dvd doozies: undisputed
In Shanghai, few things are more plentiful than construction cranes, rice and neon lights. The DVD is one of them. Supposedly illegal, the bootleg industry is booming. Discs can be purchased everywhere: from back alleys and back rooms to well-lit streets and even actual stores (the owners of which must pay policemen Jackie Chan movies to look the other way). On the city’s busiest streets, DVDs are dealt like drugs. Men in suits greet you with a whisper, “Watch? Shoes? CD? DVD?” Nod your head, and he’ll start walking. Follow, and you’ll end up somewhere — a dark sidestreet, a windowless room, even upstairs at a restaurant — staring at a suitcase full of DVDs.
The selection can be impressive — everything from classics to current stuff — and if you know the Chinese name of a movie they don’t have, they can probably get it for you. Concerned about quality? Don’t be. Most DVDs here are, well, DVD quality. Even the camcorder jobs can be bearable, assuming that no one seated in front of the cameraman was called “Head-and-a-Half” in college. Yeah, you’ll have the occasional dud, but each bad disc makes a fine drink coaster — remember, unless you’re a sucker, DVDs only cost 8 yuan here. That’s $1, folks. You still get to keep the DVD cover, anyway. And in Shanghai, the DVD covers are often more entertaining than the movies they come with.That’s what this part of the website celebrates.
Some fool with Photoshop obviously worked very hard on these masterpieces of misinformation. All the parts are there — title, photos, synopsis, cast, credits, the occasional critic’s quote or two — but it never quite adds up. If something is actually spelled correctly — and that’s a big if — it likely has nothing to do with the movie contained inside. At least the title is usually right … usually. I suppose this all makes some sense. Most people buying these DVDs read Chinese and nothing else, so any English letters and words are just there for show. But the errors occur so often, the wrongs so randomly, that getting it right would seem to be a much less time-consuming task.
Here’s hoping they never get it right.
And now to today’s DVD Doozie …
UNDISPUTED (2002)
In Reality
Starring: Wesley Snipes, Ving Rhames
Plot summary: When heavyweight champion James ‘Iceman’ Chambers lands in prison, the resident gangster arranges a boxing match with the reigning prison champ.
In China
I figured I’d get the most offensive one out of the way first. (Unlike most other things Western, political correctness has not yet made its way to Shanghai.) By the way, Vin Diesel is not in this movie … but the first three letters of his name are in Ving Rhames’ name. And who is this Wesley Shipes guy? And what role does that white woman at the bottom of the cover play at the "Iron House"?
The movie title on the disc doesn’t get any better. Jianyu, by the way, means jail.
Hmmmm. I thought infinology.com — former host of this site — was "the master of modem horror." Guess I was wrong.
There’s that white woman again. Wait a minute … Brad Pitt and Robert Redford? Guess they played the prison guards.