Jun Gallardo (1975).
The elaborate restoration of the film "They Call Him Chop-Suey" (1975, director: Jun Gallardo) was made possible by an original 35mm camera negative and an original sound negative with English soundtrack.
The film was produced by Bobby A. Suarez, who also made "They Call Her... Cleopatra Wong" three years later.
Due to inadequate storage conditions, the original image and tone negatives were in a critical condition. They suffered from vinegar syndrome, shrinkage and numerous deep scratches on the support and the emulsion. All rolls of the image negatives showed glue stains, fingerprints, traces of dirt and heavy adhesions caused by improper repairs to splices and perforations. The films had to be painstakingly restored by hand.
A total of 427 hours were spent digitally restoring the film to remove scratches, stabilise the image, reduce flicker and correct the colours. The sound negative had shrunk considerably, so additional audio processing was necessary to remove noise, clicks and humming to ensure an optimal listening experience.
When analysing the picture negative that had been preserved, it turned out that it was an original German version. Although identical in content to the original English version that existed on video cassette, the negative bore the foreign title "BRUCE LEE - DIE GROSSE KAMPFMASCHINE". In order to make the restored film accessible to a wider audience, the English title of the film was recreated and the German title replaced, with the video copy serving as a reference.
The film was digitised and restored by Cinegrell in 4K resolution. Work began in 2018 and was completed in 2019.
