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UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ Hard Target -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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Robert Harris
Filmmaker John Woo had been directing in Hong Kong as Yu Shen Woo since the late 1960s. Well over 40 films before coming the the Colonies.

In 1993, Universal gave him a chance at the U.S. market, enabling him to show his crack action talents to a wider audience. Almost 40 years later he's still going strong, with some known productions to his credit.

Shot in Louisiana, and steeped in the textures of hanging moss, it's a different take on the locale, with some attributes shared by Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, shot in Savannah. I love these locations.

As a 4k release, it's an interesting addition to the technology, from Kino. While there's no real 4k here, in projection from a moderate seating distance, it does take advantage of scan reproductive characteristics in numerous shots, which hold a bit more detail, as harvested from the OCN.

In short, the film works in 4k.

Audio is huge.

For those who follow cuts and running times, this variant is 100 minutes, derived from the slightly longer international cut.

Film debut of Yancy Butler.

Picture - 5

Audio – 5 (from the original 4-track mix)

Pass / Fail – Pass

Plays nicely with projectors - Yes

Makes use of and works well in 4k - 4

Recommended

RAH
 

sbjork

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Audio is huge.

RAH
I'll never forget what a friend told me after we both saw Hard Target back in 1993. He described it as the kind of movie where you sit in your seat and keep saying "Boom!" whenever anyone takes a hit in it. He called it the ultimate ass-kicking movie. Everything about it is larger-than-life, from the story, to the visuals, to the sound effects. In that sense, it cries out for a UHD release. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
 

Vincent_P

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I'm sure Kino will just insist that it's fine and not offer a replacement program.

Vincent
 

JoshZ

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I'm sure Kino will just insist that it's fine and not offer a replacement program.

Vincent

Actually, they did both. First, they denied there was an error. Then they set up a replacement program for that error they said doesn't exist. :)

 

Worth

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Nick Dobbs
These kind of replacements - and there have been a lot of them in the last little while - are bad for physical media in general. They've probably turned a number of potentially profitable discs into money losers.
 

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