Original subtitles

Hi, I'm Steve Lawson, filmmaker and long-time scholar of Jackie Chan movies.

I'm going to be taking a look at the differences

between the US and the Hong Kong edit of The Protector.

Some of the differences are quite well known, like the end fight,

but some of them are a little bit more subtle and quite interesting.

So let's take a look.

So we'll begin right at the beginning with the opening titles.

And the interesting thing about the opening titles of the Chinese version

is sort of the difference in who gets credited first and who doesn't.

So, and first of all, we've got the two different Golden Harvest logos, of course.

But if you look at the Chinese version, which

is on the right of the screen, obviously,

that credit essentially matches up, says Golden Harvest,

because it's the same as the Chinese version.

So if you look at the Chinese version, which is on the right of the screen,

then here, instead of a James Glickenhaus film,

we get a credit that says sort of leading actor Jackie Chan.

So Jackie gets credited first here.

And we also get that little extra subtitle there, which says New York,

because I guess American audiences could easily recognise

that this post-apocalyptic landscape is meant to be New York.

And then for the title of The Protector, those Chinese

characters there say, it says Wei Long Mang Tam,

which essentially means something like powerful detective

or powerful cop, which I think is a pretty good title.

It's a good title for this, better than The Protector, which means nothing.

It has no relevance to the film.

But now, as the credits go on, you'll see on the English language side,

various people like casting and composer and all these people are getting credited.

On the Chinese side, it's all the Chinese actors are getting credited.

So Moon Lee gets a credit, Sally Yeh, Peter Yang and

Roy Chow all get credited in these opening titles,

instead of these various sort of crew members that you see in the film.

In the American version.

And also, now you'll see that the two screens

have sort of gone out of sync with each other.

That's because the Chinese version has been cut slightly quicker.

The shots are shorter and they've just cut that

little bit quicker to pace the scene up a little bit.

And that happens quite a lot throughout the film.

There's about 10 seconds in difference in running time, actually,

between the two versions of this scene, if you let them play out in full.

Just a quickie here.

Look at that.

Hideous day for night effect that's been put on the American version there.

And also look at that quick cut.

We've faded straight away to the guys arriving at the bar,

whereas the American version just sits on that establishing shot for much longer.

And that's something that happens an awful lot in this film.

The establishing shots are really, really long in the American version.

But yeah, just to point out, look at that day for night, that blue tint.

It looks awful.

In fact, I've never seen that before on previous versions of the film.

It's just on this remaster.

So someone's decided that was a good idea.

Now we're going to get our first little piece

of re-shot footage from the Hong Kong re-shoots.

And this shot here, I believe this was shot in Hong Kong.

You can tell it's a re-shoot.

Jackie's hair isn't quite right and his jacket doesn't look quite right.

That little piece there was added basically because if you watch the original edit,

and I've always thought this, this whole chase sequence is really weird

because the bad guy is miles ahead of Jackie running around random locations.

And yet somehow Jackie's character...

which seems to know exactly where he's gone and gives chase all the way there,

all the way to the harbour, despite the bad

guy clearly not being in sight at any point.

So I think they obviously decided to add that

little bit where basically a passerby sort of says, "Oh yeah, he went that way.

" And it doesn't really solve the problem because

it's still evident that the bad guy is not in sight

at any point during this chase.

But I guess it was just a little attempt they

made there to kind of slightly improve this chase.

The other thing they've done is, again, they've cut it much tighter.

So the chase lasts about 30 seconds longer, this whole

sequence in the American edit compared to the Hong Kong edit.

So again, that sort of just tightening up of the pace

is something we'll see again and again throughout this.

And speaking of tightening up the edit, this boat

chase sequence is the primary example of that.

This actually runs considerably shorter.

You can see already the two screens are out of sync.

Although surprisingly they didn't cut out that

shot where you can see the shadow of the... camera helicopter, which always bugs me.

I would have cut that out, personally.

