Crying Fist
Region: Two [UK Two Discs]
DVD Release: Premier Asia
Slipcase: No
Disc One Contents;
- Feature Movie (117 Minutes)
- Audio Tracks
- Korean DD 5.1 Stereo
- Korean DTS
- Feature length audio commentary by Bey Logan & Mike Leader
- Subtitles
- English
Screenshots
Movie: Choi Min-Sik plays Gang Tae-shik a silver medallist in the Asian games finds his life falling to pieces when his wife boots him out his house, he finds himself living in a hut on top of a roof top and the only way he make money is by becoming a human punching for all mistreated, broken hearted and cocky pedestrians of Korea. Rebilous teenager Yoo Sang-hwan (Ryoo Seung-Beom) finds himself going to prison when he attempted to rob an old man, but this victim manages to put up and fight, but suddenly dies. Being held responsible Sang-hwan ends up being sent to a young offenders prison to serve his time. One his first day he ends up causing a riot in the canteen. One of the guards notice that he could actually become a decent boxer is he puts his mind to it. These two men don't meet each other until the final round of amateur boxing competition.
Picture: With this movie being filmed last year (2005), you can expect the picture quality is perfect, no flaws. Although if you compare this DVD with the any of the three Region 3 DVD's (HK Release, Korean SE and single disc DVD's), you'll notice that Premier Asia have spruced up the picture giving it more color (which is becoming a regular trend from Premier Asia/Hong Kong Legends). The color difference stands out the most towards the final fight where both fighters looks more Golden compared to their natural skin tones. As you can expect from Premier Asia the subtitles are optional, decent sized, decent speed. But strangely enough this is the only subtitles you get. You usually get dutch subtitles and subtitles for the hard of hearing, but not this time.
Subtitles: As you can expect from Premier Asia the subtitles are optional, decent sized, decent speed. But strangely enough this is the only subtitles you get. You usually get dutch subtitles and subtitles for the hard of hearing, but not this time.
Audio: Again flawless, your treated to a DTS track, which doesn't work on some televisions, but luckily you get the Dolby Digital Track too which runs perfectly. Luckily we're giving another audio commentary from Bey Logan and Impact Magazine writer Mike Leeder. Yet as I mentioned above about the missing subtitles, this hasn't got a dub track either, most if not all Premier Asia titles are equipped with the horrible dub too.
Commentary: Premier Asia regulars Bey Logan and Mike Leeder do a full length commentary for this movie. The discuss references from this movie, similarity's to Love on a Diet and the real life story about the japanese boxer who became a human punching bag to pay off his debt. As you can expect there is lots of in depth information on Korean Cinema, Choi Min-Sik and Ryoo Seung-Beom. There is also a very disturbing discussion about scrotum's.
Disc Two Contents;
- Promotional Gallery
- UK Promotional Trailer (02:44)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (02:14)
- Original Teaser Trailer (01:38)
- Promotional Art (10:02)
- Interview Gallery
- Choi Min-Sik (07:23)
- Ryoo Seong-Beom (06:55)
- Lim Won Hee (05:03)
- Oh Dal-Su (05:00)
- An Gil-Gang (05:10)
- Kim Su-Hyun (05:00)
- Production Team (09:22)
- Action Team (10:49)
- Location & Art Teams (08:42)
- Step in the Ring
- The Making of Crying Fist (16:32)
- Chenonan Juvenile Correction Facility (06:41)
- Characterization (08:01)
- Supporting Actors (13:01)
- The Gloves are off
- Deleted Scenes - With Directors Commentary (18:09)
- Boxing is my Life (14:46)
Bonus Footage: The UK Promotional trailer is basically a montage of training footage and boxing fights from film with a Rap soundtrack. The ordinal trailer is show's a brief part of Ryoo's story, then Choi's story leading up to the big fight. The music this time is the song from the ending fight. The teaser as you can expect is the of the same thing, showing you the fighters back stories and training sequences, although some of the footage of Ryoo training I haven't seen before, shots of him outside lifting weights, doing sit ups hanging from the shower wall, this shot is in the movie, but this is from a different angle, his feet! Maybe these are in the movie and I've not noticed them, trust me that's nothing new. The Promotional art is a ten minute slide show showing you all the promotional art, movie posters, still shots, behind the scenes shots of the director and cast etc.
We're spoiled for choice when it comes to interviews. Each interview lasts at least five minutes, during the interviews we see other cast/crew members praising the interviewed actor/actresses and then they explain their characters and difficultys in working in these roles, Choi Min-Sik cracking his ribs when fighting with Ryoo. During Ryoo's interview he spends half of the time praising the director and dicussing their background together. Lim Won-Hee at first explains about the oringinal story about three men (him, Ryoo and Choi), but changed to the story of the boxers. He explains his thoughts about his character and the leading actors. Oh Dal-Su talks about his character and then goes on to tell you about his near death expierence in a car crash which left him in a coma.
The Deleted scenes are all put into one 18 minutes reel with the directors explaining his reasons for why these scenes weren't suited for the movie. Some of the scenes are expanded for example when Choi Min-Sik's character goes to a 'Show & Tell' at his sons school, where he Choi accidentally punches a child, a image can be seen above.
Overall: Premier Asia spoil you with a bucket load of features, although the interviews aren't really that exciting, a tad boring they mainly repeat over the same lines throughtout. But the fine selection of deleted scenes included are always welcomed. This is probably the best edition of Crying Fist you can find at this moment, enjoy it!
Rating: 8.0 Out Of 10.0
