Born To Be King

Starring:Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Sonny Chiba, Qi Shu, Peter Ho, Gigi Lai, Michael Tse, Sandra Ng Kwan Yue, Jerry Lamb, Kar Lok Chin, Jason Chu, Roy Cheung, Anya, Sung Young Chen, Beverly Hotsprings, Shi-Jye Jin, Sau Leung 'Blacky' Ko
Director: Wai Keung Lau
Studio: Tai Seng
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Too Boring to Be Bad
Nice Pre-Code
Interesting pre-code film
They should have kept this one on the vault shelf.....
BORN TO BE DISMAL ON DVD

Born to Be Bad
Starring: Loretta Young , Cary Grant , Jackie Kelk , Marion Burns , and Henry Travers
Director: Lowell Sherman
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000DD77S
Release Date: 2004-01-06

Description

Cary grant stars as a dairy farmer whose kindness towards and unmarried woman (loretta Young), and her son results in betrayal. Malcolm Trevor (Grant) and his wife (Marion Burns) are unable to conceive a child of their own. So when Malcolm's truck accidentally hits Letty's (Young) son (Henry Travers) and Letty is declared an unfit mother, the couple gladly take the boy into their own home to raise as their own. Determined to take advantage of Malcolm's riches, however, Letty tries to blackmail him. In the end, selfless love and charity are celebrated in this heartwarming well-made classic.

Customer Reviews:

Too Boring to Be Bad.......2004-12-04

Movie: ** DVD Quality: ** DVD Extras: ****

I've seen enough of Loretta Young's and Cary Grant's early work to know that this movie surely represents some kind of nadir for both stars. Despite their considerable skills, no one could possibly turn this sow's ear of a script into anything resembling a decent film. Loretta plays a 22-year-old never- married mother of a 7-year-old son; the kid is being raised to be just as morally compromised as Mom. Enter Cary as a victim of one of their scams; before you can say, "What the hey?!!!?", Cary and his wife are raising Loretta's son ... Loretta's moving in on Cary to get her boy back ... Cary's wife is all-forgiving of her husband's dalliance ... Loretta does the "noble" thing by walking away and abandoning her son to Cary and wife's care. This all takes a scant 61 minutes that drags on f-o-r-e-v-e-r because no one does anything but talk, talk, and talk ... oh! they also slam doors - lots of doors - in Cary's lavish mansion. It couldn't have been fun for the actors to make this rubbage, but at least they must have known enough to stay away from the finished film!

Certainly whoever wrote the insert notes for this Fox Home Video release never watched the movie! They identify Cary's character as a "dairy farmer" (he's actually the very wealthy head of a dairy corporation); they name aged 50-something character player Henry Travers (Clarence the Angel in "It's a Wonderful Life") as the actor playing Loretta's 7-year-old son; and they describe the film as a "heartwarming, well-made classic" as well as a "gripping classic" (maybe they had this confused with Cary and Loretta's later film, "The Bishop's Wife", which really is a classic).

I doubt that whoever was in charged of transferring the film to video paid much attention to the movie, either. The picture is grainy throughout with some noticeable jumps (indicating bad splices); and the sound is frequently muddy as well. At least Fox doesn't claim it was restored. There is a nice selection of trailers from other movies Grant starred in at Fox, including "I Was a Male War Bride" (1949), "People Will Talk" (1951), "Monkey Business" (1952), "Kiss Them For Me" (1957), and "An Affair to Remember" (1957) ... but the trailer to this film isn't among them. There's also a small photo gallery.

Overall, I can't in good conscience recommend this DVD to anyone except the most diehard Young and Grant fans. But if for some reason you insist on watching it, check out the jurors in the trial scene ... doesn't the man on the front row to the right of your screen bear a resemblance to the producer of the film, Darryl F. Zanuck?

Nice Pre-Code.......2004-09-15

I don't want to be too extensive. I only want to tell you this short (61 minutes of running time) Pre-Code, is a goody-goody, with Cary Grant, and especially Loretta Young, who is great in it...she looks ravishing, great gowns, slim-fitted, beautiful face-eyes, fresh beauty, great spunk.

I cannot understand why (I've read it) Loretta was "stereotyped" and "dismissed", mainly in the 1930's as being a so-so or bad actress, and being only a "clotheshorse"...untrue...she's radiantly good (Well BAD) (chuckles) here.

It's difficult to think of this LORETTA...when one thinks of the 1940's Loretta in "The Farmer's Daughter"....or her other teaming with Cary Grant, the excellent & cute & sentimental "The Bishop's Wife"...a completely different stuff.

I wanna watch more early '30s Loretta, not only her virginal-good characters (like "Zoo in Budapest" (I'd "kill" to see this one) or "The Crusades" (here she's mostly "decorative" IMHO)....but stuff like "Midnight Mary" (I've read it's TOP) "Employee's Entrance", "Taxi". "The Hatchet Man".....

