HKCuk DVD Comparison
A Chinese Ghost Story 2 (HKL R2 vs. IVL R0)
HKL
IVL
Picture Quality
Now comparing the HKL DVD with the IVL DVD you’ll notice right away the difference in the darkness. The HKL DVD is far darker that IVL’s print which is considerably little. I’m not sure which of the DVD’s had their picture quality tinted, but HKL have been known to mess around with their picture quality in the past (a fine example: A Chinese Ghost Story the flesh tones were a bit stronger than usual given off a rosy coloured face look). So for best picture quality it has to go to IVL!
Audio
HKL DVD provides a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track in both Cantonese and English Dub. Where as the IVL DVD comes with both a DTS & Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks of Cantonese & Mandarin. So if you’re a guy who loves his surround sound IVL wins, whereas you hate subtitles and you find the often strange English dub delightful the HKL is for you. This round is a DRAW!
Extras
Now just like A Chinese Ghost Story 1, IVL has provided a interview with the movies composer James Wong, trailers (original movie trailer and IVL trailer), still shot gallery of the movie and slideshow gallery of the movie. With the recent lack of quality extras coming out of HKL lately it’s not surprising that this DVD struggles to reach great heights too. HKL provide two interviews, one with director Ching Siu-Tung & star Lau Siu-Ming, 2 trailers (original movie trailer and HKL trailer) and the extra that wins this round is the Bey Logan audio commentary. The Hong Kong film expert provides his own thoughts on the movie and dishes out some handy insists into the cast and crew, he even spots out familiar faces in certain scenes. The Extras round goes to HKL!
Subtitles
Both DVD’s provide optional English subtitles. Obviously HKL take the cake with the subtitles reworded into correct and sensible grammar, whilst the IVL DVD gives a basic translation, but it is still a good translation, there has been a lot worse! This round goes to HKL!
DVD Menus
The HKL menu has had some work put into it, it opens with the short clips of the film and a Halloween style tune playing in the background, with the full menu revealed you have your option’s and top right of the screen (say about ¼ of the picture) shows a montage of action scenes from the movie.
IVL’s menu is a lot similar to its first movie; we get a plain navy blue menu with several still shots of all the main characters in the movie taking up the bottom half of the menu. In the centre is the menu, this DVD also has a montage of movie clips playing in the top-right corner of the menu.
With more detail put into the menu, HKL win the Menu round.
My Final Thought
Although I personally own the IVL edition rather than the HKL, the HKL DVD does prove to be the better disc for it’s extra’s and remastered subtitles. Although if you’re a movie quality over extras kinda guy the IVL boxset is the best bet. In my first DVD Comparison review of A Chinese Ghost Story, I mentioned at that time (April 2005) HKL had shown no signs of releasing Chinese Ghost Story 2 or 3. Now with two release everyone is awaiting three and the inevitable HKL Boxset, but HKL have mentioned its release, not now, maybe never. If it is released I’d expect it to be very similar to this, expect there won’t be a Bey Logan Comm. (Logan left the company in early ’06 to reunite with HKL founder Brian White to create the Weinstein DVD Label ‘Dragon Dynasty’). We might actually see IVL get one over on HKL.
