I was somewhat confused when I put "Chinatown Kid" in my Blu-ray player today. The disc contains three versions, called the American version (115 minutes), the Hong Kong version (91 minutes) and the German version (81 minutes). The disc offers no description of the differences between the versions, so I had to figure it out for myself.
Only the Hong Kong version has been remastered for Blu-ray. As is usual for
the Shaw Brothers films released by Koch Media, it's in the original Chinese
(presumably Cantonese) with subtitles in English or German. The German version
is dubbed into German with no subtitles. The American version is dubbed into
English or German, but there are also no subtitles.
Before I decided which version to watch, I did some research on the Web to
find out what the reason was for the three versions. Many fans of kung fu
films call the American version the original version, simply because it's the
longest version, but that's not true. In the 1970's it was common for Shaw
Brothers to make films for different markets. Different scenes were inserted
into different versions. In particular, German releases had less violence and
American releases had more nudity. None of the three versions of "Chinatown
Kid" can be called the original version, because they were released
simultaneously. Even the German version, the shortest of the three, contains
footage not found in the other two versions.
Several web sites compare the American and the Hong Kong versions, while
dismissing the German version as inferior. The main differences are:
1. In the American version the two main characters, Tang Dong and Yang
Jianwen, have approximately equal screen time. The Hong Kong version has less
scenes with Yang Jianwen, putting more emphasis on Tang Dong.
2. In the American version there are love scenes with Tang Dong. (I don't know who his lover is, because I didn't watch that version today).
3. There's a completely different ending. In the Hong Kong version Tang Dong
survives the final fight, in the American version he's killed.
I decided to watch the American version, but after five minutes the awful
English dubbing annoyed me so much that I swapped to the Hong Kong version.
Nevertheless, after the film was over I watched the final fight in the
American film out of curiosity. I was amazed. They were two completely
different fights, even though the same characters were taking part. In the
Hong Kong film the characters were fighting with their fists, in the American
version they were using knives. You can't get much more different than that.
The Hong Kong version also has an epilogue missing from the American version.
Tang Dong gets into a fight with a gang boss, who gets revenge by planting
cocaine on him and calling the police. He beats up the police and has to flee
the country. He stows away on a ship heading to America. He arrives in San
Francisco at the same time as Yang Jianwen. Both of them apply for a job in a
restaurant whose owner is prepared to hire illegal workers. They share a
bedroom above the kitchen and become close friends.
The Green Tiger gang collects protection money from the restaurant's owner.
The two friends see this and want to protect their boss, but he forbids them.
He threatens to fire them if they start a fight. Yang Jianwen agrees, but Tang
Dong beats up the gangsters in the street. His boss fires him immediately, but
the fight is witnessed by the boss of the rival White Dragon gang, who makes
him his personal bodyguard.
The two friends grow apart. Tang Dong rises in his gang's hierarchy and
becomes rich. Yang Jianwen has trouble continuing his studies while working in
the restaurant and turns to cocaine. The two men now look down on one another.
Yang Jianwen despises Tang Dong as a gangster, while Tang Dong criticises Yang
Jianwen for being a drug addict. What Tang Dong doesn't know is that the White
Dragon gang is selling drugs to his former friend.
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