The quality of the DVD is pretty good.

Pre-Code lovers watch it!

Interesting pre-code film.......2004-07-17

I quite enjoyed this film - it's an interesting pre-code that was released about 6 weeks before enforcement of the production code. Loretta Young's acting is pretty good but Cary Grant is kind of dull - definitely not his best role. Some of the pre-code plot elements in this film include Loretta Young's unspecified "profession" and lifestyle that involves men and clothes and some of the rather risque shots of Loretta in her underwear. I think the release of this pre-code movie, which was previously unavailable, is to be applauded.

They should have kept this one on the vault shelf............2004-04-17

Someone should educate 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment about classic movies. Just because a movie is old, doesn't make it a classic, and certainly doesn't justify a DVD release.

Fox is sitting on hundreds of great unreleased films, while they end up releasing junk like BORN TO BE BAD. A more accurate title would be FILMED TO BE BAD. Dull and boring (in a poor transfer), this is a waste of time and money.

BORN TO BE DISMAL ON DVD.......2004-01-29

"Born to Be Bad" is a very uncharacteristic Cary Grant movie. Uncharacteristic because it's at the beginning of his career, features him in an almost non-comedic role and has him cast as a man double-crossed by a woman of easy virtue in an almost maudelin plot. The story concerns Grant hitting the son of a woman of easy virtue (Loretta Young) with his car. He then having to make the mends. The rest is pure melodrama but pulled off with such panache that you'd scarcely mind any of the hockum. Truly, this is a very, very good movie.
TRANSFER: Unfortunately the same can't be said for FOX's transfer. We get a very dirty, very gritty, very grainy transfer that - although free of digital anomalies - is so heavily damanged by age that seeing the film is hardly worth the effort. Black and contrast levels are extremely weak, fine detail is lost in practically every scene and the ravages of time are glaring and obvious throughout. The audio hasn't been cleaned up either for a slight hiss and some unexpected pops along the way.
EXTRAS: Trailers from the other Grant films. Boring, unworthy and disappointing.
BOTTOM LINE: Someone should point out to studio executives that films pre-Star Wars are worth the time, effort and, oh yes, the MONEY that is required to make them sparkle like they did when they were premiered. Really, history is getting shafted here!!!

Average customer rating:

...
Tedious

Born To Be King
Starring: Ekin Cheng , Jordan Chan , Sonny Chiba , Qi Shu , and Peter Ho
Director: Wai Keung Lau
Manufacturer: Tai Seng
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00006LPGK
Release Date: 2002-10-22

Customer Reviews:

..........2003-09-11

I havn't seen any of the other Young and Dangerous movies, but Born to be King is successful as a standalone film (apparently this is the 6th, in addition to there being two prequels), though it probably would be more enjoyable to have greater familiarity with the background stories.

**Plot Summary**
Born to be King has a number of sub-plots, but is centered around a Taiwanese/Chinese/Hong Kong gang's dischord after its leader retires, leaving Lui, who has just returned from a stateside education, to be the new leader. Lui is uninterested in being leader, so he and the top gang memebers and sect leaders set out to decide who amongst themselves ought to be. The protagonists are Chicken, recently married into a Yakuza family and a Hong Kong sect leader considered one of the primary candidates, and his best friend, Nam, who, while presently having troubles in his love life, manages to help out Chicken whenever he's needed. Various assasinations, ambushes, and plots are exposed, leading the gang members to question each others ambitions, and from here the rest of the movie branches.
**

Despite featuring a mostly terrible soundtrack and some stylistic excess (which really ruins the action scenes, but seems to serve the rest of the movie), Born to be King is an enterntaining gangster flic depicting events that are never too blind to reality, posh, serendipitous, or depraved and featuring relatively human characters (at least compared to most other gangster movies).

Certainly worth a viewing... more of a rental (I don't see myself watching this more than once, although it has inspired me to plan to pick up the rest of the Young and Dangerous movies.)

Tedious.......2003-04-19

Let me preface this by saying that I LOVE anything with Ekin Cheng in it (see my other reviews) however this video was just plain tedious!

This is the story of Nam (Ekin Cheng)and his best friend Chicken (Jordan Chan), Nam and Chicken are members of a gang, when Nam gets promotion to chief "Boss," his life becomes even MORE complicated. The plot mostly revolves mostly around some nonsense about a wedding and a rival gang Taiwanese San Luen gang, however most of this is quite difficult to follow - and there is a reason for this. This video is part of the Young and Dangerous series, and viewers are expected to be familiar with the material and the characters from previous episodes.

If you are interested in following or even understanding the events in "Born to be King," I would recommend viewing the rest of the Young and Dangerous series first. The Triad series is one of the most popular and longest running gangster series in HK.

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