Weinstein Co.'s "Dragon Dynasty" label (with QT)

This is really cool.



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.comingsoon.net/news/indietop … p?id=14680”>http://www.comingsoon.net/news/indietopnews.php?id=14680</LINK_TEXT>



The Weinstein Co. Builds a Dragon Dynasty

Source: The Weinstein Company May 23, 2006





Continuing their passionate dedication to bringing Asian films to American audiences, Bob and Harvey Weinstein have announced the unveiling of Dragon Dynasty, the dynamic new label under which all The Weinstein Company’s Asian titles will be released, including Ong Bak 2, The Protector (aka Tom Yum Goong), Born to Fight, SPL, Seven Swords, and Dragon Squad, as well as a package of high profile titles, which was licensed from Fortune Star Entertainment: the distribution division of News Corporation’s STAR Group which owns the world’s largest contemporary Chinese language feature film library.



The 43 Fortune Star titles, together with a special collection of 50 classic Shaw Brothers’ movies and a number of independent acquisitions, including John Woo’s seminal productions, The Killer, Hardboiled, Bullet in the Head, and A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2, combine to make The Weinstein Company the leader in Asian Cinema in North America.



Quentin Tarantino, who is well recognized for his passionate interest and broad knowledge of Asian cinema, will actively work with the Weinsteins in all aspects of brand development for Dragon Dynasty.



The Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty library already includes films starring some of Asia’s hottest actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh and Sammo Hung, as well as titles from legendary filmmakers John Woo, Yuen Woo-ping and Corey Yuen Kwai, amongst others. The company has ambitious plans to continue building the library, and will be acquiring titles across all genres of Asian film such as contemporary action, martial arts, epic swordplay and hi-octane thriller. The titles selected for theatrical distribution will be released by The Weinstein Company, and all home video output will be managed by Genius Products, Inc.



The Weinsteins originally acquired the collection of Shaw Brothers’ movies during their tenure at Miramax Films and brought the titles with them to The Weinstein Company as part of their settlement agreement with the Walt Disney Studios.



The Weinstein Company will redefine the presentation of Asian Cinema on DVD, and is developing a number of Special Edition packages for its new brand, including 2-Disc Platinum Editions of Jet Li’s world-acclaimed Fist of Legend and Tai Chi Master. Each Dragon Dynasty DVD will possess a unique and carefully crafted identity, and will include many groundbreaking, informative and exclusive special bonus features such as rare behind-the- scenes footage, deleted scenes, out-takes, and specially commissioned documentaries and interviews featuring cast members, filmmakers and celebrity enthusiasts of Asian film.



Peter Poon, General Manager of Fortune Star, stated, “Fortune Star is excited to work with TWC and their specialized team in bringing our popular titles at the highest quality for DVD release to the US market. The launch of Dragon Dynasty will be a tremendous boost to the Asian Cinema as it will now have a more powerful access to the American audiences.”



Donnie Yen stated, “I’m delighted that my film ‘SPL’ will be one of the lead titles for Dragon Dynasty. Harvey has put a great team together for the brand, and I look forward to collaborating with them on the upcoming release of ‘Seven Swords.’ Finally, we Asian action film-makers have a proper platform to present our work to the international audience.”



Sammo Hung stated, “I hope this new label brings more fans to our films, so that we have an even bigger audience in the future. I’m very happy to see ‘SPL,’ ‘Dragon Squad’ and some of my older films released by Dragon Dynasty. I’m a heavy hitter myself, and its good to see TWC throwing its weight behind our industry!”



Harvey Weinstein stated, “Bob and I are extremely passionate about Asian Cinema and have always been enormous fans of Asian filmmakers from Akira Kurosawa to John Woo. We started building a library of Asian titles years ago and hope to continue adding to it for years to come. Bob and I are proud to launch Dragon Dynasty and hope to continue bringing Asian cinema the recognition it deserves. Alan Bergman and the Disney team have been incredibly cooperative with the collection of Shaw Brothers’ movies.”



Brian White stated, “I am really excited to be building the Dragon Dynasty brand with Harvey and Bob. Their passion and dedication to the genre is really quite extraordinary, and our collective goal is to produce imaginative, visually-dynamic, feature-laden DVD titles, which are designed to take the presentation of the genre to a new level of excellence, and bring to the widest possible audience all that is special and unique in the World of Asian Cinema.”

Awesome! I’ll be looking out for the new titles.

nice move. i hope they dont do any MiramAXEing anymore

[quote=“FilmGuy”]
Continuing their passionate dedication to bringing Asian films to American audiences
[/quote]

That’s not even funny.



But this is good news, I think, lets just hope they don’t start using that Fortune Star crap when it comes to audio.



I’ve already got remastered Fist of Legend, Tai Chi Master, Hard Boiled etc. but I’m sure they have something for me, too.



And they’ve got Bey Logan in their team :smiley:

Hopefully some nice Bey audio commentaries on the DVDs.

Isn’t Born To Fight already released or not in the US? I have a Madman copy right here. The way they said it in that article made it sound like an upcoming title.

