Siu Hap Cho Lau Heung
(aka Legend of the Liquid Sword) (1993)
--| x264/MKV | full resolution DVD rip | uncut HK version| Canto/Mand. audio | Eng/Chi hard subtitles |--
IMDB rating: 6.3/10
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese
Year: 1993
Genre: Wuxia, Action, Fantasy, Adventure
Language: Cantonese
Running Time: 1h 22min
Director & Screenwriting: Wong Jing
Cast: Aaron Kwok, Chingmy Yau, Siu-Lun Wan, Winnie Lau, Anita Yuen
[ IMDB link ]
Synopsis/Review
Aaron Kwok stars in this standard wuxia-comedy from the mind of Wong Jing. Borrowed from a popular Chinese story, it tells the story of Fragrant Chu (Kwok) and his duel with the evil Batman (don’t ask), which has something to do with their masters not liking each other. Batman uses the “Sacred Water” to blow people to shreds. In the end, Chu needs the help of many, including Cheung Man, the mistress of the “water technique,” which is probably what the whole liquid sword thing is all about.
Lots of fighting and lots of wacky hijinks abound. Too much hijinks actually, especially from Deric Wan Siu-Lun as the traveling swordsman who tags along. His smarmy antics are so annoying they may inflict damage to your television. A bevy of babes appear throughout the flick, adding some draw for the fanboys. As Fragrant Chu’s three sisters, Anita Yuen, Gloria Yip, and Winnie Lau are the epitome of the flower vase, meaning they don't do much but stand around and look nice. Loletta Lee is Batman’s girl, and Fennie Yuen has the “Shampoo”* role as a girl who decides she simply must marry Fragrant Chu. As the cross-dressing Flowerless, Chingmy Yau is attractive, but even that’s almost negligible. There are some good moments (usually visually arresting ones), but they’re few and far between. As Wong Jing movies go, this film’s not bad, but it’s not good, either.
*a Ranma 1/2 reference for all the Japanimation fans out there
-- Kozo, LoveHKFilm.com
This is a fantastic film, regardless. It fuses entertainment with excellent choreography, rapid and innovative before-CGI special effects, and some cool music. The love theme really gets me. Sure, the plot gets wobbly, and there's some rather low humor in parts (reminding me of Kung Fu Hustle), but overall, you have to give this film credit as a wild original. I just wonder where Gordon Liu fits in. Hmmmm.
-- IMDB reviewer timelessdave
---------------------------
RELEASE INFO
General details
Source : NTSC DVD5 (HK - Mei Ah)
Video : H.264 (x264), 23.976 fps, 1429 Kbps
Resolution : 702 x 366, displayed at 702 x 403 (~1.74:1)
Audio 1 : Cantonese 2.1, AC3, 384 Kbps
Audio 2 : Mandarin 2.1, AAC (Nero), 91 Kbps
Subtitles : Traditional Chinese & English, hardsubbed and poorly translated
Chapter Markers : Yes
Length : 1h 22min
Size : 1.11 GiB
MKV compressed header : No
Video details
Writing library : x264 core 104 r1688+3 (Aug 2010)
Encode date : 5 Aug 2010
Quality level (CRF) : 19.0
Format profile : High@L3.0
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=7 / deblock=1:-2:-2 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=0 / bframes=8 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=19.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.20
AviSynth filtering
TFM(d2v="liquid2.d2v",pp=0).tdecimate()
DeSpot(p1=40, p2=14, mthres=20,pwidth=14, pheight=14)
Vinverse()
Crop( 10, 56, -8, -58 )
fft3dfilter( plane=3,sigma=1.8 )
More screenshots
Encoder comment
The source was a low-quality, low-bitrate transfer typical of old HK films, slightly discolored and in some scenes peppered with large amounts of spots, blemishes and other transient artifacts. There was also the usual MPEG-2 combing that occurs at low DVD bitrates. I removed some of the film spots with DeSpot, the combing with Vinverse(), and the the discoloration with fft3dfilter, making the video less visually offensive.
Screenshot comparisons of the source and filtered encode (zoom in to see residual combing)
As usual, the newest revision of x264 was used with high quality settings for maximum compression efficiency. Playback on PCs with MPC-HC from the CCCP codec pack is recommended. For Macs, use the very capable MPlayer OSX Extended.
If you're new to encoding and would like to try it, check out my simple DVD-to-x264 encoding guide in the forums.
- coj
-----------------------------
Other great Asian films on this tracker I've encoded: Please Vote For Me [2007] | Dare mo Shiranai (Nobody Knows) [2004] | Tenten (Adrift in Tokyo) [2007] | Luo Ye Gui Gen (Getting Home) [2007] | Ping Pong [2002]
------------------------------