Watched the latest cut of this fanedit. First off, I loved it, it's one of my all time favourite fanedits.
The edits are almost all invisible and the film is improved beyond all recognition by the trims... and this was already a great film. The new toilet-block intro has so much impact, that was lacking from the original. A few people have called 'The Raid 2' the best action-movie ever but for me the original cut wasn't quite that, because there was so much in-action. But with all that removed, this fanedit just might be the best action-film ever, certainly the best martial-arts/car-chase film anyway.
It's surprising how seemlessly the undercover-cop plot line unhooks itself from the narrative in TOG's hands (Or maybe not suprising given that it was tacked on in a script rework). Now it feels like the wall-to-wall action thrills of the first movie but still retains just enough of the interesting plot and well drawn character scenes to leave us emotionaly invested in the outcomes of the various fight-scenes.
Even in this unfinished state, it already replaces the original cut in my book.
All that ^ aside, I've got a few ideas of how it can be made even better...
00.02.60 -
Music cuts out very abruptly as you move from the toilet-block to the canteen. This was the only cut I noticed at all in the whole edit, so it's a shame it's one of the first obvious cuts and stands out so badly.
Fix this one spot and you've got a 10/10 from me on audio-visual editing. I've no idea why you did this slow fade on the visuals and audio, as the original soundtrack has the music perfectly timed to end on a drum-beat/hard-cut to another scene. Just copy this but go to the canteen instead of the cell. Then it'll be perfect.
00.13.58 -
I really don't like the font style you've chosen for the title, it looks very digital. IMO it wants to looks gritty 1970s kung-fu grindhouse-ish. It's difficult to describe. I'll have a go at coming up with something.
Also I don't like where the title is placed. 14 minutes in is too far and as it immediately preceeds the "Two years later" title it feels odd. A better place would be after the toilet-block fight. Perhaps cut to the title on the drum beat from the soundtrack that I mention above.
Plus it would have more impact if you added a translation of the title. Either by a making it a bracketed part of the onscreen title or having it as a part of the subtitles. My researches lead me to believe it can translate as many things including "Hoodlum", "Gangster", "Scum", "Bully", although "Thug" seems to be what was intended.
00.20.11 -
The undressing scene doesn't work anymore. There is none of the tension from knowing he is an undercover cop, so the tense minute while they size him up feels wierd. I had a go at removing it rather than explain what I mean...
(Password: fanedit.org)
^ So all I did was cut from Iko just standing up, to the last move of him turning round (The only cut is at 00.20 but I uploaded a bit of context footage). Hopefully it looks like he is just shifting his weight as he straightens up. Also I slowly faded up the music while overdubbing Bangun's words. I think the music now plays as if it is underscoring the excitment of him finally being on the inside rather than tension. Plus I think the scene in this short form feels like a symbolic rebirth moment, past is gone with the old cloths, now the future. Or maybe I'm reading to much in to it
.
A few other thoughts...
- The film's aspect-ratio is thinner than on my Blu-Ray (So the very tops of people's heads are missing). This is probably just a difference in the DVD source and nothing you've done but I thought I'd mention it.
- You really need to go for a higher filesize/bitrate when you release the finished version of this. With the frenetic pace of the action some visual-noise and compression is inevitable with a 2.7GB file IMO. Maybe something up around 4GB would work better for this film.
- The subtiles are on screen for very short times. I could just read them but I had to concentrate to not miss them. It helped that I knew the film already. People watching your cut first, might be reaching for the rewind button to go over the dialogue again.
- You mentioned some mastering problems with the DVD? When I went to edit that clip above ^ your *.mp4 was being all wierd and crashing the render. Even when I converted it to another file and edited that, it still crashed (Eventually I found a way). It plays fine in VLC-Media-Player which is the main thing, but you should be aware that there seems to be something odd about it?
Sorry for the wall of words! (I'll discuss your new test clip in a seperate post)