3 Korean titles from France

[xradman]

I just finished going through 3 Korean Blu-ray releases from Elephant Film. They are all region free. bbbluUnfortunately all 3 titles are less than optimal for various reasons.

Running Wild (Yasoo) (2006)

IMDB on Ya-soo

Video: 1080i60 encoded in AVC
Audio: Korean dts 5.1, French dts 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Off
International cut ~124 minutes

Picture is very contrasty with very intense colors. Faces appear orange, but I suspect that this might be intentional as certain scenes are intensely blue.

Bloody Tie (Sasaeng Gyeoldan) (2006)

IMDB on Sasaeng Gyeoldan
Beyond Hollywood Movie Review

Video: 1080i50 encoded in AVC
Audio: Korean dts HD MA 5.1, French dts HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Off
117 minutes

Why this is encoded in 1080i50/p25, I haven't a clue. How it ends up at 117 minutes (same length as NTSC DVD) when playing with 4% PAL speedup is a mystery as well. This title may not be playable with many US TV and Blu-ray players.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 (Jopok Manura 3) (2006)

Wikipedia article on Jopok Manura 3

Video: 1080i60 encoded in AVC
Audio: Korean dts 5.1, French dts 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Off
115 minutes

I watched this first with Korean audio and subtitles off, however since about half the dialog is in Chinese (?Mandarin), this was not suitable since there is no forced subtitles for Chinese dialog. Korean dts 5.1 audio also had significant distortion (as if it was clipping).

I applaud Elephant Films for releasing these titles without region coding and including extensive supplemental features. But I can't help wondering why they did not encode these as 1080p24 and include lossless original audio (lossless audio is included in Bloody Tie). Due to these deficiencies, I can only give a lukewarm recommendation for these 3 French releases.

[Harry Caul]

There should be no Pal Speed up with Blu-rays because it's universal 24p a second, are you sure it says 25p? Because that should not be the case and i've never seen something like that. That was part of the improvement no 2:3 Pull up with NTSC and no PAL speedup.

[xradman]

Originally Posted by Harry Caul

There should be no Pal Speed up with Blu-rays because it's universal 24p a second, are you sure it says 25p? Because that should not be the case and i've never seen something like that. That was part of the improvement no 2:3 Pull up with NTSC and no PAL speedup.

It's definitely encoded at 1080i50. There is no such thing as 25p in Blu-ray specs, so they encode it interlaced in 1080i50. There are bunch of movies, mainly released in Europe, that have this bastard timing. I'm keeping track of such films on another forum.

List of films encoded in 1080i50

[Harry Caul]

Don't know why they encode it 1080i, i have one Blu-ray encoded that way and its also french, i had to change the bloody settings on my PS3 because of that, i had it on 1080p only but it would fall on 576i with this Blu-ray. You know any other Korean Movies out on Blu-ray, the Koreans themselves are a bit behind with their releases. I want the Movie in your Avatar but an Original Korean Blu-ray!!!!! Been pimping it to the Kill Bill crowd for years.

[xradman]

Originally Posted by Harry Caul

Don't know why they encode it 1080i, i have one Blu-ray encoded that way and its also french, i had to change the bloody settings on my PS3 because of that, i had it on 1080p only but it would fall on 576i with this Blu-ray. You know any other Korean Movies out on Blu-ray, the Koreans themselves are a bit behind with their releases. I want the Movie in your Avatar but an Original Korean Blu-ray!!!!! Been pimping it to the Kill Bill crowd for years.

Have a look here.

A Bittersweet Life was supposed to be one of the original release titles for HD DVD in Japan, but it never panned out. So far many foreign releases of Asian movies have had some issues (forced subtitles, 1080i, shortened cut) that makes me hesitant to blindly buy them in the future.

[Harry Caul]

Yeah, you right about those releases, that's why i'm waiting for the Koreans to release their Movies on Blu-ray, the Korean DVD's where allways very good. And i hope for a Korean Oldboy release which is approved by Chan-Wook Park because there are so many different colour variants out there and the only approved one is the first Korean Dvd, which I bought, after that the studio took over and changed colours and brightness. And great link thanks a lot, I even bookmarked it on my Iphone. Hope more Europeans and Americans get intersted in Korean/Chinese and Japanese Movies, because at the time Hollywood can only be envious about asian genre movies, there is no way for them to get close to them in terms of style.