TVB Released VCD/DVD Questions

[convoy]

Still no The Bund?

[almo89]

Still no The Bund?

If there was, I think Ken will make a new thread about it in capital letters

[almo89]

I just finished watching the Bund on the bootleg DVD. Lets say it was nice watching it uncut for once. The only turn off was the mediocre picture quality. I know that an official DVD release from TVB will look great. For example, Lonely Hunter took place around the same time and had similar cinematography looked great on the official DVD release. The black levels were beautiful.

I don't remember how many times exactly I've seen the bund. Probably only the 2nd time fully uncut, but I still think it's the greatest series from TVB ever. This series was only 25 episodes, but they were able to fully develop all the important characters properly. The show never seemed rushed even though a lot happened. The ending was perfect. It didn't have the TVB brutal ending. The beginning, middle and end was top notch. Not a dull moment at all. Lets hope the DVD hits our shelves soon!

[el852]

I don't mind doing script in English - you have to do the physical subbing, however I need the cantonese version of this series.

I've found alot of vietnamese dubb. The original TVB version is in cantonese audio with chinese sub. From what I know there is NO english subbed version of this series unless someone does a fan sub for it.

The VCDs are out of print and downloads are in vietnamese so good luck to anyone who can find it.

If you see the traditional version of it send me link at [email protected] and I'll work with anyone that's good at subbing.

[Trinie]

I just finished watching the Bund on the bootleg DVD. Lets say it was nice watching it uncut for once. The only turn off was the mediocre picture quality. I know that an official DVD release from TVB will look great. For example, Lonely Hunter took place around the same time and had similar cinematography looked great on the official DVD release. The black levels were beautiful.

I don't remember how many times exactly I've seen the bund. Probably only the 2nd time fully uncut, but I still think it's the greatest series from TVB ever. This series was only 25 episodes, but they were able to fully develop all the important characters properly. The show never seemed rushed even though a lot happened. The ending was perfect. It didn't have the TVB brutal ending. The beginning, middle and end was top notch. Not a dull moment at all. Lets hope the DVD hits our shelves soon!

I still don't get why so many people love the Bund. I saw it only once when it first came out and never want to see it again. I guess everyone has different taste and I respect that. I think it is not my type of series.My mom loves Angie as an actress but even she does not like this series at all. I am guessing maybe it is because I am a wuxia lover.

[almo89]

I still don't get why so many people love the Bund. I saw it only once when it first came out and never want to see it again. I guess everyone has different taste and I respect that. I think it is not my type of series.My mom loves Angie as an actress but even she does not like this series at all. I am guessing maybe it is because I am a wuxia lover.

I can see a lot of people now that might not like the Bund because it's not ur conventional TVB series. Some people might think this show is slow even the show was only 25 episodes. The reason why some of us love it is that they have something we don't see now is great writing. Characters are fully developed and you have actors that can deliver. Angie Chiu was the weakest of the bunch, but it didn't ruin the show. Also we get to see the writers write freely on what they want instead of going through some formula and worrying about censorship.

I'm a wuxia lover too btw haha

[Ken Cheng]

I can see a lot of people now that might not like the Bund because it's not ur conventional TVB series. Some people might think this show is slow even the show was only 25 episodes. The reason why some of us love it is that they have something we don't see now is great writing. Characters are fully developed and you have actors that can deliver. Angie Chiu was the weakest of the bunch, but it didn't ruin the show. Also we get to see the writers write freely on what they want instead of going through some formula and worrying about censorship.

Some things to love about THE BUND:

1. Original, pithy dialogue that sounds NOTHING like the stock lines that TVB uses for 99% of its series. The lines were so intelligently written, often soaked in subtle literary or cultural allusions, and delivered so gracefully by the cast. THE BUND was the thinking person's TVB drama.

2. Fearlessly gut-wrenching drama that was dramatic without being ridiculously melodramatic.

3. A timeless quality, despite being set in the 1930s and produced in the 1980s. THE BUND feels like something that could have been produced at any time during the past eighty years.

4. No stock characters. The good guys weren't always so "good," and the bad guys weren't always so "bad." Even the main protagonist had serious character flaws worth criticizing, and even the main antagonist had a human side we could sympathize with.

5. And with that, no black-and-white morality. THE BUND forced audiences to confront various shades of moral ambiguity...the dark side of human nature was seen, but it was sometimes shown in an alluring light. You weren't just told, "Don't be an evil person." You got to see how compelling evil could be.

Add to that incredibly high production values given the limitations of the time and THE BUND is a masterpiece that TVB has yet to top. I don't think TVB will ever produce something anywhere near this great again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

[remember_Cedric]

I'm quite addicted to this TVB series from the 1992, The Revelation of the Last Hero, starring Aaron Kwok, Noel Leung, Fennie Yuen, Frankie Lam and Ada Choi.

