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Mostly [OT] Miramaxe CEO speaks




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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15585
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:27 pm Reply with quote
Harvey defends his record on Asian films, including Princess Mononoke at http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/variety/20040831/va_fi_ne/scaling_the_chinese_wall_1.
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JETBLACK87



Joined: 14 Apr 2002
Posts: 1073
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 3:42 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
We spent considerable time and money creating a dubbed version for a domestic release. Once it was completed, we tested it in several markets and discovered that something wasn't working for American family audiences, and so we released the film subtitled to appeal to the Asian film fan core here.


I almost threw up...

He didn't say anything about editing the movies. And he didn't say anything about the edits that where gonna be on Hero.
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jmays
ANN Past Staff


Joined: 29 Jul 2002
Posts: 1390
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 4:13 pm Reply with quote
I don't really care about little details like when they got the film and Oscar positioning and such, but I think this paragraph is very interesting:

Quote:
Some people have suggested that the availability of illegal imports of "Hero" on the Internet would have an effect on the box office. Clearly this was not the case and in fact our surveys showed that few audience members had seen the film on DVD. We have successfully cracked down on this practice, and have kept the sales of these DVDs to a few hundred enterprising Asian film fans. Piracy is a hugely important issue for our business and I realize now that concerns about piracy in China may have led the producers to release the film as soon as it was completed.


Am I misreading this, or did he play both sides here?
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15585
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 4:23 pm Reply with quote
Miagi: Basically, he's trying to confuse legal importers with pirates. Technically, Miramaxe can enforce sales of imports in the U.S., but that doesn't make them right for doing it, when their own films are edited. Also, the dvd's actually did affect the box office, because Hero could've had a bigger opening. The fact that it's had a smaller weekend than AVP and Princess Diaries 2, in spite of having a comparable theater count with the two demonstrates this. In addition, if he cared that much about pirates, why did he wait a year to release Shaolin Soccer, when it was the tenth most downloaded film on the Internet? Finally, it's ironic that he says concerns about piracy are why the producers released Hero sooner, but not why he didn't do so.
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jfrog



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 925
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2004 4:54 pm Reply with quote
I don't know if it's old news or not (first I've heard of it), but hearing that the Infernal Affairs trilogy is getting released over here made me very happy.
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
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Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 8:44 pm Reply with quote
I got a chance to see Hero in theaters yesterday, and I'm happy to see they didn't edit any of the actual film in terms of content (from what I could tell). However, the subs really could use some work, and it's beyond me why they'd change The 3 words "All Under Heven" (which to me, is the most important scene in terms of story) into something as lame as The 2 words "Our People."

I find it ironic that my bootlegged Hero DVD has better subs than the Miramax release. Ah well, guess I'll have to import the legit uncut version now...
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Mr Mania



Joined: 10 Feb 2003
Posts: 581
Location: UK
PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:48 pm Reply with quote
Well I have the legit uncut version of Hero and although I haven’t watched the new Miramax version I have to say that I really can't see a little editing doing much harm with Hero. Its a very good film but the story is rubbish, its saved by its wonderful action scenes and generally great visuals.
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 1:18 am Reply with quote
Well, the only noticeable editing Miramax did was in the subs, but I regard this as one of my favorite movies, so I'm really picky about them (the subs).

I like every aspect of this movie too, and it was a shame to see people getting up and walking out when they finally realized the entire movie was subbed. Oh well, it's their loss...
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darkhunter



Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2992
Location: Los Angelas
PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 4:16 pm Reply with quote
jfrog wrote:
I don't know if it's old news or not (first I've heard of it), but hearing that the Infernal Affairs trilogy is getting released over here made me very happy.


It's gonna be a remake.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 15585
PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 4:45 pm Reply with quote
WB has the remake rights, Miramaxe has the original.
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Kagemusha



Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 11:36 pm Reply with quote
A bit OT, but Zatoichi is due out november 9th. While there are no extras, the disk will include Sonatine, another one of Takeshi's films.
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