'Special Report' VCD

anyone know where to get it?

Saw some people selling it across the street from the Yuan Shan MRT Station, exit 1. (The corner with the park, not the soccer stadium.)

try Kuan Hwa (Guanhua) Market, they should have it!!

get what? special report about what?

You don’t read the papers much, it seems.

“Special Report” is the name of a series of sketches on VCD that lampoon the pan-blue camp. Nobody paid much attention to them until Soong & Co. threatened to sue everybody in sight over them (the DPP, the Southern Taiwan Society, the makers of the video, and even the actors in the video).

Then everybody got into the act: the GIO (which flipflopped), the Taipei City Government (which tried to confiscate all the VCDs), the media, etc. For details, see the archives of the Taipei Times; the story has made the news most of the past week.

get what? special report about what?[/quote]

speical report about how there is no freedom of speech in Taiwan…

You don’t read the papers much, it seems.[/quote]
True enough, for the past week anyway. Holy shit, something happened while I was away. :shock:

But thank god, I did see it on TVBS news last night, I guess. Whew, I feel better now, less guilty anyway. Ok, now I can breathe again. Whew. I just didn’t catch the name, “special report.” :blush:

And thanks mucho for your encapsulation. These parts I did not catch on the news last night. Actually, I really didn’t catch much on that TVBS news clip, but I did see a very entertaining dance routine of Lien and Soong doing some kind of funny CG throw down to the DPP (I think).

Maybe Soong’s threatened lawsuit will be successful enough to force TVBS (which did air a portion of the VCD after all, it seems) to finally buy another branding/theme-music/loop. The one they use now drives me batshit, and they did play it over the VCD clip as prelude to a commercial break (yeah, it’s goofy but hey, I justify any excuse to get that music changed, that and their electronic, news-ticker-like “beeping,” both used to keep those eyeballs glued to the next Big News, the one that follows this short message from their fine sponsors.) Not much different from CNN, though, I suppose: both are designed to keep the “whew” factor high, I think. To my western mind that eastern “hey, you gotta see this!” is just too much.

I consulted with four translators with nearly 80 years of experience among them and they agree that the best English rendition for this is not Special Report, but Very Report, or News (as the Taiwan News has it :shock: ).
Yes, this sounds bizarre and wrong, but that is the way the Chinese reads too. It is supposed to convey a sense of nonsense.
Special Report sounds serious, which the show is not.

[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]I consulted with four translators with nearly 80 years of experience among them and they agree that the best English rendition for this is not Special Report, but Very News (as the Taiwan News has it :shock: ).
Yes, this sounds bizarre and wrong, but that is the way the Chinese reads too. It is supposed to convey a sense of nonsense.
Special Report sounds serious, which the show is not.[/quote]
Yeah, says you and your “translators”. :unamused: Let’s call in a real authority. What does Ironlady say? :sunglasses:

I wouldave gone with SPECIAL REPORT but after what Rinhold says, it makes sense. it is SATIRE. so FAYZHON does mean VERY and BAO DAO does mean NEWS in this sense, so VERY REPORT is a kind of play with words title, and the CHINA POST has nailed it. I didn’t think so until Mr Rinhold uncovers the truth, and it makes sense. The other papers were being too cool, and tried to UNDO the satiric edge of the CHINESe title. So Wolf wins, and we should all PAY ATTENTION. Wolfman Reihold, do you work in a translation company? Good on ya, mate!

BTW, that said, I got a copy of SPECIAL REPORT (sic) today in Taipei from a friend who has close ties to the producers. I watched volume 1 and 2 during lunch hour, fastforward of course. Couldna understand a word of it, but it looks cool, and production values are excellent.

I paid …FREE… for both copies, and good Malaysian/taiwanese FRIEND told me volume 3 and 4 are in Singapore now and maybe coming to Taiwan this weekend. Course, it’s all Greek to me, but I am glad to see satire alive and well on this Godforsaken Island again.

VERY NEWS indeed. What I wonder about NOW is how is the DPP gonna get 1 million people to line up hand in hand along highway 101 from Pintung to Taibei for the Ginness Record book deal? Impossible. Any bets?

Any what’s with the things falling off TP 101? Any truth to that?

