New Hard Boiled DVD has dubtitles (1 Viewer)

[Edward Schatz]

Fair enough re: Bey Logan. I hope the Blu-Ray disc doesn't have these problems. Does anyone know if it's just a nicer looking version of the Dragon Dynasty disc or something better?

 

[Anthony Thorne]

I'd be guessing that it's just a nicer looking version of the DD edition, but we'll have to wait and see.

That stretching is really obvious on the screenshots shown.

 

[Edward Schatz]

I didn't actually look at it until you said something. Yeah, it's painfully obvious. I am glad I didn't buy this.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

I picked this up and have to be the naysayer here. The dubtitles are annoying, to be sure, but I didn't notice the stretching at all-- even after encountering this thread. The comment that Chow Yun Fat looks 50% heavier is pretty off-base. If you can live with the dubtitles, this looks pretty good (at least to me).

 

[Lee-c]

Well, it's good to hear that the picture quality is actually quite high, with an apparently excellent print used for the transfer. Hard Boiled deserves a great transfer.

It's a real shame they would do something as dumb as crop the picture, and then, far worse, stretch the image on top of that. Why ruin what is otherwise a great looking picture?? What's wrong with this Brian White guy, doesn't he even know the most basic things about how to do a proper transfer? I'm not even a professional in that field, and I would *never* permit such a thing to be done. These guys need to be straightened out by their bosses and made to understand that they should never do this sort of thing again on any transfer, or just fired if they can't seem to get the message. Get real pros to do the transfer and stupid stuff like this won't happen.

But there is good news here! We apparently have great picture quality, nice and clear and clean, with good accurate colors. We also have the original Cantonese mono soundtrack, which is extremely important. And perhaps the English subtitles are quite a bit more accurate than we had at first feared. The one and only thing that really needs to be fixed is the transfer. All cropping needs to be removed, so that the original theatrical aspect ratio and framing of the film is preserved, and also absolutely no stretching or crushing of the image either horizontally or vertically. If they just fix that, this will be a great DVD set. I'll buy it in a second!

 

[Matthew Brown]

I'll have a couple of more screen capture comparisons tonight and the final review written (Hopefully).

I e-mailed Bey Logan asking if there is a contact address so people can let Dragon Dynasty know how they feel.

 

[Geoff_D]

Matthew, are you sure that your DD cap has been formatted properly? It's quite a bit taller than the other captures. When re-sized to 16:9 (cap measures 400x224 and not 400x267: try it yourself, kids!) it looks fine to me.

 

[Matthew Brown]

Geoff -
I will put the original up. I am using Power DVD and taking the screen capture from there. I kept the width at 400 and the above was the result. I will double check, though. The screen shot above looks the same as the original aspect-wise. Maybe because the first two are from non-anamorphic DVD's?

Here is a site that has several comparison shots.
http://caps-a-holic.com/vergleich.php?vergleichID=114

I will check my settings for the screen capture.

Matt

 

[Edward Schatz]

The cropping and stretching is really obvious on that page, Matthew. People almost look smeared it's so bad - especially in that shot at the boss' house when they are peeling oranges or whatever. BTW, is that the original Tartan or the remastered on that page? The UK disc is SEVERELY dark.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

The caps on that page do not match Matthew's cap -- they look slightly wider than normal, and Matthew's cap is tall and thin.

 

[Edward Schatz]

Which caps? The DD caps or all the caps? The differences in image are quite clear. Furthermore, the DD caps are the most out of whack looking of them all.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

The caps on the page from the new disc are clearly a little fat. Matthew's cap from the same disc is clearly tall and thin.

 

[Matthew Brown]

The screen cap is fixed in my original post.
Dragon Dynasty
Criterion

Winstar


Dragon Dynasty


I put all three again so everyone didn't have to find the last post.

 

[Edward Schatz]

And he still looks "fatter" and it's clearly cropped.

 

[Matthew Brown]

I am having trouble uploading my review to my site so here is the main parts of it. The screen shots in my previous post show the cropping and distortion a little better than these.