I enjoyed the cantonese version of it very much. Anyone knows if I could still get the DVD or VCD set?

[bluesky]

it hasn't release on either vcd or dvd.

[almo89]

Some things to love about THE BUND:

1. Original, pithy dialogue that sounds NOTHING like the stock lines that TVB uses for 99% of its series. The lines were so intelligently written, often soaked in subtle literary or cultural allusions, and delivered so gracefully by the cast. THE BUND was the thinking person's TVB drama.

2. Fearlessly gut-wrenching drama that was dramatic without being ridiculously melodramatic.

3. A timeless quality, despite being set in the 1930s and produced in the 1980s. THE BUND feels like something that could have been produced at any time during the past eighty years.

4. No stock characters. The good guys weren't always so "good," and the bad guys weren't always so "bad." Even the main protagonist had serious character flaws worth criticizing, and even the main antagonist had a human side we could sympathize with.

5. And with that, no black-and-white morality. THE BUND forced audiences to confront various shades of moral ambiguity...the dark side of human nature was seen, but it was sometimes shown in an alluring light. You weren't just told, "Don't be an evil person." You got to see how compelling evil could be.

Add to that incredibly high production values given the limitations of the time and THE BUND is a masterpiece that TVB has yet to top. I don't think TVB will ever produce something anywhere near this great again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

I totally agree with number one. It was a thinking person's drama. Number 2 is where I think some ppl will find the show boring. Melodramatic stuff sells for some reason whether you want to believe it not. The Bund was great because it avoided this, so you didn't get that campy feeling.

I hate the propaganda that gets dished out these days. Hui Man Keung's character was kinda bad at times. He indirectly killed his own boss to take his spot. These days the good guys have to be very good and the bad guys have to be very bad.

Anyways, it's time to watch the Wild Bunch DVD. Haven't even had the chance to watch it yet since I bought it.

[Trinie]

I totally agree with number one. It was a thinking person's drama. Number 2 is where I think some ppl will find the show boring. Melodramatic stuff sells for some reason whether you want to believe it not. The Bund was great because it avoided this, so you didn't get that campy feeling.

I hate the propaganda that gets dished out these days. Hui Man Keung's character was kinda bad at times. He indirectly killed his own boss to take his spot. These days the good guys have to be very good and the bad guys have to be very bad.

Anyways, it's time to watch the Wild Bunch DVD. Haven't even had the chance to watch it yet since I bought it.

Well, I know that the Bund does have some special qualities that some other series may not have but I still don't like it. That is just me I guess... I have to agree that Angie's acting is not the best in there either. SHe did way better in other series.

Oh the Wild Bunch.. That series was average in my opinion. It was not that bad but was not that great either. It is watchable though and can be enjoyable too.

[almo89]

Well, I know that the Bund does have some special qualities that some other series may not have but I still don't like it. That is just me I guess... I have to agree that Angie's acting is not the best in there either. SHe did way better in other series.

Oh the Wild Bunch.. That series was average in my opinion. It was not that bad but was not that great either. It is watchable though and can be enjoyable too.

Yeah that's fine. You can't have everybody love one show. Some ppl will just not like it and that's fine. Angie's acting was kinda raw, but her character wasn't that complex, so her limited skills was enough to carry the role. Obviously Chow Yun Fat stole the show, but Ray Lui and Lau Dan's portrayal of their characters aint shabby either.

Thanks for telling me Wild Bunch sux, I won't watch it now lol. Just jk. Hopefully it's one of the 80s shows that is enjoyable even if it's average.

[Trinie]

Yeah that's fine. You can't have everybody love one show. Some ppl will just not like it and that's fine. Angie's acting was kinda raw, but her character wasn't that complex, so her limited skills was enough to carry the role. Obviously Chow Yun Fat stole the show, but Ray Lui and Lau Dan's portrayal of their characters aint shabby either.

Thanks for telling me Wild Bunch sux, I won't watch it now lol. Just jk. Hopefully it's one of the 80s shows that is enjoyable even if it's average.

Thanks for respecting my opinion even though you love the show so much. That's what my mom said about Angie's character and acting too. Angie is a great actress but not in the Bund. I still can't believe she won an award for playing that character. I think it was the male cast that stole the show.

No, I wouldn't say the Wild Bunch sucks in my opinion but is ok. It is good enough to watch all the way through at least once. It isn't a show that I want to watch again and again though(at least not consistently).

[Ken Cheng]

I totally agree with number one. It was a thinking person's drama. Number 2 is where I think some ppl will find the show boring. Melodramatic stuff sells for some reason whether you want to believe it not. The Bund was great because it avoided this, so you didn't get that campy feeling.

