Danny ChaiMiramax has been releasing a bunch of Jackie Chan films on DVD, I believe through its Dimension branch. Accidental Spy even listed the Weinstein brothers as producers. At any rate, I hate the American Miramax versions. Three reasons I can think of, that came to mind while watching AS.
- The music. I’m fairly certain they redo the music, and it’s terrible. It borders on farcical. I dunno, it just totally changes the mood of the movie – Jackie is comical, but it’s not a comedy. There’s a difference. You don’t want to be using that Saturday morning cartoon like stuff. Ruins the feel.
- The editing. Actually, this might be a good thing. But the American releases are all significantly shorter than the Hong Kong versions. I say this might be good because Jackie’s movies can get slow at times. But still, I hate the feeling I’m missing something. And with AS especially, I think they cut out fairly important plot elements. At least, that would explain a lot.
- The dubbing. I hate it. And they don’t provide the original language track. The worst part is, Jackie dubs his own English parts. Totally disorienting. Everyone else speaking normally, and then the main character speaking this broken English. It got so bad during AS that I had to turn on the subtitles, just to figure out what Jackie was supposed to be saying.
The other interesting thing about Jackie’s movies is that, and I have no clue how accurate this is, but I think by watching them you can see how much Hong Kong has changed. Just, starting with Police Story 1 and moving on through Gorgeous and Accidental Spy, you see this shift in how Hong Kong looks and feels and I found it fascinating.