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Just picked up a bootleg DVD from a second hand store. And i have many questions about how and why this thing exists.

Kadve

Member
I tend to consider myself something of a prospector as i often scour second hand stores in the search for hidden gems. But this time i instead bought this bootleg "movie" as everything about it just boggles my mind.
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Lets start wit the most obvious one here. Why does there exist a bootleg "movie" with the Safari Sound Band, aka a Kenyan pop band from the 80s that never got big anywhere else? (they are actually quite good, look them up sometime). Who do these bootleggers cater to exactly? And how the hell did end up in a Swedish second hand store? And while I'm used to these things being full of lies, i have never came across one that cant seem to decide whether its a Blu-Ray, a DVD or a CD as its listed as all three at various points on the packaging (its a DVD as stated, and the cover is partly ripped from their 2005 compilation CD)

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But the weirdness does not end at the cover, i assure you. As you might also wonder, "wait, if this is a DVD with a track listing does that mean its a concert with this guys? Or have they just put a bunch of CD tracks on a DVD?" Well you would be wrong on those parts my friend because the cover is the biggest lie of them all and this DVD has actually nothing to do with these guys. So what's on it you may ask? Well its a VCD rip of a 2012 Chinese soap opera off course!!!

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Im not joking here! For some reason that only made sense to these bootleggers, a 2012 Chinese soap opera was transferred from a bunch of VCD's onto a DVD, given the label of a Kenyan pop band from the 80s, and then sold in stores and somehow ending up here in Sweden eventually. I know these bootleggers tend to rip off anything but this one just confuses me.
 
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daveonezero

Banned
My mom bought 100s of bootleg dvds back in the day from Beijing.

I couldn’t watch most of them.

Some were taped movies from a theater.
 

Cohetedor

Member
bootleggers peddle in weird shit man. i used to buy bootleg DVDs and mixtapes on canal st all the time in the early 00s. i remember buying a matrix DVD, popping it in my ps2, and it was hardcore porn.
That was the matrix when Neo took the little blue pill.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
On a related note, the possibility of a mislabeled disc actually containing porn is the reason why Disney MANDATES that any factory stamping their discs can not also make explicit material DVDs to prevent any accidental mixups.
 

Quasicat

Member
I went to Chicago several years ago to visit some friends and found a vendor in the subway selling all sorts of DVDs that never have been released due to licensing. My favorite was the entire series of the Drew Carey Show. All are recorded from TV with varying quality with one episode being recorded during a tornado with all sorts of maps and warnings going on in the episode.
 

OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
I think the last bootleg dvd I bought was final fantasy 7 advent children. That shit took FOREVER to come out on dvd in the west.
 

nush

Gold Member
And while I'm used to these things being full of lies, i have never came across one that cant seem to decide whether its a Blu-Ray, a DVD or a CD as its listed as all three at various points on the packaging

They all do that, they have a standard template that they drop the art onto, but also the people that make these things think the logos are brands not standards. The pirate media shops used to be crazy here in China, and going into the back catalogue the deeper you went into the store was a dust covered media adventure.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
I was once in the back seat of a car as the driver wrecked it into a swamp, as some dude was literally shooting at us with a hand gun. That seems less exotic than this story.
 

Woggleman

Member
I remember back in the day watching some bootleg VHS tapes which were literally somebody in the theater with a camcorder taping the movie.
 

John Marston

GAF's very own treasure goblin
Back in the 90's whenever I went to NYC I would visit this shady dude in Chinatown who had the best bootleg VHS copies of John Woo movies & Hong Kong Cinema.

He would take me in a smoke filled room in the back of his restaurant which was full of gambling degenerates yelling at each other.

Imagine my surprise when years later I saw them again watching "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" 😄
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Never bought a bootleg movie, but I was tempted back in the day. No interest now, but way back I was thinking about rolling the dice on ordering their homemade collections of Night Stand with Dick Dietrick. But since it was from shady looking sites I bailed.
 
bootleggers peddle in weird shit man. i used to buy bootleg DVDs and mixtapes on canal st all the time in the early 00s. i remember buying a matrix DVD, popping it in my ps2, and it was hardcore porn.
You really jacked into that matrix. Which hand came out red pilled?
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Back in the 90's whenever I went to NYC I would visit this shady dude in Chinatown who had the best bootleg VHS copies of John Woo movies & Hong Kong Cinema.

He would take me in a smoke filled room in the back of his restaurant which was full of gambling degenerates yelling at each other.

Imagine my surprise when years later I saw them again watching "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" 😄

Me and my best friend used to buy bootleg VHS tapes and DVD's from this wild-ass Chinese dude back in college. 2008 or so (Edit: looking back at emails and such, actually 2012). We used to make up stories about how wild he and his friends were, just like a joke and all.

Turns out he was some kind of gangster. Fled the country. Truth is stranger than fiction.
 
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Chinese bootlegs are a wonderful treasure of suprises and excitement. I got a Fellowship Of The Ring DVD as a present from a trip to Asia and it's a complete mess in the best possible way. At first there is a good HD studio intro before switching to a 120p cinema recording. Subtitles are from a completely different movie about clones and DNA. The plot description on the back cover is of Woman On Top with Penelope Cruz. The credits on the back cover are for The Kid with Bruce Willis. And whoever made this cannot read English and garbled up most of the names like CHIMCRRIDE and GARRETSTHHOVER plus it's got a copyright 'Wamer Video' on it.

I've thrown away most of the DVD boxes I had but this one will stay on the shelf forever.
 
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