I appreciated that THE BUND took itself seriously as drama. It wasn't devoid of humor, but the humor was used at appropriate moments...in an appropriate manner and in the appropriate amount. Never did THE BUND get silly or juvenile (which is a problem with most so-called "serious" TVB series, especially these days). The humor wasn't forced or crude, but witty and clever.

Moreover, I really cannot overemphasize the excellent job that the cast did in delivering the great lines of dialogue the scriptwriters provided them. In your average TVB series, characters just tend to kind of scream and rant at each other all the time. It's almost as if the directors think that having people yelling at each other is "drama." That's not drama; that's weak melodrama.

THE BUND never did this. There was an appropriate ebb and flow to people's moods, as in real life. At times, the dialogue was spoken very softly by the actors...barely audible, to reflect the emotion of the scene. In many scenes wherein Hui Mun Keung and Fung Ching Ching spoke to each other, the dialogue was hushed...muted, as would be appropriate in such a situation (by comparison, a TVB scene today between two lovers would probably have them giggling loudly through the whole scene). Also, remember the dialogue between Hui Mun Keung and Ding Lik after Ah Lik's rash decision to attack Lip Yan Wong in the nightclub resulted in the death of Fong Yim Wan? Hui Mun Keung (Chow Yun Fat's) voice was barely a whisper when he demanded from Ah Lik, "Why...why didn't you listen?" If this were a series made today, the director would have told the actor to just scream at the top of his lungs.

It was this sense of ebb and flow to emotions that truly required excellent *acting*, and today's TVB scriptwriters and directors just don't get this sense of ebb and flow...of Drama in the truest sense of the word.

I hate the propaganda that gets dished out these days. Hui Man Keung's character was kinda bad at times. He indirectly killed his own boss to take his spot. These days the good guys have to be very good and the bad guys have to be very bad.

Hui Mun Keung did many despicable things, but somehow, never became a despicable person (well, at least not until he begged Ching Ching to let him go with her to Paris after murdering her father). He was an honorable man with a dark side brought about by his painful experiences...a fully realized, three-dimensional character painted in various shades of grey rather than stark black and white.

And it was the same for Ding Lik and Fung Ging Yiu. They were ruthless men fully capable of murdering others to further their personal agendas. At the same time, however, you could also admire Ah Lik's devotion to his brothers (Hui Mun Keung and Chang Gwai) and to his mother (and even to Ching Ching, although he sometimes treated her badly after they married). Fung Ging Yiu was a power-mad megalomaniac, but at the same time, he was a doting, devoted father...and you could see that his lust for power and his pride often caused him great pain as well as great glory. Fung Ging Yiu wasn't just a monster; he was a man who had painstakingly built an empire with his mighty willpower and his ambition, and he wasn't going to let challengers such as Hui Mun Keung and Ding Lik take that away from him easily. Fung Ging Yiu was a man who valued loyalty: if you were loyal to him, he was very benign to you (he treated Hui Mun Keung and Ding Lik very well when they were loyal to him). The flip side of that, of course, is that if you betray that loyalty, you feel the full force of his wrath.

Excellent, excellent character development...brilliantly executed by all concerned. Just great, great work.

Well, I know that the Bund does have some special qualities that some other series may not have but I still don't like it. That is just me I guess.

You don't have to like it; you just need to understand what qualities THE BUND had that made it different and much better than pretty much everything else TVB has ever put out...and I mean "Heaven and Earth" better. There's THE BUND, and then there's everything else. TVB never did anything like it, and probably never will again. It was just a special, inspired moment of TVB history...forever a landmark in Hong Kong's pop culture.

... I have to agree that Angie's acting is not the best in there either. SHe did way better in other series.

I thought she did all right. Fung Ching Ching was the least complex of the four principal characters. Among the four, she was the only one not presented in shades of grey. Ching Ching was the "white" character...pure and naive, though tougher and smarter than she got credit for. I loved that one exchange between her and Hui Mun Keung early in the series that gave us some insight into what her character was about:

Ching Ching: Do you think human nature is good or evil?

Mun Keung: Do you want to hear the truth, or do you want to hear the diplomatic response?

Ching Ching: I want to hear your honest opinion.

Mun Keung: I believe that human nature is evil. Take me, for example.

Ching Ching: You can't be as terrible as you say you are.

Mun Keung: What do you think about your father's business?

Ching Ching: I try not to.

Mun Keung (laughing): Trying to hide from reality?

Ching Ching (looking at him seriously): I don't find anything amusing about that; do you?

