I do agree with this..... Although the thing that saved the American adaptation from getting a thumbs down is the...... "YEEEEEAAAH!!!!" It's a good thing I don't remember most of the American adaptation since the Korean, as a Korean I vouch, IS A LOT MORE ENTERTAINING AS A STORY!!! PLEASE PEOPLE WATCH THE KOREAN VERSION FIRST!!!!

Why wouldn't anyone put Pat Morita in a dub of something like this? That is, a better, non-MTV version, though.

(Him and/or Mako!)

I hate hearing Tracy Morgan's voice coming out of Tracy Morgan, why would I want to hear it coming from an Asian kung fu star?

Oh well, at least Soulja Boy wasn't involved...

This was a shit-stain of a dubbing job. Comparable to the late 70's Kung Fu explosion, the original is far an away better than the hip hop dub.

In other words: STAY AWAY. It's not even good for a drinking game.

TheyJustDidntCare.

Seriously! Were the guys at MTV working on One Piece at the time?!

And what's with Tracy Morgan appearing in the most bizarre places?! I'd love to meet his agent!

I can't help but feel that by replacing a hard driving metal soundtrack with not only rap music, but rap artists was once more MTV's attempt to bury heavy metal and keep the more profitable rap music in the mainstream. People actually wonder why I hate this channel, because there's no substance to it! I used to refer to it as eMpTyV, until they brought the brilliant Daria series to DVD.

Don't worry. They may try to kill the metal... but the metal will live on...!

lol.

God, tho how I hate how american media screws with everything different from itself.

I love the movie VERSUS. It's weird, quirky, and exciting, with bits that come so hard out of left field that you end up in stitches. I introduced it to my brother last month, and he was wide-eyed at some action scenes, while others had us both laughing so hard we ended up in coughing fits. Thankfully, its managed to stay off the radar for demon-execs, I can't imagine the state they'd make of it if they ever found it.

I suppose the only good that comes from this sort of thing is that people find out about the original films (that's what happened with me and Fist of the North Star), but the rap angle would have kept me away from this movie permanently if not for this vid.

Well, I'm off to find the Korean version. Maybe when I've nothing better to do I'll source out the MTV one... maybe.

P.S. Love the "eMpTyV" bit, AQ, wish I'd thought of that!

I have to admit, having seen it, I found this movie ridiculously fun. Unfortunately, it didn't make a lick of sense.

My philosophy is that, no matter how good their intentions, when someone tries to adapt a Japanese, Korean or Chinese movie or whatever for American audiences and neglects or doesn't fully understand the source material, it always ends up going horribly wrong in some way or another.

Let's look at anime for an example, since, really, that's all I know. Did you guys know that their was an American made live-action Gundam movie? There was, G-Saviour, and guess what?...

It was terrible.

Truly. Sincerely. Awful. I did a whole video about how boring and pointless it was, but that's not the point.

The point is that, whenever we try to change what was originally written too much or make too many edits, we run the risk of going too far from the source material, and making a big mess.

Now, some might point to American adaptations of Shin-Chan and Sgt. Frog as proof of the contrary, and they would have a point. When FUNimation came out with the outrageously TV-MA Shin-Chan dub, I thought it was the best thing ever. It was called the best dub of its year for goodness sake, but as the second season rolled around, the show's writers had to keep getting more extreme in order stay fresh, even though, in doing so, they were getting further and further away from the source material. Pretty soon, DVD sales began to drop, and folks just lost interest. Similar things happened with Sgt. Frog too, although they stayed closer to the original dub with that one.

Okay, I really went off on a tangent just now. Sorry, but I still stand by my point. While I once believed it was okay to make these changes in order for the US to "make a series their own," I now realize that, when one goes too far, they run the risk of creating a huge disaster.

...Oh, I didn't even talk about One Piece. 4Kids mess that up pretty bad! They didn't even try!

I usually don't watch live action Japanese movies but now I'm kind of interested in a subbed version of this.

I do agree, Jang Yang is simply the best character in both versions.

The only thing I really fault the American version for is the final fight, as it drags on way too long in both edits of the film to me. Both versions are hilarious though, with the Korean one being more so. I can't help but wonder why they took out some of the over the top sound effects like when Tracy Morgan's character is running around after jumping out the window. It was hilarious in the Korean edit like that and he was the comedic character.

It's hard to beat Snoop Dog trying to sound like some sort of wisened sage in that weird scene with the showers and the water though.

