Last week, I noticed that yesasia is now offering more Chinese Classic War Movies, such as: SPARKLING RED STAR, SECRET DRAWING, REID/RAID?, EIGHT WOMEN DIE A MARTYR, STORY OF LIUBO, ANXIOUS TO RETURN (with Siqin Gowa).

I moderately enjoyed INGENIOUSLY TAKING MOUNT HUA (but hated the "brainman" subs) and haven't seen FIGHTING NORTH AND SOUTH yet.

All the DVDs listed above have English subs and quite cheap, so are there any true classics among the bunch? SPARKLING RED STAR cover caught my eye because it features a kid on the cover and I'm imagining a Communist version of Sik Siu Lung kicking people oppressing butt.

Yesasia link

There are also movies more in the series yet to be added to YesAsia's catalogue:

http://www.cnave.com/topic/catalog.php?typ...0&page=1&v=text

These have hit the mainland video shops in Hong Kong too and are selling very cheaply so I picked up a few, despite not being overly thilled by FIGHTING NORTH AND SOUTH. The title of EIGHT WOMEN DIE A MARTYR was enough to catch my attention but it'll be a couple of weeks before I get round to seeing it. The Red Movies/Classic Chinese War Movies collection also includes the co-production BETHUNE: THE MAKING OF A HERO (Donald Sutherland, Helen Mirren) but it's completely in Putongua with optional English/Chinese subtitles.

Tim.

Oooh, thanks for that head's up, Tim. EIGHT WOMEN does sound tempting. TUNNEL WARFARE sounds intriguing and STAR-SPARKLING TONIGHT looks like it may be a war romance. And they all seem to have DTS audio too? I don't think I have the stamina to wade through all those titles but I'd like to find a gem or too in that mix. Knowing myself, I won't be able to resist getting a few of those titles. At the least, I figure I can pick up some dumbed down civil war history a la the old Classic Comics series.

BTW, how were the subs in FIGHTING NORTH, comparable/better/worse than MT HUA?

Can't compare them to MT HUA's yet but I found FIGHTING's subtitles adequate for following the film, despite the language being far from perfect.

Tim.