yeah, i know, but the fever won't let me research the correct hanzi... :-P

Other commercial title by "Dragon Dynasty" : "SPL - 殺破狼" which became "Kill Zone". But at least, this is the only bad thing about those DVD editions.

my stomach is totally empry, except for the water i have been drinking...

feel better now... thanks to everyone!

lol. Dan and I had a discussion about it too. The Banquet was called EMPEROR (tho written as empress女帝) in Japan. who's more idiotic? sorry about the food poisoning... get well soon!

thats definitely a better title! at least there was an emperor and empress in the movie... and that was the main point of the movie at least... ;-)

*shakes head* hope you're feeling better!

From what I have read, this film is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The reviewers don't seem to have liked it much, either. I am always mystified by the films that American media companies deem worthy of American editions and US release. So much of the good stuff gets ignored and you have to scratch your head sometimes. Maybe Quentin Tarantino is to blame--he created a certain stereotype of Asian, especially Hong Kong film here in the West in recent years and this is what sells to young males 18-25, the major audience for most films in the US. So sad.

leslie: yes, its based on the same idea as Hamlet, I saw it in the theaters when it came out, its an amazingly beautiful film, the costumes and sets and cinematography are some of the best I've ever seen in a Chinese movie, but unfortunately (because of bad editing) it feels choppy and incoherent at times.

JasonJason, I agree with you about the edition of Hard Boiled that Dragon Dynasty put out. The extra features are great. How many times are you going to get an in depth interview with Phillip Kwok Tsui talking about doing the action scenes and how a lot of the classic John Woo cliches came into being in these films. I also have to hand it to Weinstein Co. for doing a good job with the subtitles. Too many Hong Kong films have you scratching your head over some of the subtitles. I'm trying to learn Cantonese, but this is a long term proposition. For the next couple of years (at least), I'm almost totally dependent on subtitles. Dragon Dynasty also did a nice job with Seven Swords (I know, I know, there is a lot of kvetching about what version of this film made it to DVD--but it was Tsui Hark's decision which one he wanted released).

leslie- was the version on dvd better than the version in hk theaters? cause that one wasn't so great....

I didn't get the see Seven Swords in a theater, only on DVD. It wasn't a great film, which is a major disappointment. Tsui Hark let his big budget and exotic location shoot unhinge him a bit. He shot way too much film early on and expanded the plot in an uncontrolled fashion. He was over budget and over time and had to patch the film together before everything collapsed under its own weight. The plot development didn't make much sense to me. But on the other hand, I can see what a high quality production it was, how good the cast and crew were and how everyone was giving it their all. I place this turkey at the director's feet. It just shouldn't have been like this.