For lovers of Asian cinema, hard-to-find eastern movies are often just a click away, thanks to the Internet. Yet for those who can’t read Asian languages, aren’t tech-savvy, or simply prefer DVDs, rental stores remain the only option for home-viewing.

Although some of Vancouver’s regional Asian DVD outlets, such as those that rent Tagalog-language films from the Philippines, lack discs with English subtitles, numerous stores that serve two of the Lower Mainland’s largest Asian Canadian groups—the Chinese and South Asian communities—do offer English-language options.

We take a look at the state of the local scene and how international developments are affecting it.

Chinese

Popular and critical hits like Wilson Yip’s Ip Man; John Woo’s epic Red Cliff; and Peter Chan’s The Warlords, starring Jet Li and Andy Lau, can’t be found in regular DVD-rental stores. And it’s getting increasingly hard to find stores selling authentic Chinese movies in Metro Vancouver. Most have closed down over the past few years; Richmond’s MAL Music has downsized from three stores to one.

Jenny Chu, manager of MAL Music, told the Straight by phone that bootlegging is only one of the reasons for this: there’s also the shrinking number of film productions in Hong Kong, and thus inadequate numbers of new products. It’s downloading and Internet shopping that really hurt the bottom line. To stay competitive, MAL has set up its own Web store (Malmusic.com) in both Chinese and English.

Some DVD titles are available in both a Hong Kong edition and a much cheaper (and genuine) China edition. Usually, the China edition doesn’t have English subtitles. Even if it does, it often suffers from small type or poor translation. In the case of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, all the sex scenes were cut out of the China edition. More importantly, almost all China editions are in PAL format, while most Hong Kong editions are in NTSC format, and some are even zone-free.

If you don’t have an all-zone DVD machine, VCD is an alternative. Most Chinese movies are available in this format, which has no region coding. It’s also cheaper, due to VHS-quality resolution.

North American distributors are acquiring an increasing number of older Chinese titles, which are available for rental in regular video stores in worry-free zone-one format. If you prefer newer titles, Video Magic Entertainment (638 Abbott Street, Vancouver; Unit 1015 Henderson Place and 1163 Pinetree Way, Coquitlam) and Tom’s Video (2887 Grandview Highway) offer authentic DVDs for rental. Tom’s Video also has numerous titles—ranging from Johnny To’s stylish crime stories to Stephen Chow comedies—from the Hong Kong film industry’s golden era in the ’70s and ’80s. Manager Agnes Cheng said by phone that although Chinese customers usually rent whatever new title is available, non-Chinese customers tend to prefer Asian horror, action, and thrillers like the recently released The Sniper, starring locally raised Edison Chen, and The Beast Stalker, featuring another raised-in-Vancouver star, Nicholas Tse.

> Anthony Ma

South Asian

“It’s amazing how popular Bollywood films have become,” Kamal Sharma, proprietor of Kamal’s Video Palace (103–8268 120th Street, Surrey), tells the Straight by phone. “During my recent flight from London to Dubai, almost all non–Indo-Canadian passengers were watching a Bollywood film.”

Matching the rise of Bollywood’s international stature over the last decade, almost 100 South Asian video stores in the Lower Mainland offer everything from the latest Bollywood blockbusters to timeless classics. (Even Wal-Mart now carries some titles.) The film titles and inlay information are all in English, and the majority feature English subtitles.

Surrey boasts the largest concentration of South Asian audio-video stores (mostly located on 120th and 128th streets), followed by Main Street’s Punjabi Market and Fraser Street.

South Asian DVD stores are less affected by legal Internet availability of Bollywood films from DVD rental and sale sites such as BigFlix.com; most of the downloading involves wholesale piracy. In addition, numerous South Asian video stores carry both original and pirated discs, some of which are out at the same time as the film opens in local theatres. Many titles, however, never see a local theatrical run and aren’t available on original DVDs.

At Kamal’s, which has one of the largest local selections of South Asian films and music, Sharma prides himself on carrying only original DVDs and CDs.

“I have too much love and respect for our entertainment industry to commit such a crime,” Sharma says.

Sharma, who has a multicultural clientele, says his biggest sellers are films featuring top Bollywood stars such as Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, and Aishwarya Rai.

Beyond Bollywood, DVDs from India’s regional cinemas, such as Punjabi films, are available at stores like Main Video (6621 Main Street) and Golden Star Video in Surrey (various locations). Select stores in Vancouver and Surrey, the most notable being Al-Mansoor Video (6657 Fraser Street), provide the Pakistani Canadian community with films and television series in Punjabi and Urdu.

> R. Paul Dhillon