Changes To The American Version
In its release in 2001, Miramax made several changes that the company felt would make it more marketable to American audiences:
- Since most Americans are unfamiliar with the story of Wong Fei-hung, his name was removed from the title.
- The subtitles were tailored to diminish the political context of the story.
- Some scenes were trimmed to tone down the violence.
- Originally, some fight scenes had been sped up in places through undercranking. The U.S. release slowed these scenes down to a more normal pace.
- Several comedic scenes, particularly ones interspersed in the fight scenes, were removed to give the fights a more serious feel. Although such comedic devices are common in Hong Kong cinema, it was felt they might have seemed odd to an American audience.
- A new soundtrack was composed that emulated the classical score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but in doing so the famous Wong Fei-hung theme was eliminated.
- New sound effects were dubbed for the fighting to make them more realistic (as opposed to the more traditional exaggerated Hong Kong sounds).
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