But yeah, straight away you can see both of these two

screens, the left and the right, are totally out of sync

because a huge amount has been cut out from the Chinese version.

In fact, in total, it's a minute and a half has been

removed if you run the whole scene side by side.

And bearing in mind this is an action sequence, a

minute and a half is a heck of a lot of running time

to be able to trim out and still essentially leave the entire scene intact.

You know, there's... a minute and a half gone but there's basically nothing missing,

which is, you know, very interesting when you think about it.

In my opinion, what I suggest is that I think the director, and possibly the editor,

were just so in love with this footage of this

boat chase that they just wanted to use all of it.

And it's understandable because it's great footage

this, it's an amazing sequence when you think, you know,

it's a really big budget action scene, like something out of a

Bond movie, you've got speedboats, helicopters, New York harbour.

It's great stuff.

And I just think they were so in love with this footage that

they just wanted to extend this sequence longer

and longer and use every little bit of footage.

Especially towards the end when, you know, it's been

set up, we know what's going to happen, you know,

the helicopter rope's coming down and the boats

are heading towards each other and we think,

"Ah yeah, we know he's going to ram the boat and jump out, you know, just in time.

" And it's so telegraphed that there's sort of

the build-up to that stunt goes on for so long

that you're kind of bored by the time it actually happens.

One thing I've noticed in other James Glickenhaus

films, whenever there's going to be a big stunt,

he just spends ages telegraphing what's going to happen

and setting it up and setting it up and setting it up.

So yeah, I would say this sequence much improved in the Chinese edit.

And that's not the case for everything, you know, I'm not going

to sit here and just bash everything that James Glickenhaus did,

I know a lot of people do, I don't think that's

fair, I think this is actually a great movie.

But yeah, this is certainly one sequence where it really should have been trimmed.

But yeah, this is certainly a great movie.

But yeah, this is certainly a great movie.

I'm also just going to point out an interesting shot

that's just coming up now when they lower the rope down.

I'm also just going to point out an interesting shot

that's just coming up now when they lower the rope down.

Coming up, coming up, coming up.

This shot here, clearly not Jackie Chan.

Even though it's a full face shot looking down into the camera.

I never noticed that because on VHS you can't really tell.

I believe that's Mars doing the stunt.

Jackie's long time double from the 80s.

And also if you freeze frame before the explosion,

there's a really bad dummy on that boat that's very funny.

But yeah.

And also if you freeze frame before the explosion,

there's a really bad dummy on that boat that's very funny.

Very much tightened up in the Chinese version.

Okay, this is just a short one.

You'll see that the Chinese version cuts now directly to the police station.

Whereas in the original version, the American version,

there's this funeral scene for Jackie's partner.

Which I guess if you're going to lighten the tone of

the movie, it makes sense to cut out a funeral scene.

I guess that's the reason.

Yes, sir.

I called this section travelogue because this is a scene

where obviously Jackie and his partner travel to Hong Kong.

And in the U.S. version, we get this extremely long aerial

shot looking out over Hong Kong, which is very nice.

But it does go on for quite a long time.

And after getting that aerial shot finally over and

done with, it's still going, still going, still going.

Eventually, you know, we cut to the airplane shot

that we've already seen in the Chinese version.

And this is a scene where Jackie and his partner travel to Hong Kong.

This is a great shot of this plane coming down over Hong Kong.

It's a beautiful shot.

But do we need to see it for quite this long?

Maybe not.

Still going.

And then after enjoying this lovely shot of the airplane, any

minute now, we're going to get another shot of the airplane.

Still waiting.

Here we go.

Let's just taxi around the airport for a bit.

So, yeah, this is just some really unnecessary B-roll footage.

Again, I think it's nice footage.

It looks good.

And I think, again, James Glicknash just thought, this looks great.

It looks big.

Big budget.

Looks glossy.

Let's put it all in.

But it really slows down the story.

Okay, next up is the famous massage parlor scene.

And this is the first time, actually, that we're

seeing censorship requirements coming into play.

