Hard Boiled Blu-ray Review & Comments

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Reviewed by Cas Harlow, 21st December 2010.
John Woo’s massively influential, seminal action movie, Hard Boiled, is surely one of the best in the genre. Between his expertly choreographed slo-mo action and his hyperkinetic, explosive shoot-outs, Woo does balletic, ballistic gunplay like no other, and Hard Boiled represents the pinnacle of his action film career, and also arguably the best of his collaborations with charismatic leading man Chow Yun-Fat. For action fans this is one of those movies that set the mould in the first place, a non-stop rollercoaster ride of tremendous, increasingly audacious set-pieces, and breathtaking real-life effects and stunts. Undeniably exhilarating from start to finish, it simply must seen to be believed.

On Region Free US Blu-ray we unfortunately get a release which does not necessarily justify the upgrade. Dragon Dynasty, the studios who produced one of the most recent SD-DVD editions, have come up with a Blu-ray version which is superior in some ways to their previous DVD release, but inferior in others. We do get significantly better audio, and most of the previously-found extras as well, but there’s nothing new in the extra department, which is a shame when you consider the wealth of material on offer from the other DVD incarnations (including no less than two John Woo Audio Commentaries) which are nowhere to be seen here. Furthermore the video presentation is terrible. Clearly they have done something for this High Definition release, but it looks like they have left some scenes untouched (complete with heavy grain and print damage) and other scenes DNR’d into oblivion (in true Predator style), so it hardly comes as an upgrade, and in fact some might argue that it is inferior to the previous DVD incarnations. As such, if you already own Hard Boiled on DVD, you may want to consider waiting for a better version to come along. If you don’t yet have this title in your collection, however, then you could consider picking up this competitively-priced release. It’s a shame, because the film itself is an absolute must-have action classic, and it deserves far, far better.


Read the full review...
 
Gutted.

Thanks anyways Cas
 
Gutted.

Thanks anyways Cas

Yup, that just about sums it up. I wonder whether they'll ever get this one right! Pity Criterion didn't hold on to the rights...
 
Hard Boiled is one of my favourite films though it sadly suffers Empire Strikes Back syndrome in that although it has some absolute classic scenes and wonderfully heavy story scenes, the slower pacing makes it harder for me to rewatch.

I found the review because I recently did a check of my DVD to make sure it still worked and realised the quality was absolutely awful. I own the Criterion DVD and bought it at a time when I didn't know if there were any other copies available and was under the impression the Criterion label was the gold standard for DVD released of "cult" films. I now know the Criterion discs I do own are generally very poor quality and perhaps they were good for the time, but time has moved on.

The video transfer on the Criterion is shockingly bad and the audio is mono. Yes it's a great film and I watched it many times on my 27" widescreen TV and nascent 5.1 system and loved it, but putting it on briefly on my current set up made me want to reach for the sick bag because the video looked sub VHS quality on the projector.

So this review clearly put me off this edition, but searching around I found reference to another edition which was very well received and bought the digital version of it for USD8 because I got the impression the company was based far off overseas and I didn't want to pay crazy postage.

Telling a friend of mine how pleased I was he googled up the details of the website selling it, actually bothered to read the text description of the bluray, and made it very clear this was a fan project cherry picking the best available material available which is why I won't mention it here.

The video transfer is (I now believe "taken") from a Japanese Bluray release and it's absolutely amazing compared to the Criterion DVD from my spot checks and comparisons. There is very heavy noise/grain on the transfer but I'd never seriously expect a reference disc for the film given the time/place/budget, what matters is there is a lot of detail to be seen. The sound track is likely the one Cas heard (Cantonese 5.1 Surround DTS-HD), and apparently the subtitles have been redone and are original. The nature of the product has put me off watching it immediately, but I no doubt will soon.
 
^^^

That sounds like the HK Rescue ‘bootleg’ Blu-ray.
 
well having looked at the HKR blu ray it is a better copy than official bluray release and the horrible criterion dvd release. shame i no longer have laser disc player to compare with the laser disc i have got but as from memory the laser disc picture quality was awesome and the HKR release is good but not perfect.

really suprised, this, the killer, bullet in the head and a better tommorow 1 & 2 are not on any streaming services
 

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