A Hero Never Dies (Hong Kong, 1988) - Johnnie To | HD Remaster BD

[Futurhythm]

BD Release: 9th January, 2015
￥ 3,436
No English subs or audio

Amazon.co.jp
Japanese Theatrical re-release info

So excited!

Johnnie To's 1998 A Hero Never Dies is getting an HD remaster in Japan. It's currently seeing a limited theatrical re-release and will be followed by a BD release early next year.

This is great news for both Hong Kong cinema and Johnnie To fans because classic Hong Kong movies being remastered (properly) pretty much doesn't happen and this is regarded as one of To's best works. Hopefully, they'll get around to other titles in his filmography (i.e., THE MISSION) and this will mean more classic Hong Kong movies dying for a remaster will get some attention as well.

[drees5761]

Good news, but being a Japanese release it will not be English friendly, will there ever be a Hong Kong release?

[ZeTi]

Wow great news. Hope some HK Label will adept and also bring the rest of TOs Filmography in Hi-Def.

Still have a crappy german dvd of "a hero never dies". Such a cool movie. Fulltime Killer & The Mission need to be on BD asap.

[tsetse27]

Great news for Monday morning!!

hopefully more coming, of course most wanted is The Mission and Fulltime Killer (this one should come sooner or later, since it has a major Japanese star in it..?)

Also The Longest Nite and Expect the Unexpected.

[Futurhythm]

My copy arrived from Amazon today and I've given the disc a quick spin.

It's a pretty basic release so the menu is kind of unimpressive and sparse. Only one audio track, Cantonese DTS-HD MA5.1 and optional Japanese subtitles. There are three special features: an interview with the lead actress Yoyo Mung, NG scenes, and theatrical trailer. They're all in SD and of varying video quality; the interview looks like something taken from an LD maybe and the trailer from a letterboxed source since it has quite large black bars on all four sides.

As for the main feature, it's an absolutely astounding improvement on any other edition released so far. Audio is very impressive, and I've never heard an old HK movie sound this good. The PQ varies, and for what looks like a variety of reasons, but is as a whole excellent. Old HK movies were not filmed on the best film stock and this really shows in very very dark scenes which this movie has a few of. Some shots look blurred, but I think it's because the focus puller didn't do their job properly rather than a bad transfer. There's still scratches and very light damage, but the colours are gorgeous now and the picture very clear and crisp.

[Torrente]

Too bad it's not english friendly.

[DooK]

CN Entertainment will be releasing it on bluray on June 20. Chameleon Films teased an upcoming bluray release with the below still, which is highly likely to be the same movie.



https://www.yesasia.com/global/a-her...0-en/info.html

[MovieBuff647]

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=36648

[darry]

Originally Posted by DooK

CN Entertainment will be releasing it on bluray on June 20. Chameleon Films teased an upcoming bluray release with the below still, which is highly likely to be the same movie.



https://www.yesasia.com/global/a-her...0-en/info.html

Interesting. It is the same movie as Chameleon has already announced it. But Chameleon has been talking about all the restoration work they are doing. Does this mean they aren't actually doing it themselves? I guess distributors don't actually do this work.

[puttedeath]

Wow fantastic news ! Will uppdate my old bong Kong dvd asap ����

[DooK]

I was right indeed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DLHO_d4J...1xY3U4aTF5ZHpo