You know, this scene's been cut for that reason.

And I have to say, the editing job they've done on this scene is amazing.

Because if you were to watch the Chinese version

with no knowledge of the American version,

you would have no idea there was anything amiss with this scene.

It flows perfectly well.

None of it looks choppy or weird.

And yet they've actually cut out this quite

extensive sequence with the naked massage girl.

But it's really, really well done.

It's a very, very good piece of editing, this.

As I say, you would just have no idea anything was amiss.

And that can't necessarily be said for some of

the other scenes that we're going to see later on, where nudity has been removed.

Okay, a very minor but important change in this fight scene.

It's going to come up.

I call it the hanging basket.

If you've watched the American version before, you probably might have noticed,

especially if you're interested in sort of filmmaking and shot composition,

there's a shot coming up that's just absolutely awful.

And I'm amazed that anybody would even think of

putting a camera in the spot where they put it.

It's the next shot coming up now, where Jackie is basically there,

hidden behind a hanging basket, and you can't see him.

I mean, what a terrible shot.

And you'll see in the Chinese version, if you rewind this and watch again,

the Chinese version cuts that shot out completely.

The other difference in this scene is the Chinese version is slightly better.

It's a bit more fast-paced.

They've just cut it a little bit quicker.

Okay, now we're going to start to see some of the extensive reshoots

or additional shoots that were done by Jackie after the film had officially wrapped.

And they start with this little scene here, which I think looks absolutely fine.

This blends in just fine, I think, with the American footage.

This actor is in the film anyway.

They've just basically expanded his role.

And the way that's shot looks absolutely fine to me.

Now, we get into the whole Sally Yeh subplot.

And I've sped this up to whiz through it,

because there's about seven or eight minutes of this now.

And in my opinion, this just puzzles me, because it doesn't seem necessary.

And the way it's shot, the way it looks, everything about it,

just is quite clearly a standard mid-'80s Hong Kong movie.

No effort made whatsoever to blend this in,

either in terms of the visual style, the tone,

the way it's shot, the way it's put together.

You know, this could easily be sort of deleted

scenes from My Lucky Stars or something,

especially this fight scene, which is just bizarre

and not actually very good, in my opinion.

So, yeah, I've got to say, I'm not a fan of all this.

I can appreciate they wanted to lighten the tone of the film,

make it feel more like, you know, a Jackie Chan movie, in inverted commas.

But I don't think this is well done.

OK, so having very briefly sort of gone back to the American version

and sort of timeline, I guess you could say,

we're now into a huge section of footage that's all from the reshoots.

There's basically... I've sped this up so we can get through it,

but there's basically a 15-minute-long sequence now,

entirely comprising new footage that's not in the American version.

The most interesting thing to note, I guess,

is that Bill Wallace appears in these reshoots.

He's the only one of these sort of Western actors

who is hired to come back for the reshoots,

although quite a lot of the Chinese cast appear again.

And, again, I'm not entirely sure

what the necessity was to change all these elements and reshoot all these elements.

Because, essentially, as you might say, the two

timelines, the US version and the Hong Kong version,

do actually converge again later on, and we end up in the same place.

You know, Moonly's father's character still dies.

The extra characters here just disappear.

As you'll see in a minute, they just go to the airport and fly away and they're gone,

which conveniently ends that little subplot.

I'm really not sure what the purpose of all this is.

I just find it very, very weird.

It's almost like watching a Godfrey Ho film.

If anyone's familiar with how Godfrey Ho would edit little bits

from other films together to make a new film,

it's just a bizarre experience watching this

and seeing these new scenes that really don't match at all

just kind of stuck in there.

Now, there's been a lot of work done on this next set of scenes

to try and hide all the nudity.

Straight away, there's been a cut there.

But more interestingly, this here now is reshot footage

and quite possibly a reconstructed set altogether

because all of this stuff was blown up at the end of the scene.

So probably what's happened is they've rebuilt all this little set,

reshot this stuff.

That's original footage just there, that POV shot.

