DDDHouse order: Shaolin Soccer,...

[Christophe]

As it is the first time that i'll be ordering here can anyone confirm a few things for me ?

1. Are the DVD's of Shaolin Soccer, Fong Sai Yuk and Tai Chi Master, and the VCD of Fist Of legend worth buying and are they definately R0 ?

2. Are they reliable ?

3. I pay more for 1 japanese import than 4 from Hong Kong.
How is that ?

[kcxdev]

1. SS (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=324&story=2272) is r0, not sure about the other 2 though (more liekly r0 than not though). Theres no region coding for VCD's but probably all these are NTSC so make sure your TV is NTSC compatible or your player can do the conversion.

2. yes, dddhouse is reliable.

3. Dunno exactly why, but dvd's (and cd's) in japan are generally more expensive, and HK dvd's are cheap (for us in the UK anyway)

[Shingster]

I'v only seen the Shaolin Soccer DVD from that bunch & it is definitely worth buying. DTS, anamorphic, good transfer etc.
Tai Chi Master & Fong Sai Yuk won't be as good as Shaolin Soccer quality wise, but they're excellent fu films, so should still be worth a purchase at the price. They are all R0 NTSC, and here's some reviews of the DVDs:

Fong Sai Yuk (http://www.loveandbullets.com/fongsaiyuk.htm)
Shaolin Soccer (http://www.dvdtimes.org.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=324&story=2272)
Tai Chi Master (http://brns.com/pages/jet1.html)

I can tell you that DDD are a superb supplier & very trustworthy & customs friendly! Their shipping prices are nice as well, $30 (£2.68) for the 1st item, then $20 for all subsewuent items.

I haven't seen the VCD of FOL either, but it'd only cost you $40 inc shipping = £3.60 which is close to the cost of renting the bugger at Blockbusters.

I don't know why HK DVDs are so cheap & Jap DVDs are so expensive, but i think it has something to do with what Bey Logan says about the HKs attitude towards film. They think of films as a disposable medium, ie watch it then put it away. This means that they charged sod all for purchasing VCDs (Also the reason why rental stores are non-existant), because the public wont want to pay alot for something that they will watch once. When DVD came out, they probably kept the prices low because they presumed that people wouldn't bother with the medium if they could purchase a VCD at a fraction of the price.

[Joe91]

I'm sure that the low price of HK DVDs/VCDs is connected to the massive size of the Chinese market, and the huge problems that they have with VCD piracy.

[Shingster]

Yeah, the piracy thing should be the main reason for the low prices, they'd have to keep the official releases low to compete with the bootlegs. What confuses me though is that isn't the piracy thing a problem in all the far east countries? So doesn't Japan have the problem as well? If so, why are they charging ludicrous prices for their DVDs.

[WildWayz]

Also (as I just found out) Japan do not like exporting goods - so u need a special license for that which costs a lot of money.

Hence why only ONE company in the whole of Japan is allowed to export Ibanez/any guitars to countries outside Japan.
(distributers are different)
:)

--James

[Jay Da Feesh]

Tai - Chi Master is definitely Region 0. Excellent Film.