What is the VERY REPORT all about exactly? Is it a drama, with real actors , or is it a documentary? Or is it comedy skethces, grouped together? There are 4 volumes now. ARe they all one show, like a four hour show, or is it 50 comedy sketches spliced together?

Is it any good, drama wise, or comedy wise or wise guy wise?

Critics? Reviewers? Wives or girlfriends chime in!

I’d like to hear Ironlady’s report as well.

No, but many of the Mama-sans that work for me have been in the flesh trade for decades and they know a good joke when they see one. :wink:

“Tebie Baodao” would be special report.

and Very Report… no. This is incorrect English. Feichang Baodao is both acceptable and grammatical in modern day Chinese.

I vote for “Extraordinary Report.”

“Extraordinary” is the correct translation for feichang in this context. An extraordinary meeting, for example, is a ??? (feichang huiyi) in Chinese.

I just watched the first two volumes, with volumes 3 and 4 coming in tomorrow, says my friend Lenny the Goon. I watched 1 and 2 this afternoon during my nap before my kindergarden classes began (so sad, a guy with an M.A. in Political Science from McGill Uni is teaching kiddies in Taiwan just so he can be with his GF forever, UGH! I hate this island: VENT OVER) … and I watched with fast forward since I can’t understand what they are saying and here is my review:

  1. they had great resources of TV news footage from years gone by, makes me think they had access to main TV station here

  2. the production values of shite. the newsreel footage is great, pics of SOONG ET AL (no, not Al Gore) and history, even some great fights in the Leggie, but the actual dialogs between ahem “actors” is shite. They just sit in rooms, like someone’s home or office, and speak their lines in a leaden way. No drama, no spice. Terrible acting. Grade E acting.

  3. Initial logo of Taiwan Island taken over by huge TSUNAMI is worth the price of getting this VCD. powerful logo credits part. Five stars for that.

  4. I have no idea what they were talking about, but seems like they were attacking the two main pro CHina newspapers, and several reporters and anchors who speak for CHINA. and of course, SOONG really gets it, as does LIEN CHANNY.

  5. overall, much ado about nothing. But the news value of said VCDs has been enormous and as Lee Deng Wei said on TV the other day, this VCD has changed Taiwan media forever.

  6. Does anyone believe it?

Once again, I saw it at Kuan Hua (guanhua) yesterday.

Haven’t seen the report yet but would love it. I think it is sad that the actors and actress got sued for this. They are simply performers trying to make a living. I heard one of the gal in there actually commited a suicide…

Sigh… :?

The appearance of these VCDs is an entirely healthy, normal phenomenon, and I wholeheartedly applaud everyone involved in their making.

The hysterical denunciations are indicative of a deep sickness in this society, and I unreservedly condemn all involved in trying to suppress the VCDs and their makers.

Let us hope, for Taiwan’s sake, that the former prevail over the latter.

special report is the best i heard so far. it’s idiomatic and a fine title for a bit of satire. very report is just not english, extraordinary report very stilted

[quote=“winter”][ol][li]they had great resources of TV news footage from years gone by, makes me think they had access to main TV station here[/li]
[li]the production values of shite. the newsreel footage is great, pics of SOONG ET AL (no, not Al Gore) and history, even some great fights in the Leggie, but the actual dialogs between ahem “actors” is shite. They just sit in rooms, like someone’s home or office, and speak their lines in a leaden way. No drama, no spice. Terrible acting. Grade E acting.[/li]
[li]Initial logo of Taiwan Island taken over by huge TSUNAMI is worth the price of getting this VCD. powerful logo credits part. Five stars for that.[/li]
[li]I have no idea what they were talking about, but seems like they were attacking the two main pro China newspapers, and several reporters and anchors who speak for China. and of course, SOONG really gets it, as does LIEN CHANNY.[/li]
[li]overall, much ado about nothing. But the news value of said VCDs has been enormous and as Lee Deng Wei said on TV the other day, this VCD has changed Taiwan media forever.[/li][/ol][/quote]

I’d agree with most of the above. The production values and acting are poor but in places deliberately so.

One of the critiques of Soong is potentially slanderous in my legally un-educated opinion. They basically say straight out that Soong has been having extra-marital affairs. They base this on the fact that he has been protecting one of his minions, Huang Yi-chiao (

anyone know where I can download it?

Mark