Hero - Extended Edition DVD - OUT NOW! (1 Viewer)

[Chris Roberts]

I'm picking up the non-limited special edition as I don't care about extras or packaging, I just want the movie. I recall reading way back that they had sent the masters to a studio in Australia to have them cleaned up and improved for this release so it'd be better than any previous ones. Then SARS hit and it got vaulted for a while. Then they tried that EVD thing.

 

[ChrisBEA]

I ordered the one in the wood box. I cannot wait to get my hands on this thing.

 

[Sten F]

Some bad news:



DVDForums - UK

 

[Rich Malloy]

Watermark??? This is quite the bummer. I don't need wooden boxes or unsubbed extra features, but I sure would like to see the extended version without this kind of defacement.

OK, two questions come to mind:

1. Is the watermark in the "black bar", where it would be less obtrusive and covereable with soft mattes? (I'm guessing screen placement might also depend upon whether one is watching a 16x9 anamorphically-enhanced image or a downcoverted letterbox one.)

2. Does it happen to have a full bitrate DTS track?

 

[Chris Roberts]

Don't digital watermark's like that only show up on bootleg copies?

I'm also dubious about it being 108 minutes as every listing has said 118 and the director has long said the cut would be 20 minutes longer.

 

[DavidGT]

That reviewer from UK didn't mention a single thing about PQ or audio. I just got email confirmation that my copy the brown cover has just shipped today 7/26. I'll let you all know more about picture and audio vs the 98 min dvd...hopefully it should arrive by fri 7/30.

 

[Runar_R]

Here's how that watermark looks:



It's not there all the time, but pops up now and then.

(Info taken from this forum

 

[Mark_Wilson]

Got my copy of the 'wooden' version today. That must be a mis-translation for 'cardboard'. No wood. What's ironic is that the cheaper DVD-9 version actually has a piece of wood inside the case to add weight. Weird.

 

[DavidGT]

How did you get yours so fast...and where did you buy from Ebay?

 

[Mark_Wilson]

No, Layoyo.com. Fast, would have had it last week but the 'wooden'/'cardboard' version held up the DVD9 versions.

 

[Cassy_w]

Folks, this looks like a big bootleg, one that is well done. The water mark thing is a huge tipoff.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

I'm leaning in that direction, too, but it could be a new - and disturbing - trend. Perhaps the distributor did that thinking they would combat piracy without realizing - and this is a stretch - that the Chinese bootleg industry is home to some of the highest-quality product on the market. Similarly, Ocean Shores used to do "logo watermarking" on legitimate LDs, VCDs and DVDs of their films. Not sure if they still do this, but I wouldn't be surprised. So it could just be a quirk among certain Chinese distribs.

At the same time, I know many bootleg anime companies have a similar logo pop up on nearly all of their product. Nothing like advertising, I suppose...

Finally, most of the companies people have been getting this DVD from - or at least mentioning on this site - are not known to trade in illegal materials, with the exception of www.koreandvds.com (although even they have a good selection of legit stuff).

 

[Chris Roberts]

I've also been reading in other forums of people who have copies reporting the watermark and only a 108 min cut, but haven't seen anyone claiming to have a copy that is different.

 

[Nick C.]

Hmm, I wonder if this 108mins version is, regardless of bottleg or not, the same as the version released in China last year as a proprietary format with purchases of those DVD players... or if indeed, that was the 118mins cut

 

[Chris Roberts]

I got my copy today. I'm convinced its not a bootleg and will watch it tonight.

One thing I'll note now. The box for the DVD-9 version looks significantly taller than normal DVD cases (its 8 3/4 inches). Fortunately its going onto my top shelf as I don't think it would fit elsewhere in my rack.

 

[Chris Roberts]

There is a FACE logo popup that happened about ten times during the movie and stayed for thirty seconds each time. The movie has only 10 minutes of added footage.

Here is what I noticed new.
The men that Sky fights are identified as "the Seven Masters of Qin Palace". I don't recall if this was in the older version, but Sky gives the old man some money before fighting Nameless. Those were the only new scenes I noticed with Sky.
Moon is seen fending off arrows from indoors before Snow and Nameless do it outside. There was also a little more shots of Broken writing in the sand (wish I knew what he was writing).
Its told that Snow and Broken had a habit of spying on each other at certain times of the night, which is why Nameless chose midnight to meet.
Just before the water fight its shown to be because Broken once said "I will fight anyone who harms Flying Snow."
After Broken writes his three words, Moon tries to kill herself in front of Nameless to show how dedicated she is to Broken. Nameless stops her and tells her "Life is precious. You should die for a greater cause." just before he contemplates what Broken wrote.
Other than that it was mainly some additions to the fight scenes here and there.

Unfortunately I was watching on my old DVD player which shows some edge enhancement in some scenes. There were also a few grain spots that looked to be from the master. Overall the picture looked good.

 

[Peter Svensson]

Is the Extended Version really worth buying? It doesn´t seem so.

 

[Chris Roberts]

Well speaking for myself I plan to watch the non-face logo'd version in the future just because I hate pop-ups. And particularly if I'm showing someone the movie for the first time I'll show them the theatrical version. So I'll probably sell off the extended now that I've seen it.
As far as the movie itself goes, both versions are good. I didn't think the extended added anything that was important, but didn't take anything away either.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

The addition of that line neatly sums up the debate about the film's pro-government politics over in movies (in that it's clear what they had in mind right from the start; they just made it more vague for the theatrical release):

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=191545

 

[James_Kiang]

Quick question from at work (and sorry in that I'm sure it has been asked many a time):

I have the vcd release from a while back but would like to upgrade to DVD. Is there a good quality Region 0 NTSC out there?

I am tempted to get the extended cut but I really don't like the idea of seeing that watermark so much. I could hold off for the eventual R1 release, but who knows what they will do with that one...