Hero

[kobeson]

Anybody bought the local release? Keen to hear the specs - hoping the audio is Mandarin HD, not like the USA disc which had only English in HD.

[TelkEvolon]

Doesn't come out until the 24th. At least that is what is listed.

I will wait and get all these Asian movies in a one big buy. This is probably the best out of all of them.

[kobeson]

Oh ok, my mistake.

Keen to hear if somebody buys it this week

[Ghostdivision]

Did anyone happen to get confirmation if this title has loseless mandarin?

[gettodamoofies]

I saw it in JB and it doesn't indicate that anything other than English is lossless. Looks to me like it's the same deal that the US and UK got and considering it's Disney/Buena Vista in all the territories that wouldn't come as a surprise.

[troyus]

Ive got this around somewhere. Got it for xmas. I shall have a look.

[MovieBuff647]

June 26th from Imprint. Likely as good of a release as we are going to get unless Miramax loses the rights. https://viavision.com.au/shop/hero-2002-imprint-asia-5/

[bigkid43]

Got confirmation from ViaVision that this is Region A compatible along with The Prisoner set and The Blind Swordsman.

I own the South Korea Nova Media Director's Cut and just posted a review. I decided to wait for a 4K update of both cuts rather than ordering this set. My luck would have been to order the set and then a month later a 4K version would be announced.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Hero-...6/#UserReviews

[app13533d]

Originally Posted by bigkid43

I decided to wait for a 4K update of both cuts rather than ordering this set. My luck would have been to order the set and then a month later a 4K version would be announced.

It's at the top of my UHD wishlist too, but apparently no negative is available of sufficient quality to do the transfer. https://www.reddit.com/r/4kbluray/co..._disc/j09x7su/

[yetanotherone]

I saw this in 35mm not that long ago. The print was in excellent condition. But the film itself is kind of on the blurry side of things, noticeably less sharp than a great deal of 35mms I have seen. So it is what it is.

[The Mole]

Originally Posted by app13533d

It's at the top of my UHD wishlist too, but apparently no negative is available of sufficient quality to do the transfer. https://www.reddit.com/r/4kbluray/co..._disc/j09x7su/

This Reddit post makes it sound like the original materials for HERO were lost. But I am pretty shure that they are safely locked away in the vaults of the original production company/rights holder in China. I mean: We're talking 2002 here. Not the 1960s-1990s when filmmaking in China and Hong Kong was still the wild east with little to no care taken for long term storage of film negatives and stuff.

What Miramax/Disney received for the Blu-ray might have been a sub-optimal scan from an interpositive or something with scanner noise etc. But that does not mean that the original materials don't exist anymore. Maybe the rights situation for these original materials is a little difficult nowadays because so many companies were involved it the films production and China/Hong Kong changes so fast that sometimes proper documentation gets messed up, and that maybe the reason why we don't see any 4k remaster. But it's not due to the lack of materials.

All this is speculation by me, but I would say the chances I am right are 95%.

[darry]

Originally Posted by The Mole

This Reddit post makes it sound like the original materials for HERO were lost. But I am pretty shure that they are safely locked away in the vaults of the original production company/rights holder in China. I mean: We're talking 2002 here. Not the 1960s-1990s when filmmaking in China and Hong Kong was still the wild east with little to no care taken for long term storage of film negatives and stuff.

What Miramax/Disney received for the Blu-ray might have been a sub-optimal scan from an interpositive or something with scanner noise etc. But that does not mean that the original materials don't exist anymore. Maybe the rights situation for these original materials is a little difficult nowadays because so many companies were involved it the films production and China/Hong Kong changes so fast that sometimes proper documentation gets messed up, and that maybe the reason why we don't see any 4k remaster. But it's not due to the lack of materials.

All this is speculation by me, but I would say the chances I am right are 95%.

Do you have any more info on this? China has maintained a film archive from as early as the 30’s.

[bongozoid]

Originally Posted by bigkid43

Got confirmation from ViaVision that this is Region A compatible along with The Prisoner set and The Blind Swordsman.

I own the South Korea Nova Media Director's Cut and just posted a review. I decided to wait for a 4K update of both cuts rather than ordering this set. My luck would have been to order the set and then a month later a 4K version would be announced.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Hero-...6/#UserReviews

Yeah I have that as well, and I 100% believe the new release from Imprint will be no better. Had they included Cause, then I would have considered, but as it stands, this is well over-priced for an old master.

[micpp]

Just received my copy today, and interestingly it seems to have three cuts: the first disc contains what it calls the "original theatrical cut" and the "US theatrical cut", and then the director's cut is on disc 2.
The two cuts on disc 1 seem to be completely separate transfers, with the US cut being hard-subbed

Edit: I've taken some screenshots to compare - they're just taken with VLC and I wasn't able to exactly match the frames so take them with a grain of salt but hopefully it gives some idea

Original theatrical:


US theatrical:


Director's cut:


Edit again: another set of screenshots showing the subtitles. The US cut subtitles are hardsubbed (i.e. encoded onto the video) but the other two are standard bluray soft subtitles.

