Right, time to resurrect a thread.
I recently bought the 1989 version with Dolph Lundgren, R1 on the Artisan label. It has all the scenes with the martial arts weapon intact. Cuts are as follows. Ironically enough they're in the UK version, but then that had so much more missing.
Bullet to the head and the splat to the wall when the mafiosa types are all poisoned in the restaurant.
During the final shoot out in the top floor office, when the lighting in red, a guy tkes four shots to the head. In the US version you only see two.
When Dolph fightsd the lead oriental heavy and he gets impaled, you only see the aftermath and not the tight shot of the points going through him.
Now, onto the new version.
Director Hensleigh clearly states on the "making of" featurette, that he despises the style of contemporary action films. He hates quick editing, CGI and the whole MTV editing approach. He sites directors such as Leone, Eastwood and Siegel as being his inspiration. This is a good start. Also the fact that the stunt work in the movie is for real and not post production. Wideshots are used to establish clearly what is going on, then close frame shots for reaction. Fights are cherorgraphed old school. IE You can see what the hell is going on. Punches fly and you see what happens, rather than a lightning procession of short,improbably composed shots.
For a film shot on a moderte budget and on a tight schedule, the finished product looks very polished. Scripted sequences were dropped for bugetary reasons, which may have helped with charactor and plot developement. But the main selling point for me is the repudiation of the comic "kiss off lines" so often employed to mitigate the cynical violence. What you get is a dark, oppressive movie with no cop outs or glimpses of redemption. Facking great! This is what the source material is all about.
The violence depicted is often not as graphic as what it could have been, but some of it is present in such a frank and gruelling fashion it has far more impact. There is lots of "homages" to other movies such as Mad Max, multiple westerns and even Othello.
But because of the way thats it's been crafted, it's not going to be eveyones cup of tea. Purists may be peturbed by the plot changes from the source comic strip. Completists may complain over the skirting over certain plot lines (which were obviously done for budgetry requirements IE All of Frank Castles military service in Kuwait). But action fans who remember the halcyon days of the early 80's, when editing was a craft not populated by those trying to enduce photosensitive epilepsy, may get a kick out of this film.