Nothing funny about feldspar

We watched Drunken Master last night, and had a very odd experience. (In case you don’t know, this is an early Jackie Chan kung-fu comedy.) I prefer to watch kung-fu movies in Chinese with subtitles. Most dubbing is quite bad; often the voice doesn’t match the physiology of the actor and it distracts me.

However, this particular version (2002 Sony Pictures DVD), kept switching between English dubbing and Chinese — sometimes from line to line! It was a surreal experience to be hearing Chinese and then all of a sudden hearing “shithead.” It wasn’t until I looked at the box this morning and saw a half-peeled sticker that says (I think) “In parts of the original language audio, English is substituted where the original dialogue is missing.”

What I’m wondering is… why? The box says it’s remastered audio, and I understand the desire to have it all cleaned up, but to totally change the language?! The interesting thing is that neither IMDB nor wikipedia mention that this version has gaps (though the Amazon.com entry does).

I think I’ll get “The Legend of Drunken Master” — I hope the choreography is as beautiful and inventive, and I also hope the audio is better.