24 – Chinese Style

Adam brought back some interesting pirate DVDs from Shanghai. They are full DVD versions (with added Chinese subtitles) of the first season of 24. What’s most amusing is that they feature a glossy, relatively expensive, full-colour slipcase for the boxed set. Sadly, although a reasonable amount of effort went into the physical production of the slipcases, apparently not much research is required or desired for the actual images.

From Side A we learn that, for the Chinese, there is apparently only one Hollywood black dude, and his name is Denzel Washington (and not 24’s actual excellent Dennis Haysbert). And we learn that Keifer Sutherland looks perhaps too old and so why not just slap a Vin Diesel shot on the cover. After all, maybe the Chinese are a little behind the zeitgeist and haven’t yet figured out Diesel’s essential wussiness. Finally, judging from the cover, the black dude is packing some major artillery, probably to fend off an impending helicopter attack on the UK’s Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Side B features a rather provocative shot of what looks like Rene Russo who is, of course, not in 24 at all. But Jack Bauer’s accident-prone dim-as-dirt daughter Kim is blonde so maybe the Chinese cover designer figured what the hell? There are actually three screen shots of 24 itself although they may confuse the casual observer who sees that, compared to the cover, the black dude seems to have put on around 20 Kg. Apropos of anything remotely connected with 24 there is a gratuitous shot of some pretentious-looking dude in shades who I am reliably informed is something known as “Kid Rock“. Finally, to complete the ensemble the cover designer needed some of that movie credit stuff and so cut’n’pasted a scan from the box of Die Hard 2.