Králi videa

This is true romance. Watching totalitarian snippets of underground fandom, purely amateur work with sound, and enthusiastic projections of blue-red moving spots, where plot is a secondary matter, I find fascinating. Just like the fact that it was not a fight against the regime, but just to see the most famous overseas films, who plays who in them, and what they are about. I did not experience that time closely and only caught a whiff of videocassettes during the days of Intersonic in the mid-nineties. That's why simultaneous translations, improvised titles of famous gems, or successful people in other fields talking about "dubbing their way through" sleepless nights seem unimaginable to me, like something that could never have happened. At a time when most hits we see are available at varying levels of quality, on networks and streaming, at the same time I can't understand watching pieces like this as anything else but a rarity, with a perspective on the needs of the time, and I can't understand why someone would watch something like this without irony (see the final few minutes), but everyone should enjoy whatever they want. But from the film, I still expected a bit more fun and unrepeatable cuts from all the mumblers, hunchbacks, and nebbishes. Part of the digging into the resulting audiovisual horrors, when it is the most authentic underground in the first and second viewer layer, is what the film promised to be. The transformation into a report from the fully launched nineties, with bootleg filming in a theater, no longer fits here. It's no longer about piracy out of necessity, when the film in question couldn't be seen elsewhere and differently, but just because you don't want to wait for a cassette or television, and that's really just about laziness and voluntarily diminishing the experience. The final act really drags down the whole endeavor surprisingly decisively because I don't sympathize with it, and Pavel Hewlit rarely leaves the screen with such a terribly unpleasant demeanor. At least the first half of Video Kings will awaken a desire for times that (fortunately) will not return and the desire to watch some bloody B-movie from any source. (05.03.2024)

What nostalgia. It took me back to those wonder days of my childhood. Excellent observations and surprising information. But it does omit to mention the main benefit of "speed dubbing" which was the amazingly unreal lines that became folklore amongst my peers. I liked the final comments about crazy men. And the admission by the detective is the icing on the cake. (16.04.2021)

There is little to add to the many superlatives that rightfully pertain to the documentary. What was missing was an explanatory commentary by someone who would have been able to fill in the insider's catchphrases and fan enthusiasm, at least give an outline of the stages of the whole phenomenon, add some numbers (Snow White from 1937 is an atypical example, as otherwise, the selection was mostly American and Asian films from the 60s-90s, the porn was probably German, and other European films were not primarily of interest), and compare it with the mainstream scene before and after 1989. (10.03.2022)

Nothing more than a fan documentary whose qualities are determined by your love of the subject. The production design is terrible (the good-natured overvoice, staged sequences) but it matches the enthusiastic sloppiness often so iconic for this phenomenon. "Then the man with the camera in the theater didn't go to the middle of the fifteenth row as usual, but to some fourth row on the very edge. As soon as I saw that instead of the Universal Soldier sign there was just ‘sal Sol’, I knew it was wrong." (14.08.2021)

Without hesitation, I must admit that in this case I did not actually evaluate the quality of the document and its contribution to the global population and the environment. I simply gave this endeavor five stars for that crazy nostalgia. Those movies, which I saw with very shoddy dubbing and even worse picture quality... I am very grateful to the creators for the behind-the-scenes look, but especially for allowing me to reminisce. (16.04.2021)