Once Upon A Time In China *spoilers*

[daveblackeye15]

I remember loving this in high school. It's a bigger buget epic that hit all the right notes. I mean the big final battle has Jet Li curbstomping his opponent really easily and yet its still a really great fight.

I might be way wrong here but I thought there were two cuts to this film, one longer and one shorter and I think my memory of the shorter version was completely re-written by the longer version. I may just be getting two films completely different. I can't help but think there is a martial art movie out there with an expanded cut and that's pretty uncommon.

[Jim H]

At 134 minutes, this is a pretty long film by Hong Kong standards.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a cut down western release, that happens today (Red Cliff, for instance) and has happened in the past (another John Woo film is a good example - Bullet in the Head has a cut down version, as well as a LOT of lost footage originally intended for inclusion).  You might try looking for old VHS dubbed copies - sometimes you'll find an interesting re-edit, though almost always the original is best.

[daveblackeye15]

Oh it's not so much I'm looking for the shorter version, not one bit since I got the impression I saw a longer cut and liked it more. This was just me thumb uping the film and asking if there was a cut version if I was remembering the wrong film.

I need to get the second one and third one, maybe I'd like the third more now.

[Archivist]

This is such a great movie.  It utterly blew me away when I saw it in the early 90's, along with some of Jet Li's other incredible movies like The Tai Chi Master and Fist of Legend.

It seems there was a US release that was cut by 35 minutes!  More details here:

http://movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=2732637

The cuts were to character scenes and a bit of the fight scenes, more to shorten the movie and make it more accessible to Western (read: dumb American) audiences.  It often galls me how American distributors change artwork, theme music and even translations just to make foreign movies sit better with Johnny Sixpack from Podunk.

[zelmo73]

At 134 minutes, this is a pretty long film by Hong Kong standards.  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a cut down western release, that happens today (Red Cliff, for instance) and has happened in the past (another John Woo film is a good example - Bullet in the Head has a cut down version, as well as a LOT of lost footage originally intended for inclusion).  You might try looking for old VHS dubbed copies - sometimes you'll find an interesting re-edit, though almost always the original is best.

The original versions of Hong Kong kung fu movies are often superior to their Western counterparts. Jackie Chan's The Legend of the Drunken Master (2000), released as Drunken Master 2 (1994) in Hong Kong, is a perfect example. The sound effects were better, and the English dubbing and Hollywood "realistic" sound effects really detracted from what made the original so much better. It was the exact same movie with the only major edit being where they cut out the original ending which had Jackie Chan becoming mentally retarded after drinking the kerosene in the foundry during the final fight scene; I guess they didn't want to offend American audiences with a comical retarded person or something, which I found silly because...well, you shouldn't drink kerosene. DUH!