Last month, John over at Sinosplice wrote a great piece about the unnecessary waste that comes with a pirated DVD here in China. The topic was so relevant to life here in China that I'm surprised it hasn't been written about before (or maybe it has and I haven't noticed). I suggest you read the article yourself, but if you don't have time here's a simple summation of what was said: out of the $1 spent on a DVD here, probably 70 cents goes to pay for the six layers of wrappers and covers that you throw away the moment you take it home. It's annoying.
Over the past year or so, though, I've also taken notice of one more trend related to pirated DVD's that I actually enjoy - the back cover. I personally don't buy movies often, but when I do one of my favorite activities is to turn the case around and laugh at the back cover. Why? You have to see for yourself.
I know I'm supposed to be a grown adult, but I admit that I love Pixar and I couldn't wait to get a copy of the new Wall-E movie to watch. Thankfully the copy we eventually found was good viewing quality, but a close inspection of the back cover revealed that these "DVD pirates" don't really care about the cover's accuracy as long as it looks full. I've done you the service of highlighting the obvious mistakes:
- The Quotes: At the last minute, Martin Lawrence and Raven were added to the Wall-E cast after the film's release and they performed wonderfully. Apparently the folks at Disney were concerned about the lack of racial diversity within the human characters in the movie and wanted to make sure they were being politically correct. OR this is a quote for the wrong movie. Happens all the time.
- Proof of Purchase: Although I've never scanned the bar code when buying a Chinese DVD, it's absence would obviously make this copy less authentic. Then again, I just bought a Wall-E DVD with a National Treasure: Book of Secrets proof-of-purchase, so who really cares.
- The Description: Just as I was getting hooked by the description of this lovable robot's story, it suddenly ends with, "Transport yourself into a fascinating new..."...new...new what? WHERE THE HECK AM I GOING TO BE TRANSPORTED TO!!
- The Credits: The credits here confirm the suspicions I've had since I started reading this cover - whoever was designing this either has a secret crush on Raven-Symone or was watching her movie while working. Every word of the credits is for the movie "College Road Trip". Bravo, genius.
Of course I could go on about the bad spelling, the horrible grammar, or how "G-rated" movies mysteriously become "R-rated" movies, but it all just blends into one big mess of a cover.
My favorite part of it all? When I pop in the DVD I'm treated to that now commonly used 30-second infomercial telling me not to do the one thing I just did..."You wouldn't steal a car...you wouldn't steal money...so don't buy pirated DVD's!" Sorry guys, but I don't have any other options here.
7 Comments:
With the DVD "collections" of different movies they have around here, even the front cover can be a lot of fun... if you excuse the blatant backtracking to my own blog: http://www.positive-ecology.org/blog/2008/10/17/mash-ups/
There is one DVD store by my apartment that I do not go to often. All of their DVDs are wrapped in expensive looking boxes. A closer look reveals that all of the text on the back cover is just as bad as the one described in the article. The store insists on telling customers they are real and charge a high price. The one time I bought a DVD there, I told the store clerk that I can read English and I know its fake. She gave me over 50% off the price.
I wish I had saved some of my DVD covers--never knew so many dead actors were in recent movies. Also seen some hilarious negative reviews with Chinglish on the back cover.
@ Gerald - yea, I agree. It's always odd to find famous actor's heads spliced into another movie. In the case of the Matrix (in your post), it's actually a bit freaky.
@ Joel - Every store I know is pretty blatant about their piracy! I actually have an unspoken agreement with one vendor that if I buy a DVD and the quality isn't as good as I like (theatre copy, no English, etc.), I can return it without any questions. Kinda nice.
@ Matthew - those negative reviews are hilarious, and not just because they're in English. When you look at a movie and the review clearly states "This was the worst movie I ever saw", it's impossible not to laugh.
盗版光碟：
-Are you serious?(你是认真的吗?)
-No,I'm kidding.(不,我开玩笑的.)
电影上的翻译:
-你是席拉瑞丝吗?
-不,我是凯丁..
zhou...that's pretty funny! I didn't even think to look at the Chinese part to see if they were making mistakes there.
For those who may not have understood, zhou was pointing out another DVD back cover whose Chinese was supposed to say "Are you serious?" and "No, I'm kidding". Instead of a good translation, it was transliterated, meaning that the Chinese characters only make the sound "serious" and "kidding" with no actual meaning (i.e. when you read the Chinese it sounds like "ki-ding").
haha... I rarely look closely at the English texts, just Chinese. It summarizes the films quite accurate. The redundant packaging is for your collection purposes 'cause you can buy plastic boxes separately and fix the packaging onto the boxes. So that you can line them up on a shelf.
One of my friends is a huge fan and one side of his walls is jammed with boxes of films categorized according to genre, leading actor, director, and whether it has won a Oscar or not.
But in your case I guess it won't make quite a view for your apartment.:)
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