Can you imagine such dialogue in a current TVB series? So rich in characterization and saying so much with so few words? This is amazing scriptwriting! Thoughtful, elegant, and classy. Chow Yun Fat and Angie Chiu also deserve to be praised for the quiet, dignified manner in which they conducted this and numerous other scenes. This was Class.

Yeah that's fine. You can't have everybody love one show. Some ppl will just not like it and that's fine. Angie's acting was kinda raw, but her character wasn't that complex, so her limited skills was enough to carry the role. Obviously Chow Yun Fat stole the show, but Ray Lui and Lau Dan's portrayal of their characters aint shabby either.

Angie is a great actress but not in the Bund. I still can't believe she won an award for playing that character. I think it was the male cast that stole the show.

I think she did fine, although she was overshadowed by Chow, Lui, and Lau. Her character was not as complex as the men's were, and she conveyed that innocent, but strong quality of Ching Ching very well. I think the character's inner strength did not reach its peak until the end of the series. The way she finally let go of both Mun Keung and Ah Lik took tremendous courage and strength, and Angie Chiu conveyed those qualities of the character well.

A final note: by the time that Angie Chiu portrayed Fung Ching Ching in THE BUND in 1980, she was already a veteran actress with seven years of experience under her belt. She wasn't some raw rookie overwhelmed by a difficult role. I think the TVB casting directors picked very wisely when they chose Ms. Chiu to play this character.

[chupah]

You can catch the whole serie in cantonese/mandarin at tudou.com.
http://www.tudou.com/playlist/playin...2&iid=16568189

[Duncan59000]

Hi, I'd like to buy this series on DVD, which have been released last summer and I have read some reviews saying that the DVD version is still cut... My question is simple: is it cut or not? thanks

[Trien Chieu]

Hi, I'd like to buy this series on DVD, which have been released last summer and I have read some reviews saying that the DVD version is still cut... My question is simple: is it cut or not? thanks

I wonder why so many people love this series, I really hate this series. It's not the case that I dislike Adam. I like most of his series such as Chor Lau Heung, Kuet Gin Wong Shing, Instinct, The Prince's shadow, Blade Heart, and many many more. I wish Taiseng will eventually release his 1970s series in Vietnamese language. I like most of his series, but just can't stand Greed of Man. This series doesn't make sense to me especially Adam's character.

[LuNaR]

I wonder why so many people love this series, I really hate this series. It's not the case that I dislike Adam. I like most of his series such as Chor Lau Heung, Kuet Gin Wong Shing, Instinct, The Prince's shadow, Blade Heart, and many many more. I wish Taiseng will eventually release his 1970s series in Vietnamese language. I like most of his series, but just can't stand Greed of Man. This series doesn't make sense to me especially Adam's character.

what! adam's character in greed of man was unforgettable. this is probably his 2nd most famous series after chor lau heung

[almo89]

I wonder why so many people love this series, I really hate this series. It's not the case that I dislike Adam. I like most of his series such as Chor Lau Heung, Kuet Gin Wong Shing, Instinct, The Prince's shadow, Blade Heart, and many many more. I wish Taiseng will eventually release his 1970s series in Vietnamese language. I like most of his series, but just can't stand Greed of Man. This series doesn't make sense to me especially Adam's character.

Well this show does have plot holes at times, but everybody's performance was top notch. I still think it's one of the best from TVB because the writers were willing to try something controversial. For me it worked.

About the DVD, I have heard from some ppl that some parts were cut. I doubt whole scenes were cut like the VCD, but you may see some minor edits. I don't remember because when i was watching the original version on TV, i was so young. I did notice some odd edits. For example when Lau Ching Wan tells Michael Tao's family "Hum Ga Chan", on the DVD, they redubbed it to something else. On the VCD, the original voice of him saying that was kept. The odd thing is that when Adam Cheng says the same thing at the beginning of the show, they removed it on the VCD, but kept on the DVD. So overall really weird editing.

[NetDragon]

To me the most memorable thing about the Bund, is the constant addictive background melody that pops up now and then in dramatic scenes. I always looked forward to those scenes, unlike nowadays series that has no memorable melodies at all, just some random stupid background music.

While we are complaining about why TVB doesnt release The Bund on DVD, I can also add some spice, why the heck hasnt TVB released The Bund II & III yet. Not even vcd?! Why?! It would be like releasing Condor heroes without Return of condor heroes and Heaven sword & dragon sabre.

The copies of Bund II & III obviously havent rotten away in TVB's archive, see what I found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyIf-O02stA&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2cen...eature=related

What the hell is wrong with these TVB people?! Geez!

And who the heck released this DVD in 2006?
http://www.yesasia.com/us/the-bund-i...0-en/info.html

I had never heard of this release, I doubt it was TVB, maybe bootleg? Damn, I should have discovered it then and bought it