The Killer (1989)

[DNinja]

I'm crossing my fingers that this release has the original aspect ratio, lossless audio, correct subtitles, and a decent helping of special features. I wouldn't mind the terrible English dub being included too. Wu-Tang Clan sampled it a lot on their early albums.

[Rantlers]

I love all John Woo, can't wait to get this. Kind of impressive how Walmart beat Amazon to the punch for pre-ordering.

[seigneur_rayden]

Originally Posted by skads_187

wow. i cant believe this is actually happening. My birthday is in feb, but now im thinking of officially changing it to march 30th.

cant wait. day one guaranteed.

Best comment ever!!! Made me laugh so hard at work.

[skads_187]

Originally Posted by seigneur_rayden

Best comment ever!!! Made me laugh so hard at work.

true story. lol

but seriously, like everyone else is saying, i really hope they do justice to this release.

you think they will re-release hard boiled? i have the version that came with the stranglehold ps3 game.

[OrlandoEastwood]

Originally Posted by GGX

Who is the company behind the Dragon Dynasty label?

It was Weinstein but Vivendi is distributing it.

[DangerousG]

The Dragon Dynasty people are a bunch of hacks, but i'll have my fingers crossed.

[singhcr]

I've been pretty impressed with the Dragon Dynasty titles on DVD like Police Story but they do make some mistakes, like the stretched image for Hard Boiled.

I have the sneaking suspicion that one of the following things will happen (in order of worst to best)

1. Upconverted DVD transfer
2. Excessive DNR. If anyone's seen this film before there is a lot of grain and scratches during the night scenes but it does seem to be intentional as the daytime scenes look great.
3. No lossless audio or a craptastic 5.1 remix. Ideally I'd like to see a lossless 5.1 option and a lossless mono option. How much space could a mono track take, even in PCM? You could have a TrueHD 1.0 track, that would take almost no space at all considering a 2+ hr 5.1 TrueHD track is in the region of ~2.5 GB.
4. Altered aspect ratio.
5. Poor subtitles, especially dubtitles.



If scenario #1 happens, no sale for me. If #2, depending on how severe it is, no sale. Lossless is very important but if the video transfer is good and the audio is lossy but at least cleaned up and not full of hiss and pops I'd still get it. I would prefer 1.85:1 as that's what the OAR is but if it's 1.78:1 the difference is not that noticeable so it wouldn't prevent me from purchasing it. My CRT has enough overscan where 1.85:1 and 1.78:1 look the same anyway. I'm kinda used to #5 but it would be nice to have some proper subtitles.

[skads_187]

good points, but i think #4 is really important, i hate when they mess around with the aspect ratio. just keep it the same.

its too bad DD hasnt released any other BD's yet or else we'd know what were dealing with.

which company released the police story's and Once upon a time in china on bd?
cause from what ive read they did a horrendous job.

[mcthuggin99]

cant wait for this on Blu Ray

[OpFeRmEtZgER]

Originally Posted by mcthuggin99

cant wait for this on Blu Ray

Now that´s a cool T-shirt!

[DNinja]

That's awesome! Where'd you find it?

Originally Posted by mcthuggin99

cant wait for this on Blu Ray

[SlaughterX]

Day one.

[Abacab]

No doubt this will be another disaster from the failure known as Dragon Dynasty. I'm sure Chow will look like he just poured a bottle of pepto bismol all over himself. Also, the Cantonese track will no doubt be Dolby Digital compressed rather than lossless. The soundtrack will get a hip hop/rap makeover in 5.1 and the aspect ratio will get screwed up making everyone look fat. And it'll be DNRed to death. Oh and dubtitles since they're too lazy to get a translation or cheap to license one.

Also it appears to be a special Dragon Dynasty cut that is rated G; so says their webpage!

Har har.

Or hell could freeze over and it'll be a great release.

[demoni]

Originally Posted by Abacab

No doubt this will be another disaster from the failure known as Dragon Dynasty. I'm sure Chow will look like he just poured a bottle of pepto bismol all over himself. Also, the Cantonese track will no doubt be Dolby Digital compressed rather than lossless. The soundtrack will get a hip hop/rap makeover in 5.1 and the aspect ratio will get screwed up making everyone look fat. And it'll be DNRed to death. Oh and dubtitles since they're too lazy to get a translation or cheap to license one.

Also it appears to be a special Dragon Dynasty cut that is rated G; so says their webpage!

Har har.

Or hell could freeze over and it'll be a great release.

hehe, looks like you've had some bad experience with Dragon Dynasty...?

[richieb1971]

Its a good movie, but everyone overlooked one little factor in the movie.

The girl needed cornea's to be available to have the transplant for rectifying her blindness. Well, after the beach scene I think there would have been plenty to go around.

By the end of the movie about 150 bodies have been shot dead, I think a match could have been found hehehe.

Apart from that, its a great movie.

[Abacab]

Originally Posted by demoni

hehe, looks like you've had some bad experience with Dragon Dynasty...?

Yeah, it's when I noticed Chow Yun-Fat gained twenty pounds in Hard Boiled. Also, Jackie Chan looking like Pepto man with a nuclear bomb going off in the background soured me too. The Police Story disc was a debacle.

[skads_187]

Originally Posted by richieb1971

By the end of the movie about 150 bodies have been shot dead, I think a match could have been found hehehe.

thats hilarious, never thought of that.

correct me if im wrong. isnt this movie and 36th chamber the 1st BD movies DD is doing?

and if it is, i swear, if the BD copy is an upconverted version of the dvd, im gonna lose it. it will hopefully totally kill any of their future BD sales

[OldPangYau]

Originally Posted by skads_187

thats hilarious, never thought of that.

correct me if im wrong. isnt this movie and 36th chamber the 1st BD movies DD is doing?

and if it is, i swear, if the BD copy is an upconverted version of the dvd, im gonna lose it. it will hopefully totally kill any of their future BD sales

Well, Kam and Ronson is currently the only company we've seen upconvert these movies. Miraculously, the Bruce Lee blu-rays were actual HD transfers (though The Big Boss was the only good looking one). DD usually works with HD masters, and Celestial has made HD masters of a good deal of their films... so 36th Chamber at least should be in true HD. Guess we'll see how The Killer fares.

[Grim Reaper]

they need to release Hard Boiled... with a better transfer than the stranglehold version.

[lhslancers]

Originally Posted by richieb1971

Its a good movie, but everyone overlooked one little factor in the movie.

The girl needed cornea's to be available to have the transplant for rectifying her blindness. Well, after the beach scene I think there would have been plenty to go around.

By the end of the movie about 150 bodies have been shot dead, I think a match could have been found hehehe.

Apart from that, its a great movie.

Hong Kong cinema. Suspend all belief. Some great movies. Obviously Blu done right would trump any DVD but I have come across some extremely good used DVD's for next to nothing. Lost in Time is one that comes to mind. I've picked up plenty others and for the prices I have paid I am very satisfied with the DVD product. Then there is Ip Man and Assembly. If all the Blu transfers looked like this I would go broke double dipping.