When a non-English language film is prepared for distribution in English speaking territories, often an English language dub is prepared to cater to a broader audience that might not want to read subtitles. This is an abhorrent practice to many film fans, but hey, if it gets more people watching better movies, it can't be all bad. The main problem is that often, for pacing reasons and simplicity's sake, the original dialogue is not directly translated and many of the nuances of the original script are lost for convenience's sake. Usually when it comes time to release that film on home video, the DVD publisher will furnish the dub as well as the original language track with subtitles following the original dialogue. However, in many cases the subtitles will follow the English language dub rather than the original dialogue; hence, dubtitles.
Dragon Dynasty's Hard Boiled was such a title. There has been considerable backlash among the film geek* community, and hopefully, if this title is indeed coming to Blu-ray in December, they will address the issue. The picture on the old disc was great and there were some pretty cool extras, but that one little thing sparked conniption fits across the country on internet forum after internet forum. Since the film geek community is their main demographic, and they hardest to please, let's hope Dragon Dynasty does us right this time around.
Then again, this may not happen.
My fingers are crossed, though! Roll on Hard Boiled Blu-ray!
Look for it sometime around December 14.
* Despite my earlier insistence that my language was not intended to offend, I managed to offend. So I softened the language a little bit. Many apologies to those who may have felt I was condescending or dismissive, no such insult was intended.