posted by: Josh | Nov 5, 2005 12:06:54 AM
Don't bother with the re-releases. There are more and more re-mastered versions of Stephen Chow's movies coming out or you can get the 3 big box sets from www.sensasian.com
Posted by: Tim Chmielewsk | Nov 6, 2005 2:35:36 PM
I actually saw a doctored version of GOC last spring at the SF International Asian American film festival. I didn’t have time to compare it to the HK version and it had been years since I had originally seen it so I can’t say how much had changed but the all the signage was translated (a rare treat) and all the English was cleaned up (i.e. made sense). Despite missing some of the flavor that HK subtitles often give a film it managed to still be terrific. It’s odd though that they wouldn’t show that version – it seemed rather complete. Of course it’s odd that anyone is showing this film at all after all these years…
Posted by: Jennifer | Nov 7, 2005 7:50:26 PM
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