Let's start with the picture quality. The print itself is almost scratch and damage free. The colors are brighter than the Criterion and Winstar versions. There is an occasional shaky frame but none of the jump frames that could sometimes be seen in other versions. This could have been the best I have seen it. While the print itself is in good shape, it is cropped and slightly stretched. The cropping is on all sides of the image which does make some of the framing look just a little too tight. This is a movie with big, flowing action scenes and some great editing. Cropping the frame even just a little changes the flow of the action. The stretching of the image is slight, but it's as if the actors are 10 pounds heavier. I would guess that many people won't notice the cropping and stretching, but I did. It is very apparent when compared to the previous DVD releases. This is disappointing because the print itself looks great.
Criterion

Winstar

Mei Ah

Dragon Dynasty

The original Cantonese soundtrack is included. It's a nice clean track and sounds like it should, no pops or noise. There are also Cantonese 5.1 and DTS tracks. The mono English dub is also included. I am very happy with the Cantonese Mono track and this is my choice when viewing this film.
The subtitles closely follow the spoke English dub. While this is the case, it does keep the spirit of the movie and is pretty close to the more literal translations that I have seen. I saw this a few weeks ago at the New York Asian Film Festival and while the subtitles were different on that print, the meaning is virtually identical. No plots or character motivations are changed with these "dubtitles". For an "Ultimate Edition", it would have been nice to have new subtitles with a more literal translation but in this case, the subtitles are acceptable. I am not for dubtitles in every case but these are close enough for me.

Criterion

Winstar

Mei Ah

Dragon Dynasty


The extras are nice. The John Woo interview covers a lot of the same ground the commentaries on the Criterion and Winstar DVD's did. It's nice seeing John Woo speak about the film, though. Bey Logan does the commentary during the film. When somebody who worked on the film isn't available I would rather it be him. His commentaries are always entertaining. The remaining interviews and features are interesting. It's nice to see the effort in these extras especially the interview with Phillip Kwok. With all the effort on the extras, I wish more effort was made for a non-distorted print. It gives the impression that this was rushed to support the video game Stranglehold. Normally I would have not liked a featurette of a video game as an extra but it was cool seeing Chow Yun-Fat do his voice work.

When HARD BOILED is released as an "Ultimate Edition" it is really an event. It is a little disappointing that this DVD couldn't really be the perfect edition. The forums are buzzing with venom about the distorted picture. Even Amazon.com has some scathing reviews. I can assure you that Dragon Dynasty is aware of this. I don't know if that means we may see a correction in the future or if it just means they will be more careful going forward. In the meantime, Bey Logan welcomes your comments and his e-mail address can be found on the Dragon Dynasty web site.
Should you buy this? If you are like me and notice when a picture is cropped and slightly distorted, than probably not. I could have actually lived with the cropping but I notice the stretching of the image. Will everybody notice the distortion? Probably not. For more examples of screen capture comparison, try this site Caps-a-Holic.com. If you don't have the movie at all and are limited to Region 1, then you may want to go for this one. The imperfections are more obvious to those who already have a version of this at home.

Overall, a little disappointing. The bar was raised pretty high for this release and it wasn't met. I am sure that many people will be very happy with the release but image does it in for me. Then again, I have 5 other versions of this movie.

 

[Matt Wooten]

Well I know I'm in the minority here, but I really liked this edition. This is the third time I've bought this on dvd (including the critierion) and the simple fact the image is clear enough that is "looks" like a dvd and not a VHS I've watched 30 times is wonderful. If you have the chance to rent this, do it before you shun it off. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Matthew Brown]

You are absolutely correct on that. With all stated in the above review, this is the best available in Region 1 at the moment. I do think people should try to see the DVD before buying the DVD if they are on the fence about it.

 

[Geoff_D]

I haven't got the disc, but going from the caps I just can't see the extra weight that folk are supposed to be carrying. Not to excuse DD's actions, but I've got a fair few films that have been cropped, squashed or stretched (slightly) on various DVD editions, and most of the time I wouldn't even notice. The stretching on HKL's Magnificent Butcher is atrocious of course, but that's an extreme example.

To hell with the Blu-ray Stranglehold version, I'll go for the DD DVD.

 

[Matthew Brown]

Geoff -
To be perfectly honest, the stretching isn't very noticeable when watching the movie unless it's a close up. If I didn't have the other dvd's as a reference or laser disc, I might not even have thought twice.

As for the cropping, it depend on how much overscan there is as well. This makes a little go a long way.

I think the disappointment for me is knowing that this could have been just a little bit better and it would have been perfect.

 

[Cees Alons]

Matthew,

Are you actually saying there that this version is an excellent one, although with some minor flaws we should know about before purchasing, but which every true fan of the film (or of the genre) should acquire?




Cees