Your math is off. It's 42 minutes, not nearly a half hour.

I first saw this movie at an anime con back in '02. Within a year, I bought an import copy [but as a Christmas gift to my roommate].
Two years later, I saw the title 'Volcano High' on the video shelf at Target for $13. This was the first I'd heard of MTV's recut/dub job. But it was worth the price of owning because the exact same copy as that import I'd purchased was on the flip side of the DVD.
I will admit to viewing the MTV version once for curiousity's sake. My reaction was pretty much the same.

Oh man. The MTV version of that looks hilariously bad. I have to see it now.

As a side note, there are several good hip-hop songs (and even a few good rap songs) that could have been used in a kung-fu flick. However, from what you were saying and showed us, I get the feeling that none of them were used.

I've never seen either versions- I hope I can find the Korean and English version XD LITTLE JOHN'S VOICE AMUSES ME TOO

I actually like hip hop though; it's one of those genres of music that you don't *need* to listen to the lyrics in order to enjoy it. (I don't listen to much of it lately though- after a while new music starts to sound the same;;;; )

Sounds like you were just too white for this version, Marzgurl. :D

There is a DVD version that is just the Korean version with English subtitles and completely region free. It too was called "Volcano High" and came out before the MTV even aired it. The MTV version didn't name it that way. I found about this movie way before MTV dubbed it at a local comic book shop that was displaying it.

Then I found the MTV version on DVD at a game store. I bought it for 5 bucks because they didn't even have it registered at their store, so I own both. I even enjoyed both, but I was also disappointed in change of story and the Korean sense of humor they took out.

Also, the music ROCKS in the Korean version. Especially the ending credits.

I saw the dubbed version first, so that might color my views, but I really enjoyed the film and thought the dub was hilarious and great. I thought the hip hop fit quite well with the chaotic-ness of the characters and their fights.

I was pretty psyched to see the original version, and when I saw it... I was disappointed. For me, the original version is way too long and has badly told and meaningless subplots. And that rock and roll is ehhhhh.... okay. Really generic soundtrack, eugh. Its a REALLY cartoony, comic film which the dubbed version lightens up on (for the better).

I thought the dubbed version did quite well in cutting the bullcrap out of the film, giving it a single focus, and making it sweeter-short-to-the- point. AKA I prefer the dubbed version.

Lol, it looks like the rappers did an MST3K-style rifftrack on the thing, recorded it, and one of them decided "you know what, lets release the film over hear with our dubbing, call MTV". Which of course was followed by Lil John saying YEEEEEAAAAHHHH!!

This one more reason why I'm against dubbing like this and watch only orginal versions. They should had left this untouched with soundtrack and all. I don't understand why they need to make changes for american audience and add hip hop into everything.

he's a water bender?

I watched this when it first premiered on MTV. The MTV channel licensed movies are pretty terrible ("Monster Island" anyone?), though I was only interested in this because Koreans are awesome and I am a huge OutKast fan.

Juno the Magician? I mean Sorceress!


Oh my, Marzgurl's acting is so cute.

Alot of scenes in the American dub were also edited out of sequence too. They also tried making it like the people in it were mutants or magical, but it was really just one of those shonen-type stories where everyone in it has chi powers for some reason.

There's also a Japanese edition of this with some scenes left out.

One of my favorite martial arts movies *A* I always thought it was inspired by Tenjou Tenge.

One tip Marzgurl, since I see you've started to do more characters in your show. I think you should develop them a bit more "the sorcerer" seemed kinda silly, you should try some different voices and acting with that.

I love hip hop but i like the original version of volcano high :-)

A bunch of rap artists dubbing over koreans, this ought to be interesting... whats that you say, they cut out all the exposition, AND screw around with the scene order, AND say screw continuity....ok this will be awful

I'll give Kung Pow credit it was a Parody(I need to see it again only saw it once) and it was better then this english shit...Hell The Funimation Dub of the Death Note films were well done were the english voice actors cared representing their live action counterparts of their original anime roles(though admittedly it was weird that the original english work remained intact) but they did care...unlike well...this crap

This movie sounds interesting as heck. xD

YEAHHHHH!!!

The MTV is best as a gag movie and should be viewed and/or looked at for laughs. Not to be taken seriously. The original was fantastic as is most unaltered movies for their native countries. But thanks for reminding me about this movie. I completely forgot about it. Now I shall go search for it.