Original theatrical:


US theatrical:


Director's cut:

[Chareth]

Wow, interesting! I was wondering what subtitle track Imprint would use: the initial one or the US one that tried to sidestep the political implications.

By doing this, Imprint may be enabling both.

Does the original theatrical cut use the phrase ‘all under heaven’ or ‘our land’ through the film?

I ordered the Japanese DVD years ago to have the more evocative subtitle track from my first viewing: this may make the Imprint set a must-have for upgrading to HD.

Could swear this wasn’t on Imprint’s page originally, but I see it there now in one of the bullets. Maybe a late addition?

A separate transfer for each cut bodes ill for quality though.

[micpp]

Originally Posted by Chareth

Does the original theatrical cut use the phrase ‘all under heaven’ or ‘our land’ through the film?

Haven't watched through the film yet, but at least in the opening prologue text both the original theatrical cut and director's cut use the "all under heaven" phrasing. It seems to be just the US cut that uses the "our land" translation.

Originally Posted by Chareth

A separate transfer for each cut bodes ill for quality though.

The director's cut is on a separate disc (along with the extras) so it's not TOO bad. For what it's worth, the director's cut takes up about 30GB of the disc it's on (not including the extras, which add about another 6GB or so), but the theatrical cuts are about 20GB each on their disc, so maybe a bit bitrate-starved by comparison?

Mostly I kinda find it unusual the differences between the transfers on the three cuts, like comparing the screenshots they're all at slightly different aspect ratios, and even with the two that have soft subtitles, the subtitles are in a different font. It sort of makes me wonder if Imprint had to get their masters from several different sources?

[bongozoid]

Originally Posted by Chareth

I ordered the Japanese DVD years ago to have the more evocative subtitle track from my first viewing: this may make the Imprint set a must-have for upgrading to HD.

The Nova release no doubt uses the same master for the director's cut and is on a BD-50, so pretty sure there won't be much difference. The Imprint certainly won't be better. And is double the price.

[Chareth]

Originally Posted by micpp

Haven't watched through the film yet, but at least in the opening prologue text both the original theatrical cut and director's cut use the "all under heaven" phrasing. It seems to be just the US cut that uses the "our land" translation.

Great news, thanks for confirming.

Originally Posted by micpp

The director's cut is on a separate disc (along with the extras) so it's not TOO bad. For what it's worth, the director's cut takes up about 30GB of the disc it's on (not including the extras, which add about another 6GB or so), but the theatrical cuts are about 20GB each on their disc, so maybe a bit bitrate-starved by comparison?

Sorry yes, I meant each theatrical cut. Imprint wisely putting the extras on the disc with one cut, plus the extra 10 minutes in the DC, miiight mitigate the issue sufficiently then. And given the masters are probably not the greatest per earlier posts and that Reddit thread, it may make less impact.

Originally Posted by micpp

Mostly I kinda find it unusual the differences between the transfers on the three cuts, like comparing the screenshots they're all at slightly different aspect ratios, and even with the two that have soft subtitles, the subtitles are in a different font. It sort of makes me wonder if Imprint had to get their masters from several different sources?

Wouldn't be surprised given the history of this film. I don't recall the US theatrical being different from the original theatrical apart from subtitles and the on-screen text, which could be handled by branching (if Imprint ever does that - guessing not?). And if the only way they could source the US subtitle track was with this burnt-in US master, that would explain the extra master. The DC was probably produced as a separate master at a different time too.

Originally Posted by bongozoid

The Nova release no doubt uses the same master for the director's cut and is on a BD-50, so pretty sure there won't be much difference. The Imprint certainly won't be better. And is double the price.

Hadn't caught up on its distribution on Blu but now have. True, the Imprint set is steep so I'm a bit on the fence. Is the Nova edition still available from Korean retailers though? Haven't bought from there before. The only eBay listing costs $50.

But the Imprint does seem to be the first set anywhere that packages the theatrical and director's cuts together, and both the US and original theatrical cuts to boot. That's worth something to me. I've never seen the DC so maybe it makes the original theatrical redundant, but the options are welcome.

Never knew about the Cause documentary until your earlier post though - thank you (over two hours!). Do you know if this was ever released on any disc of the movie? Not on the 2019 Nova one, based on the back cover. Seems scarce everywhere so Imprint may not have been able to secure it.

[bongozoid]

Originally Posted by Chareth

Never knew about the Cause documentary until your earlier post though - thank you (over two hours!). Do you know if this was ever released on any disc of the movie? Not on the 2019 Nova one, based on the back cover. Seems scarce everywhere so Imprint may not have been able to secure it.

I've only been able to get it on DVD from the UK (and I believe there was a limited DVD set back in the day from Korea that included it with the theatrical cut of the movie), and the picture quality on that is certainly lacking... but it really is a tremendous watch and gives a wonderful insight into the process and the meaning of the film.

I'd be very happy if someone were ever able to get the rights to it and give it a decent release. The Director's Cut also needs a fresh master (the one being used is likely the same used for the DVD). Good on Imprint for including all 3 cuts, for sure, but the DC is certainly the one I recommend.

[LMFAObros]

What’s the audio specs on all 3 cuts