HBDD
Hard Boiled (1992)
Director - John Woo

DVD Released by : Dragon Dynasty Features:
 Soundtracks:
 Cantonese Mono
 Cantonese 5.1 
English Mono
 Running Time : 128 min.
Region 1
 Audio Commentary by Bey Logan.
 "A Baptism Of Fire" Featurette With John Woo
"Partner In Crime" Interview With Producer Terence Chang
"Art Imitates Life" Interview With Co-Star Philip Chan
"Hard Boiled" Location Guide
"Mad Dog Bites Again" Interview With Leading Villain Kwok Choi
Trailer Gallery (Hong Kong Theatrical Trailer & US Promotional Trailer		 HBDD
If you only know one action movie to come out of Hong Kong, chances are it's HARD BOILED. John Woo directs what many consider the quintessential action movie. Chow Yun Fat is Tequila, the Dirty Harry-styled cop. He will bring the bad guys to justice no matter what it takes. When he is denied leading a heavily armed SWAT team into a Triad warehouse, he just does it all by himself. On the opposite end of spectrum is Anthony Wong who plays Johnny. He is as bad as they come. With no regard for human life, he chooses to store an armory of illegal weapons in the must unlikely places. He wants to be the top arms dealer but he is being undercut by a rival. His solution is have his rivals top guy work for him. What he doesn't know is that Tony (Tony Leung), is an undercover cop. So undercover, that only the police chief knows who he is.

There have been many releases of HARD BOILED on DVD. The most sought after is the Criterion. This came out very early in the DVD years. Not much more than a port from the wonderful Criterion laser disc, it was packed with extras. Most are in the form of text on the screen, but it also had John Woo's student film, trailers, and a commentary. This soon went out of print and Mei Ah released their first version which is a flipper and very bright. Not much going for it. Winstar soon had their version which didn't have any many extras but like the others, was non-anamorphic.

Mei Ah brought us the first HARD BOILED DVD that is anamorphic and All Region. It had no extras but it had the original soundtrack.  The image featured some specks and damage but  it was certainly watchable. 
So, now we have Dragon Dynasty's HARD BOILED TWO DISC ULTIMATE EDITION.  Anamorphic and packed with extras, this really had the potential to be the "Ultimate Edition".  Some flaws keep this from truly living up to the namebut that being said I suggest viewing this DVD before making a blind buy.

Please keep in mind that this review is comparing Region 1 and Region free versions.  
HBDD Mei Ah
Criterion
Winstar
HBDD Dragon Dynasty
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 especially with overscan.  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. 
Mei Ah
Criterion
Winstar
HBDD 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.  

Mei Ah
Criterion
Winstar
HBDD3 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.  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.   If you have any comments about this release,  Bey Logan welcomes them 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.  If you have all region capability an don't need English subtitles then you could pass.  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.  This is the best there is for region 1 at this time.

Overall, a little disappointing.   It falls a little short of the perfect release because of the image and dubtitles.   Opinion does vary on how distorted the image is and how accurate the subtitles are.  I really think if you are on the fence about buying this you should rent it first.  

Reviewed 7/31/07
hk
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