Kontroll (Hungary)

[Papercat]

Any news of this being released somewhere with english subtitles?

[pro-bassoonist]

Hello,

Unfortunately, no other international distributor has stepped up.

Pro-B

[TedK]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Hello,

Unfortunately, no other international distributor has stepped up.

Pro-B

[Monroville]

Regardless, any links as to retailers selling the blu-ray?

[pro-bassoonist]

Matti, do you mean the 2DVD set? I believe it has been out of print for a while.



Pro-B

[KrugerIndustrial]

Yes, I know. I was hoping there'd still be a vendor with one extra sealed copy left.

[Pooch]

Hi,

KONTROLL is one of the greatest films you've probably never heard of.

It really is a monumentally amazing film. From the score by Neo, to the superb chase scenes featuring Bootsie and Co, or the haunting and semi-religious ending, and you have a film that so richly deserves to be seen by so many more people.

Alas, the only semi-decent release of this film is the long out-of-print Hungarian 2-Disc DVD edition. You can still get the 1-disc version, which at least has English Subtitles and is in full 16:9 anamorphic widescreen (which the UK and USA DVD releases aren't), but as has already been mentioned, the Blu-Ray release is strictly for Hungarians only.

You can see more about this film, where I put-up a petition for an English-friendly Blu-Ray release, at here. Alas, it's only had 6 signaures. So, I don't expect to see this getting a release anytime soon.

More info, can be found on my blog, at here!


Pooch

[toddly6666]

Kontroll and Versus were probably the last two mega-hyped foreign films that I saw that turned out to suck.

[fait]

This is released in Germany now on BD, but only German subtitles.

Amazon.de

[LRSVDR]

Originally Posted by fait

This is released in Germany now on BD, but only German subtitles.

Amazon.de

Kinda hard to find specs for this release.
From what I could gather it contains only the trailer and none of the previous special features.

[TheDoug]

Originally Posted by Monroville

Regardless, any links as to retailers selling the blu-ray?

Good luck with that quest of finding a Hungarian on-line retailer that ships to the United States. I'm also one of the lucky few that in 2003 was able to purchase the Limited Edition 2-Disk dvd (black edition) from a seller in Hungary who also sold cd's. That seller no longer exists on the web. One other time I was able to make a Hungarian purchase from a seller on Ebay. That would be one's best option to find a Hungarian based seller on Ebay and contact them to see if they could get you a copy. I too would willingly buy a blu-ray version of this film since I'm a big fan of this classic movie.

[TheDoug]

Originally Posted by KrugerIndustrial

Yes, I know. I was hoping there'd still be a vendor with one extra sealed copy left.

As of today's date there is a Hungarian seller on Ebay selling a good condition used copy of this OOP title. The price isn't too bad either considering how long its been out of print. Good luck.

Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kontroll-200...AAAOSwKIpWA-PN

[KrugerIndustrial]

Originally Posted by TheDoug

As of today's date there is a Hungarian seller on Ebay selling a good condition used copy of this OOP title. The price isn't too bad either considering how long its been out of print. Good luck.

Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kontroll-200...AAAOSwKIpWA-PN

I'll have to pass on this one. Thanks for the kind PM though, I really appreciate it!

[MikeyC314]

One of the hardest films to find that I've come across but managed to pick up the German Blu-ray on eBay (being sold by a second hand US store!) - it arrived and of course has no English subs so I went searching online, downloaded some and synced them up properly, fixed some odd spelling mistakes, converted to the BD sub format (took quite some time). Then ripped the BD, added in the English subs (set to play by default thanks to this great little program by rotty dog that patched the iso I made in tsMuxer to enable default subs). Finally, I burned the iso to a BD-R so I can keep that in the case with the original disc. Now I have the disc I wanted more or less!

There's a few issues still, the image quality is not perfect (presumably the German release is the same as the Hungarian release which seems to be impossible to find anywhere. It's 1080i for some reason(!) but... compared to the UK DVD that I had before it's a massive improvement. Man I hated that DVD. As it's a German disc the default audio was the German dub so removed that and just kept the original Hungarian audio tracks. The only section with burned in subs is the disclaimer at the start - it's a burned in German language translation of that so I moved my English subs for this section to the middle of the image. Works well enough but I wish I had been able to find the original Hungarian disc. Does anyone here own it?

Anyway, it's tragic it never got a wide release and is almost impossible to find.

[Sterling450]

If it helps, the Hungarian Blu-Ray is impossible to be found in Hungary too, except for horror prices on some second hand FB groups

[MikeyC314]

Originally Posted by Sterling450

If it helps, the Hungarian Blu-Ray is impossible to be found in Hungary too, except for horror prices on some second hand FB groups

Oh I believe you! I spent quite a while searching every Hungarian site I could find and translating them but never actually finding the disc anywhere. Had to give up! The German disc certainly doesn't appear to be freely available to me either. I always find it odd when a pretty prominent directors old films are just impossible to find in decent quality.

[MikeyC314]

Thought I'd do some comparisons of the Germany release vs the Hungary release as someone kindly helped me get Hungary screengrabs and the difference is ridiculous. The German distributer appears to have taken the Hungary blu-ray and run it through a very harsh DNR so the image (while fine to watch) loses all it's grain and much of it's sharpness. The bitrate on the Hungary blu-ray is 34Mbs while the Germany release is just 20Mbs and boy does it show. Why they chose to do this is a mystery as the Hungary blu-ray is far superior in every way. Yes the film looks a little ropey and it's not a perfect image but it is at least the film that was made. Check it out...



Such a shame they didn't just copy the Hungary blu-ray one for one but felt the need to DNR and compress it into such a sorry state. Also it's still a shame that no other distributer around the world picked this up. I'm still on the look out for an official Hungary release of this in case anyone ever comes across it. Thanks!

[sidetracked1]

Originally Posted by MikeyC314

Thought I'd do some comparisons of the Germany release vs the Hungary release as someone kindly helped me get Hungary screengrabs and the difference is ridiculous. The German distributer appears to have taken the Hungary blu-ray and run it through a very harsh DNR so the image (while fine to watch) loses all it's grain and much of it's sharpness. The bitrate on the Hungary blu-ray is 34Mbs while the Germany release is just 20Mbs and boy does it show. Why they chose to do this is a mystery as the Hungary blu-ray is far superior in every way. Yes the film looks a little ropey and it's not a perfect image but it is at least the film that was made. Check it out...


Such a shame they didn't just copy the Hungary blu-ray one for one but felt the need to DNR and compress it into such a sorry state. Also it's still a shame that no other distributer around the world picked this up. I'm still on the look out for an official Hungary release of this in case anyone ever comes across it. Thanks!

Also, my copy of the German BR reads as MPEG-2 not MPEG-4 AVC (which is how it's listed here on blu-ray.com). That ancient codec certainly doesn't help. I gotta say to my eye it's only very modestly better than my Hungarian Anamorphic DVD. It's a bit sharper, but also has more artifacts and other weaknesses. Very frustrating that the Hungarian disc is impossible to find, and there's never been a decent disc of this terrific and very popular film released elsewhere...