[quote=“Hung Fist”]
But this is good news, I think, lets just hope they don’t start using that Fortune Star crap when it comes to audio.
[/quote]

Hey, I remember watching Fortune Star films that didn’t have crap audio. I resent that statement.



When it comes to Asian films though, there are many other companies I would rather buy from than Miramax, so let’s just hope that this Dragon Dynasty label isn’t a continuation of that. Although in Australia we don’t get that much in the way of Miramax asian releases, I still don’t have an outstanding amount of respect for them…

[quote=“Angel”]
Hey, I remember watching Fortune Star films that didn’t have crap audio. I resent that statement.
[/quote]

Fortune Star releases with crap audio:

Once Upon a Time in China 1-3

Police Story 1-3

A Chinese Ghost Story 1-3

Project A 1-2

The Big Boss

The Killer

Way of the Dragon (Dragons Box set release only, not Bruce box set)

Stephen Chow box set

Armour of God 1-2

Fearless Hyena 1-2

  • pretty much everything Fox released on R1 (there may be a few exeptions)



    Fortune Star releases with good audio:

    A Better Tomorrow

    Bruce films other than TBB



    Fortune Star releases with decent audio:

    Bullet in the Head



    I don’t know about the rest

I have bought none of the supposed crap audio films from Fortune Star. But most of those films are ones that I watched a long time ago on Chinatown videos and I’d say the quality can only get better from there. I will admit that the Killer had bad audio on the Fortune Star DVD, but it was worse on the video I watched beforehand.



But what about like Zu warriors from the magic mountain and Eastern Condors. Those HKL ones with Fortune Star have good audio.

as long as Weinstein doesn’t mess around with those films as they did at Miramax I think it’s okay. But I rather by a DVD with a mono track that sounds okay than a dolby digital upmix where you can hear every discrepancy…



but no company is without its faults, even the great HKL have made some bad decisions

HKL has made shitloads of bad decisions: altering color schemes, heavy cropping, incorrect language, remixes…



The problem with Fortune Star is that they offer two kinds of soundtracks:

  1. Mono: almost always out of sync, and very raw sounding (usually)
  2. 5.1 remix: most sound effects have been re-recorded at the Fortune Star studio. It’s not fun watching a 70’s old school film with newly recorded surrond effect popping up every 10 seconds. I would rather buy an old 3,5€ Deltamac disc than a remixed and remastered Fortune Star dvd.



    All I want is the original soundtrack that is in sync, not too harsh, and has no added stuff. Is that too much to ask?



    Some of HKL’s new releases have been really good. Duel to the Death is a great example: they used Fortune Star’s beautiful print, cleaned up the mono and made sure it was in sych, and offered the 5.1 remix for those who want it. Everybody’s happy. I hope the Weinsteins do the same.

I’m not the American market, probably thats why I’m not so enthusiastic about this.

What do i need with another dvds of Dragon Squad, SPL and so on ?

The same is with John Woo movies, they already got a lot of releases to pick up.

Whats with producing old, unknown titles only available on Tape yet ?

people are just too lazy to import and get a multi-region dvd player…

[quote=“Hung Fist”]
HKL has made shitloads of bad decisions: altering color schemes, heavy cropping, incorrect language, remixes…



The problem with Fortune Star is that they offer two kinds of soundtracks:

  1. Mono: almost always out of sync, and very raw sounding (usually)
  2. 5.1 remix: most sound effects have been re-recorded at the Fortune Star studio. It’s not fun watching a 70’s old school film with newly recorded surrond effect popping up every 10 seconds. I would rather buy an old 3,5€ Deltamac disc than a remixed and remastered Fortune Star dvd.



    All I want is the original soundtrack that is in sync, not too harsh, and has no added stuff. Is that too much to ask?



    Some of HKL’s new releases have been really good. Duel to the Death is a great example: they used Fortune Star’s beautiful print, cleaned up the mono and made sure it was in sych, and offered the 5.1 remix for those who want it. Everybody’s happy. I hope the Weinsteins do the same.
    [/quote]

I am not going to argue for HKL, because frankly I don’t buy their DVDs very often at all. I have never really felt the need. But Hong Kong used to film without sound and then dub everything in a lot of the times. When I used to watch old school chinatown kung fu films on video (I still do quite a bit), they were still a little out of synch, through no fault of any remixing or remastering or tampering with the audio. That is just how they are. If you want perfect remastered audio and you want nothing changed, then you won’t be satisfied very often. Because you can’t always get the best of both worlds.



I am not going to argue in favour of fortune star. I just feel that in an effort to get the modern audience to feel that the sound quality is sufficient, they have no choice but to do what you seem to hate. If you want original audio, then there it is on Mono.



But bear in mind, I haven’t got a whole lot of experience with HKL. But when I do see films like Police Story and Once Upon A time in China on DVD, I notice the difference. It is almost a different film from the one that I watched on an old video. I appreciate what they do, but everyone comes from different directions on topics like this and no one is really right. It only comes down to what you as an individual want to here.