But now this is all the reshot footage

and essentially they've replaced the naked women

with a bunch of guys in lab coats, which is fair enough.

I think it works pretty well and blends in absolutely fine.

You wouldn't notice anything was amiss so far.

Now things get a little bit more interesting.

Again, there's more reshot footage.

Jackie looks down here and his point of view shows

instead of naked women, these guys here.

This is reshot and I think that is supposed to be

the Laura Shapiro character tied up in that cage.

But since they didn't have the actress anymore,

all you can see is a bit of a vague shape of a person with some rope around them.

By the way, I've blurred out the nudity on this edit just to save us all some trouble

when this disc gets released.

And you're going to see some more reshot footage just in a moment.

Essentially the same stuff.

They've taken out the scenes with the naked women

preparing the drugs and replaced it with this stuff.

People in lab coats doing kind of the same work.

And again, I think it's a good thing

and I think it's perfectly reasonable, this stuff.

It's not quite as stylishly shot

as the original footage.

But in my view, it blends in pretty well.

And again, if you were watching this

in the Chinese version,

you wouldn't particularly notice that this stuff had been reshot and stuck in there.

I think it looks absolutely fine.

Although the lighting's not quite as good.

Okay, I call this wigs and optical zooming because here's

where we are getting into some more interesting techniques.

I'm going to see if I can commentate on this live as it goes along.

There's lots of quick little reshot bits that have been stuck in here

to hide the nudity.

It's very clever.

So this is original footage.

This is new footage.

Beats these guys up.

New footage.

That's not Danny Aiello there.

That's a Chinese stuntman in a wig.

That's why I freeze-framed that.

This is new footage.

Original footage.

And I freeze-framed this to show you this has been optically zoomed.

That's why it looks a bit fuzzy

to crop off the nudity at the left of the picture.

I guess they had no choice but to use this.

This is new.

New footage there to hide the joint.

And now this is original footage again

that's not been cropped.

So just in that little sequence there, a really interesting little mixture

of new footage and zooming and original footage to kind of hide all the nudity.

And then the rest of the scene plays out essentially with, again,

just the nude shots removed but most of it's just kind of the same as it was before.

And it plays pretty well.

The editing looks fine to me

and the rest of the scene all plays out fairly well.

Okay, so just briefly, look at the Chinese version on the right of the screen.

Look at the background behind Jackie there.

And then wait for it.

Now look at the background behind Jackie.

She's in a completely different place.

But having said that, this end fight, they've done a really good job here.

Apart from the slight differences in some of the backdrops

and Jackie's hair slightly changing from shot to shot,

what they've done is taken the original end fight as shot by James Flickenhaus

and they've just added lots of extra inserts here and there mixed in.

And I think they've done a great job.

It really blends in well and it just elevates what was originally

a pretty good fight for a mid-80s American directed film.

This was already a pretty decent fight scene

but they've just added that extra speed

and power with these inserted bits.

And I think what also helps is the sound effects.

When it's overdubbed with the Hong Kong style sound effects,

even the original American footage like this bit we're seeing here

actually feels pretty authentically like a Jackie Chan fight scene.

So all in all, this is a great fight scene.

It may not be quite up there with the very, very best of

Jackie Chan fights but I think it's very, very acceptable.

I really enjoyed this fight scene in the Chinese version.

I think it's great.

And lastly, the final sort of noticeable thing

is that the American version of this movie ends with a somewhat somber

country and western song which I think is a habit of director James Lickenhouse.

I've seen, I think it was The Exterminator, one of his other films and that also had

a sort of somber country and western song at the end.

So I think maybe that's just his style or maybe he likes that kind of music.

But obviously the Chinese version gives us the action theme

again which does, again, it gives you a different feeling.

You feel like you've just watched an exciting action film

whereas just generally the pace and the tone of the American version,

that song kind of fits more that slightly slower paced film,

that slightly more serious tone that that version had.

And there you go.

That's The Protector,

a tale of two movies.