THE MINION (Jean-Marc Piché, 1998)

[Jox]

A proper (HD) Blu-ray release in original aspect ratio? Out 02.10.2015
http://www.bluray-disc.de/blu-ray-filme ... u-ray-disc
(with the 3rd or 4th German title: "Der Mönch und der Dämon", "the monk and the demon")

http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B013Q0I ... 42f98755ab

[Jox]

OMG the cover... would be cool if this was this kind of rough, gritty, middle-ages blood fest...

[dolphage]

Haha, that cover!

It couldn't represent the actual film less, if it tried!

Also, "Gunnar Jensen's" head is placed a quite asymmetrically...

[Jox]

Seems it's a 1.33:1 full screen DVD upscale again...

[Krom]

Shitty cover same as content, i wish to see this widescreen uncut.

[Jox]

TV spot in widescreen
(with the newer score by David & Eric Wurst replacing Jean Corriveau's guitar riffs from the US/International cut)

[Jox]

While DON'T KILL IT is coming out as we speak (with an almost similar concept), THE MINION entered production 20 years ago (!) and was filmed in June 1997.

It had been announced a year prior with Michele Soavi, an underrated and almost forgotten Italian horror master, former protégé of Dario Argento. At the time, I was expecting THE MINION to be more in the vein of what DON'T KILL IT did, at least in terms of more blood and gore, which is one of the things that got axed in the budget, to the expense of last minute director Jean-Marc Piché...

THE MINION was got the first big drop in terms of budget for a Dolph film, going down from the $10 to 3-4 million range (then SWEEPERS and BLACKJACK were the last ones then to get in the $7-12 million range).

[Dida]

I watched The Minion yesterday (after I watched the awesome Silent Trigger again). It was the 2nd time I watched the movie, the first time being in 1999. So I couldn't remember anything of it. Yes The Minion is not a good movie, because everything feels so clumsy. But on the other hand it has a lot of action and the pace is fine. I think this is not Dolph's worst movie, because while watching the movie you feel that they are trying but it's because of the budget restrictions ( I guess) that this movie couldn't be what it wanted to be.

Do we have some more background info on this one?

[Jox]

I still have more research to do on that one, but I notably did an extensive interview with the director.

Not only I'm sure the script was much different and more horror-based when Dolph got attached to the project in early 1996, not only the budget got very low by the time they filmed it, but it's the kind of project where the various producing entities weren't on the same page and ended up in lawsuits, and that's also why it ended up having 2 different cuts released and another title (FALLEN KNIGHT) in Canada.

The director, who was a young but successful commercial director, was hired late in the process and one thing he was asked to cut was the blood squibs, the budget was shrinking even during production and within a mere 23 days schedule, and ultimately he didn't have any say in the final cut and the color timing (which ended up all too bright compared to how he and his DP shot it)...

That's in a nutshell. Another typical Hollywood story, even though it was a Canadian production haha!

[Jox]

THE MINION is available to rent or buy ($4.99) on streaming from Amazon Prime

https://www.amazon.com/Minion-Dolph-Lun ... 072HMYJTD/

Is it widescreen and HD?

[Uncle Jake]

Hey, Jox, how bad is the quality of the Hong Kong release? I've been trying forever to track down a copy, but if the quality is as bad as I've heard, I may be wasting my time. It's a shame the German edition doesn't have the English track. Is the HK version impossible to find at this point?

[Jox]

The HK disc is of very bad quality indeed, very pixellated and badly compressed. It's only worth it for "reference".

I haven't seen it sold in a while so yeah, it might be hard to find...

The alternate cut featured on the HK and German edition was made by one of the producers with reshoots and a new score (more orchestral and "epic" style) but I don't think it's works as well. The prologue doesn't bring anything much and even though the original score can be surprising and hard to take at first it gives the movie a more unique identity, whereas the newer music is too bombastic for such a low scale movie.

[Scifibuff5]

OMG the cover... would be cool if this was this kind of rough, gritty, middle-ages blood fest...

This one is hysterical, they took the Expendables (2010) still of him and put it on that body, which suspiciously looks like it's from the Uwe Boll crud-fest ITNOTK 2.

I still need to see this film though despite some finding it absurd and others finding it a worthy answer to Arnold's End of Days film that following year.

[Jox]

THE MINION was filming 20 years ago in June 1997, Montreal...

Photo report by Norbert Schiffer for Karate Budo Journal (Germany):









Towering kata champion and fight coordinator Jean Frenette


Training with Brian Fitkin

[lt.brannigan]

Hopefully Jox doesn't mind me scooping him,

but I have been able to confirm, that not only has US label Kino Lorber acquired The Minion for release but they also intend to release it on Blu-Ray.

There's no release date set yet, but I will keep tabs on it.