Review Detail

I'm gonna have to echo the previous review in affirming that it was only natural to think these consecutive narratives would fare so well interwoven together, but that this was probably not the ideal way to do it.

The pacing and tone is just all over the place. Even though the gorgeous cinematography of both films is quite complementary, the edit shifts too unceremoniously from burlesque to gritty, from verbose to atmospheric, from larger-than-life caricatures to anonymous faces. Huge chunks of expository dialogue are followed by endless sequences of minimalistic void. Not because the cuts are any jarring (they certainly are not), but because the narrative doesn't seem to follow any rearragement other than linearity. Changes of such nature can, of course, be originally employed to give some depth to any feature, and its something also expected to some degree in mashups like this. But it felt here like the films were constantly striving to give each other context, rather than playing out like a single narrative. I also wondered why some of the subplots were left intact (like Halifax and Chamberlain), when they were clearly dragging the pace and making these aforementioned tonal shifts obvious.

AV quality is great, looked and sounded pretty good. Also a great montage at the opening credits.

Thank you Mr. Lee / MapleFilms for satiating the curiosity of many fans like myself in seeing the inevitable feat of these films mixed together.