"Kung Fu Hustle" w/AnyDVD

You have the original Chinese release, which is slightly different from the American Theatrical release... and has no protection at all.

It's not "illegal" in the sense that it's perfectly legal to own. On the other hand, were the folks who sold it to you licensed importers? Who knows.

I was released by Colimbia pictures and it didnt have any chinese on the cover, on the dvd there there trailers like suspect zero and anacondas. I think that is the almost the exact same expect it was on a region 3, thats all.
as i said above, the only difference was that the region was different. O yea, it DOES have protection.

Here the Anydvd report on my disc:
Summary for drive F: (AnyDVD 5.4.1.1)
Drive (Hardware) Region: 1

Media is a Data DVD.
Booktype: dvd-rom (version 1), Layers: 2 (opposite)

Video DVD (or CD) label: KUNG_FU_HUSTLE
Media is CSS protected!
Video Standard: NTSC
Media is locked to region(s): 3!

RCE protection not found.
DVD structure appears to be correct.
Structural copy protection not found.
Autorun not found on Video DVD.
Bad sector protection not found.
Emulating RPC-2 drive with region 3!

this is the cover of my dvd (sry, i cant find anyone the is larger and i cant find the back either )

You'll note that the subtitles are different in a couple places. One place is when the ring-fist guy is dying and he yells out in English "WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO?" the landlord says "you make no sense", whereas in the American theatrical version the landlord says "why don't you speak in Chinese?". Minor differences in subtitles only.

We assume that all discs have CSS, it doesn't count as "protection" any more. By "protection" I mean RCE or structure protection (Arccos, etc.) as a general rule.

I, too, own this release - since I loved the film so much I could not wait for the American DVD release, I bought the Chinese release months ago.

lolx

i own the R1 US version of KFH...different cover...

...what's interesting is that Shaolin Soccer (distributed in N.America by Miramax) contains both the US and Chinese versions of the film...surprising considering the history of Miramax "butchering" Asian film releases in NA...

Well, truthfully there are so FEW differences in Kung Fu Hustle that it makes little or no sense to include the original Chinese version. In fact, I think that the video/dialogue track is identical. Only the english subs are different. (Wouldn't know about the English dialogue, if there even is any... I don't wreck films like that.)

Shaolin Soccer, on the other hand... entire SCENES are missing from the US Theatrical release. Or rearranged, or shortened, or out of order. But on the other hand the US Subtitles make no sense. God, it was just painful to watch that movie in EITHER version. And don't get me started on the English dub track. AIYEEEE!

you didn't like SS Gurm?

Hi Gurm,

I just tried Kung Fu Hustle Region 1 Widescreen:

AnyDVD detects Arccos protection correctly.
AnyDVD Drag'n' Drop to Harddisk: No Problems.
AnyDVD & CloneDVD: No Problems.
AnyDVD & DVDDecrypter: Reports a lot of pack header errors (that's normal, 'cause AnyDVD replaces the errors with null-sectors), but otherwise no problems (both ElbyCDIO and SPTI modes).
BTW, AnyDVD does its magic in SPTI as well, DVDDecrypter demonstrates it. (Still says "not decrypted")
Latest DVDDecrypter seems to "know" AnyDVD, it doesn't show pack header errors, if you leave structural protection removal enabled, but I don't know, if there are any "side effects".

To make a long story short: No idea what went wrong, when you tried to rip it with AnyDVD & DVDDecrypter.

Another note: The movie is so cool! I love it! But SONY has managed to release a defective DVD - again. It does not play correctly in Windows Media Player and Zoom Player. As soon as you navigate with the navigation slider, both players "hang". Sigh.

@SONY: PLEASE FIX YOUR MASTERING SOFTWARE! I DON'T WANT TO BUY DEFECTIVE DVDS ANYMORE!!!

@ALL: If you use CloneDVD "copy dvd" and rip to harddisk (DVD+R DL size setting = no compression), the errors are "repaired", navigation works correctly.

@SONY: IT IS A SHAME, THAT I HAVE TO RIP THE MOVIE BEFORE WATCHING IT. DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!!

I simply stopped after getting a bajillion pack header errors. I wasn't aware that this is "normal" behavior. I shouldn't see ANY errors when DVD Decrypter is running in file mode with structure checking turned off and ELBYCDIO, should I?

No, you will see the pack header errors for the parts, where AnyDVD has replaced the read errors. This is logical, if you think about it for a moment.
The DVD had intentional read errors in the movie. The region where the errors are located is never played, of course. DVDDecrypter will not read the errors, if its "structural protection removal" option is enabled. It will replace the error sectors with empty data (all zeroes).
AnyDVD does some magic, that programs like CloneDVD or Shrink don't even want to read the error zone. But if you do read error sectors, AnyDVD delivers empty sectors (all zero) instead, just like DVD Decrypter does.
If you disable "structural protection removal" in DVDDecrypter, it will try to read the error sectors as well. AnyDVD will deliver zeroes, DVDDecrypter sees this and complains "pack header error", but it will leave these sectors alone. This is GOOD and not a problem! These sectors will never be played or copied anyway. You safely can ignore this warning on Arccos protected disks with AnyDVD running in the background.

Ok, IIRC there's an "ignore pack header errors" in DVD Decrypter, I'll turn that on.

Your version is *totally* differant
The R1 version has structural copy protection & bad sectors
The R3 version would be alot easier to copy