[quote=“Angel”]
If you want perfect remastered audio and you want nothing changed, then you won’t be satisfied very often. Because you can’t always get the best of both worlds.
[/quote]

I’m not asking for perfect remastered audio. I want audio that is less that 1 second out of sync, and doens’t sound like it was recorded inside a bottle. Companies like HK Video are able to offer such audio every single time (they even released Drunken Master with complete cantonese audio). How come FS can’t do the same? Hell, even Deltamac’s old 2,3€ dvds often have better sound that FS.



And Fortune Star releases don’t always come with mono. Most of their dvds have a track called “original cantonese” but some of those are actually 5.1 downmixes (with all the new sound effects).



But the good news is that Fortune Star (as a dvd distributor) is dead and Joy Sales is taking over. I hope they will include decent audio with their releases. They’ve got an unbelievable list of upcoming remastered releases, inluding lots of early Jackie Chan (Snake & Crane Arts Of Shaolin, Shaolin Wooden Men…) and John Woo (The Young Dragons, Laughing Times…) films and some (actually lots of) classics not even I have ever heard of.

Yeah I guess. As I said, I don’t really get much Fortune Star stuff. I just knew I had heard good audio on films bearing the Fortune Star mark.

A film bearing a FS logo and a dvd released by FS are two totally different things. Fortune Star and Fox release their dvds with out of sych monos, HKL and other companies use stuff they get from FS but clean and fix the mono (usually).



I hope that is what the Weinsteins will do. Those FS films are pretty much compete and ready for release, they don’t have to do much for them because FS already remastered the picture and offers them the 5.1 tracks. So they have no excuse for not fixing the mono tracks… it’s not like they don’t have time or money for it… extras and mono are the only things they need to take care of. Everything else has already been taken care of by the others.

Just a bunch of links, maybe someone can scour them for info that hasn’t been posted yet above:



http://comingsoon.net/news.php?id=14680



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archive … ost_3.html”>http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2006/05/post_3.html</LINK_TEXT>



The Weinstein Bros unveil their DRAGON DYNASTY with the help of Tarantino!!!



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-w … -headlines”>http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-weinsteindragondynastytarantino,0,4190417.story?coll=zap-movies-headlines</LINK_TEXT>



http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/news.php?id=3951



http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/060524c.php



<LINK_TEXT text=“Netscape ISP Homepage … 270753.htm”>http://channels.netscape.com/celebrity/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/1522/20060523/1916270753.htm</LINK_TEXT>



Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.moviecitynews.com/Notepad/20 … 24_pr.html”>http://www.moviecitynews.com/Notepad/2006/060524_pr.html</LINK_TEXT>



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://rhodeisland.cox.net/cci/moviesne … ls&id=2426”>http://rhodeisland.cox.net/cci/moviesnews/story?_mode=view&view=Details&id=2426</LINK_TEXT>



<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.filmwad.com/the-weinstein-co … 317-p.html”>http://www.filmwad.com/the-weinstein-co-builds-a-dragon-dynasty-317-p.html</LINK_TEXT>

SPL coming soon:



http://www.kungfucinema.com/2006/071102.htm

Even though Harvey and company continue to fuck with the original titles, Early reviews for SPL on this new DVD line look stellar:

http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/006916.html

[quote=“Laydback”]
Even though Harvey and company continue to fuck with the original titles, Early reviews for SPL on this new DVD line look stellar:

http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/006916.html
[/quote]

[quote]
It’s a two disc set including:


  • Commentary with Donnie Yen and Hong Kong Expert Bey Logan
  • Born to be Bad: Interview with Martial Arts Legend Sammo Hung
  • First Amongst Equals: Featurette with Star and Action Director Donnie Yen
  • Echoes of Darkness: Interview with co-star Simon Yam
  • A Dragon Rising: Interview with SPL villain Jackie Wu
  • A Man Apart: Interview with Director Wilson Yip
  • Never Seen Before Footage
  • SPL Making Of Documentary
  • Breaking News: Footage from Hong Kong Press Conference for launch of SPL
  • Trailer Gallery
  • Master in Motion: Martial Arts demonstration by Wu Shu impressario Jacki Wu
    [/quote]

Valued Customers-

Thanks for your pre-order of the new “SPL” (“Killzone”) DVD at HKFlix.com! We are writing to inform you of some changes that have been made to this DVD since you made your purchase. We were notified of these changes today by the manufacturer:


  1. The main audio commentary track may or may not include Donnie Yen. But it will still feature Bey Logan as previously advertised.
  2. The “Never Seen Before Footage” feature has been cancelled.
  3. The “Breaking News: Footage from Hong Kong Press Conference” feature has been cancelled.
  4. The “Martial Arts Demonstration By Jackie Wu” feature has been cancelled.
  5. The following two new “Anatomy Of A Scene” Featurettes have been

    added:

    a) “Alleycats” (With optional commentary by action director, Donnie Yen, and Bey Logan)

    b) “Challenge of the Masters”



    Both featurettes are supposed to have optional audio commentary by Donnie Yen AND Bey Logan, but this is subject to change.



    The artwork will also be changed, and will be updated on our site within the next few days. All the other features previously advertised are still correct."



    [size=80]- http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/007053.html[/size]