Shadow Knows, The

An excellent fanedit!

I had, totally coincidentally, recently re-watched 1994's "The Shadow" for the first time in well over a decade and walked away feeling it was a movie that could be improved with a solid re-edit. Lo and behold, I stumble across "The Shadow Knows" and find Lapis Molari has addressed every issue I had with the film! The movie now starts where it logically should, in New York, and the at times painful prologue sequence has been excised and repurposed as dream sequences. Well done! The new opening credit sequence is creative and well-implemented, and considering I'd just seen the theatrical cut recently I was astounded at how seamless the cuts were.

As noted in the change notes, the most noticeable - for me, probably because I'd just seen the theatrical cut - are the cuts to the finale, which do make it feel a bit rushed but it works well despite that. My biggest nitpick is something the editor could do nothing about: the fanedit is in 1.78:1 aspect ratio as presented in the Shout Factory blu-ray and not the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Aside from that, excellent!

Definitely recommended!

An excellent bit of restructuring, showing off the magic of what opening in medias res can do for a film. The Alec Baldwin Shadow was never going to be a masterpiece, but Lapis Molari almost gets it there (the bitey knife out of some low-tier Monty Python routine and Penelope Ann Miller are, sadly, insurmountable problems). The film's desire to showcase Shadow's proto-Batman qualities instead of leaning more heavily into his radio presentation as more of a Thin Man/Sherlock Holmes-style detective with a knack for hypnosis doesn't do the character a lot of favours on the silver screen where the Dark Knight will always cut a more impressive visual, but at least Lamont Cranston makes a valiant go of it, and Lapis' edit centers on the best aspects of the movie, namely the cinematography, the genuinely charismatic and charming villain and Peter Boyle's affable cabbie sidekick.

After watching this edit, I wanted to see a 90's-movie pulp hero universe play out with Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Billy Zane's Phantom, The Rocketeer... definitely not a feeling I had on my viewing of the original cut. The fact that I wanted more of this movie is a testament to Lapis' skill at re-shaping a movie into something fresh and enticing.

A terrific edit that takes an already favorite of mine into new heights. The changes really make the pace of the story flow much better and even make A LOT of sense story wise. The edits are seamless so if you decide to give this a chance, you'll enjoy without any distractions. A must watch.

A wonderful edit, that manages to improve an already great film,
The Shadow was one of the very first DVDs I've ever owned, and I watched it countless times. I was not too bothered with its flaws, but upon reading the list of changes I became very excited to see Lapis Molari's edit. And it is spectacular.
The slight trims throughout the films are flawless and seamless, and improve the pacing greatly. Moreover, truncating the Tibet scenes was a terrific choice, so kudos to Lapis for the idea.
I also loved the new opening credits - they are a lot more meaningful than the original.
Two suggestions:
1) I think there's no need to open the film with 'The Shadow knows' and the laughter (at the 2:11 mark), since their are said again at the end of the first scene and are actually meaningful there.
2) One way to slightly extend the mirrors climax is to insert at 1:30:05 the scene in Tibet in which Ying-Ko is taken to the Tulku's temple and is told "The clouded mind see nothing" (04:33-05:07 in my version). This might help facilitate the Shadow's increased mental ability. Alternatively, it can be used to right before he masters the Phurba.
All in all, even without the minor changes I suggested, this edit is definitely my new go-to version. Thank you!

This was a great edit. I had some issues with the original film, which this edit almost completely remedies, such as the odd comedy and the slow opening. The new changes are so seamless at times that you wouldn't even know anything was different without looking at the changelogs; and some of the changes, such as the dream sequences, are so smartly done it's hard to believe it wasn't done this way to begin with.

A small detail I greatly appreciated was the inclusion of pulp and comic cover art during the opening credits. Very stylish.

The only part that caught my attention and made me do a double-take was the "next time you get to be on top" bit. In order to get rid of the joke, the line was muted, which creates an odd 1.5-2 second scene of the Shadow just menacingly staring at the guy's dead body in silence. Even though the goal was to erase the joke, it ended up still being kind of funny.

If you are a fan of The Shadow, then you owe it to yourself to see this version of the film.