DVD Answers has turned up cover art and DVD specs for a pair of interesting coming releases ...
First up is Sony's North American release of House of Flying Daggers, due April 19th. Other than the cover artist air brushing Andy Lau so much that he looks like he's made of plastic - seriously, the muscle suit he wore in Running On Karma had better skin tone - this looks like a good one. Full specs aren't out yet, but it will include a commentary track, making of feature, and a music video.
Next is the Premiere Asia UK release of Bang Rajan. This one's a historical epic, apparently very good and very bloody. To the best of my knowledge this will be the first English subbed release of the film anywhere in the world It's getting the double disc treatment and considering that Premiere Asia is a new branch of Hong Kong Legends it should be top quality all the way. The set looks to be pretty much loaded to the gills ... commentary, historical features, interviews with the principal cast members, DTS audio ... Magnolia's got rights to the film in the US but I'm pretty confident this will prove to be the definitive release worldwide. Premiere Asia's got a trailer for the film here.
Anyone else here love those big stars on the cover and how they end in a exclamation mark with the whole thing being surrounded by quotation marks?
Funnily, the exact same thing is on Hero's cover except it's five stars there where as here it is only four.
Did it even do a theatrical run? I know Magnolia's got rights to it, but I don't remember them ever actually screening it ... maybe if Ong Bak performs well ...
Hearing from a few people who worked at that theater, it was a weird instance of bad booking. They had Bang Rajan and Le Temps du loup (The Time of the Wolf) literally sitting in their cans in the backroom. It was just bad timing, as a festival rolled in and took over the scheduling for a month or three.