Pure Kino Bootlegs at The Chinese Mall

You have been to the Chinese Mall right?  It's full of fake phones, fake shoes, fake everything.  There might be an original in there somewhere. You just have to look. Bootleg DVD's also abound.  When you pass by the vendor she says, "Sir, you like movie?"  All the movies they have available are just common dreck I can get from the internet. In fact you can get practically ANY film from the internet.  Who needs physical copies?

This is all a preface to say that in the Chinese Mall in Bacolod, 888, there is a DVD/Blu-ray shop that is selling pure Kino and I am very impressed by their offerings despite the fact that they are all fakes. Let me show you just a sample.

To begin with we have the Stanley Kubrick collection. This is all of his films on 2 Blu-ray discs. Stanly Kubrick is the man who filmed the Apollo moon landing and filmed Barry Lyndon by candlelight! What an auteur. A real artist. But look at the bottom of the box.  It says "1080P Beyond High Definition." There is nothing beyond 1080P.  That is as high definition as you can get aside from 4K Ultra HD. Just about every film for sale in this shop had that "Beyond High Definition" tag.  This collection is not original and is fake.

Next up we have the Hayao Miyazaki collection spread across three discs.  Probably there are more than three discs since there are about 12 movies in each box. There is also a huge problem with this collection which screams bootleg. That is the films included are all Studio Ghibli and not exclusively Miyazaki films. Now he did found that studio but he did not direct all the films they produced. The gibberish translation on the cover also hints that these films are not genuine.

"Classic Works of Injury." I do not know what those Japanese characters actually mean but "classic works of injury" is not it.  There is a discussion about these particular bootlegs on Reddit. A good collection nevertheless.

This all 7 American Pie films.  You read that right. All 7 of them. This is not necessarily pure Kino but it is very interesting and you won't get it from regular bootleggers. This box lacks the "Beyond High Definition" tag on the bottom of the box.

Here we have a collection of films from Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. I have seen all these films.  The first one is 120 Days of Sodom and it is the most reprehensible film ever made. Bar none. Nothing compares to the filth is this movie. It also has nothing to do with the other three listed. There is in fact no Tetraology of Life which is how I can tell this is fake. The 1001 Nights, The Decameron, and The Canterbury tales are all part of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life.

Although the outside of this box screams bootleg the inside does not reflect that.

There are 4 discs.  One for each movie. Each disc has their own artwork and it looks legit. I did not preview them but I bet the image looks good because they are probably ripped from the original DVD's.  

Finally we have a 4 disc set of the classic BBC series Civilisation. Who will buy this? Who cares enough to buy this? I am simply amazed this TV show is being stocked. You can watch it on Youtube. In episode one we are told:

Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity. Enough to provide a little leisure. But far more, it requires confidence. Confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, confidence in one's own mental powers. The way the stones of that bridge are laid is not only a triumph of technical skill, but it shows a vigorous belief in discipline and law. Energy, vitality - all the great civilisations or civilising epochs, have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversation, and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation but they are not what makes a civilisation. And a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid.

How can Filipinos relate to that?

This TV series from 1969 is all about Western European art and architecture. A good series. The box it comes in leads me to think it could be original. The vendor did say the Blu-rays where this one was were all originals but I have my doubts.

Having said all that let me clarify what I mean when I say these are all likely fakes. These movies are most likely pirated copies burned to a disc and cleverly printed with legit artwork on the top of the disc. The Pasolini and Miyazaki collection's certainly are. Contrast that with regular bootleg DVD's which do not have any type of artwork on the disc so you have to look hard to figure out the top and bottom. The box artwork, at least for Kubrick, is the same as that of the original. Over all these fake Blu-rays are well done versions of the real thing. A lot of thought and work went into their production. You aren't getting merely a pirated movie burned to a disc. You are getting a very lovely package to go with it.

The whole enterprise is impressive to me. Somewhere in China someone is bootlegging art films and shipping them to the Philippines. Surely it must cost a lot to make them but then again there must be a market or else they would not be made.