DVD Review HTF Review: Hero (1 Viewer)

[Andy Patrizio]

I mentioned it, Matthew. Several readers wrote me, rather upset to hear that "All Under Heaven" was changed to "Our Land." Plus, that idiotic change of "Hail!" to "Storm!" defies explanation.

If I had the time, I'd do a monstrous comparison of the Chinese import, the uncut version and the Miramax atrocity. Well, I got 2 weeks off over Christmas.

 

[Matthew Brown]

Andy -
My apolgies. I should have said "almost never".

Great review by the way!
Matt

 

[Patrick Sun]

FYI, I've moved the rest of the posts in this thread that dealt with the content and thoughts on the film itself in the main Hero discussion thread in the Movies area.

Please confine discussion in this thread to the technical aspects of the DVD and its supplemental content. Thanks.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

I have the GD Face release of the theatrical version, and the prologue and epilogue are not translated. I think that's really the only drawback of that release. Are there any R0 versions that have the prolouge and epilogue translated?

 

[George See]

Just watched the region 1 miramax release last night and all i can say is WOW
This is easily the worst picture i've ever seen on dvd. In the indoor scenes specifically the red version of the caligraphy school just horrible horrible. I don't even know how to discribe what i was seeing in the backgrounds on the walls and floors artificts? Halo? It seemed to be worse indoors when there was no action and less noticible in the outdoors fight scenes. I dunno but i've never seen it so bad it was distracting. For the record I sit about 8-10 feet away from a 43" 16x9 rear projection toshiba. Someone earlier in the thread said it was about as bad as cold mountain...I guess we watched different versions of cold mountain cause this was far far worse. What a disapointment.

 

[Kwang Suh]

More than likely, the Chroma Upsampling Bug. Blame your DVD player.

Geez people. This transfer is OK. Not the best in the world. Not even close to the worst. EE is NOT that bad on this disc. There is quite of posterization on people's faces - lots of color information has been removed, however HF filtering is actually minimal on this disc.

Looks like people are just jumping on the "I hate Disney" bandwagon. What wonderful group think.

 

[Walter Kittel]

It's more like the How could such a beautiful film receive such a mediocre transfer? bandwagon.

Given the mature state of DVD technologies there is absolutely no excuse for the shoddy presentations that have become the depressing standard for Miramax. In this particular case, it is even more exasperating when one considers the vivid visual style of the film that is betrayed by such a half assed effort.

- Walter.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I have to say, it's a perfectly acceptable transfer on my admittedly humble setup. I might feel more strongly about it if I had more bells and whistles besides a four-year-old 16:9-capable 27" Wega...but I don't. [I used to do the "squeeze trick" on my old Wega but nothing ever looked good on that, which is what prompted me to go component and 16:9 in the first place.]

Now, THE BLACK BOOK, an Alpha release that I received in the same package; that's a bad transfer, but I wasn't expecting anything more.

Touting HERO Stateside this summer Yimou has said that this 98-minute version is his preferred edit, to address a subtopic (what he thinks about the translation I don't know). And Miramax is in a state of tumult, only exacerbated by awards season, so it's no surprise they're hard to contact these days.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Exactly. That was my point with Cold Mountain too...not the "worst" transfer in the world...just so much less than such a beautiful film deserved!

 

[Kwang Suh]

I'd say that DVD production quality has gone down over past few years, and that exceptional transfers are still as rare as they used to be, and that average transfers are the standard.

 

[Kwang Suh]

I'm not referring to your review; I'm talking about some of the replies left by people here.

 

[Jerome Grate]

Well, let the protest begin with us demanding Miramax for a SE or Superbit with an improved picture.

 

[George See]

Absolutly not I was well aware and well read of that bug when I purchased my current DVD player I know my model doesn't have it and I know what the bug looks like as my older DVD player did have it. Just for kicks and giggles i threw the disc into my other player that I usually only use for SA-CD playback and I saw the exact same thing. I don't know why your jumping all over me, by process of elemination there exsists the worst DVD i've ever seen and this happens to be it. I'm not jumping on any bandwagon i'm geniunly dissapointed with this release. Did I buy it yes, will i watch it over and over because I love this movie yes.

 

[dpippel]

If that's the case then it might actually look worse in your system, since the Faroudja deinterlacer in your Panasonic is cutting chroma in half.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Well, curiosity got the better of me, so I rented the Miramax release and checked out a few scenes. I don't have too fancy of a setup (my TV is a 27" Panasonic), but I could tell where a lot of the criticism is coming from.

As others have said, it doesn't look awful, certainly not the worst I've seen; definitely watchable. However, even on a 27", the digital noise is kind of distracting in places (although not quite as bad as on the Star Trek: Generations CE). Colors are pretty good, but detail is lacking, especially compared to my GD Face version.

With the better transfer and (I assume) more accurate subtitle translation, I think I'll be sticking with the import for the time being. Like I said, Miramax's transfer is not horrible, but we're going on 8 years into the DVD format's lifetime here; it really should look better than it does.

 

[Rosano]

At Future Shop here in Montreal they are selling a version by Aliance not the the Miramax version.I wonder if these are 2 diffent transfers. I have not seen the Miramax DVD anywhere here but I know it is available ant the DVD club I buy from on line. It shows an Aliance version and seperate Miramax version. I have the Aliance version.

Unfortunatly I have not seen the Alliance disc yet as I am currently doing a complete re-do of my HT room.I am about 99% finished...therefore I can't comment yet.

Anyone else seen the Aliance version or is this and Miramax one and the same.

 

[Kwang Suh]

Yes, that is unfortunate. I do suspect that that does make movies in general look worse than they need to.

 

[Citizen87645]

DVD Beaver has the Miramax release added to the comparison. Screenshots are usually helpful, but don't necessarily tell the whole story. When I did my own comparison I took screenshots but found the difference in quality b/w the two much more noticeable when in play.

(There's also a new comparison on the HofD.)

 

[Ricky Hustle]

I view my movies on a 65" Mits Diamond RPTV. I went into the movie aware of this thread and the complaints about the transfer. The film was so good, that I did not even notice most of the problems. The image was not the greatest, but it was perfectly servicable. The one exception was the golden leaves scene. The reds were very over saturated. Other than that, I was able to enjoy the movie to the fullest.

I may double dip if an eventual SB or improved transfer comes along, but if not this DVD will serve me fine. No complaints here.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I watched this last night on my Optoma H30. Was it the worse transfer I've seen, no, but I've seen alot better from a recent release. It was OK nothing more.