ADDITION: Roc - A - Fella - Region FREE - Blu-ray - (December 2010) - Firstly this 'Roc - A - Fella' Blu-ray starts with both the Vivendi Entertainment and Dragon Dynasty logos. Hard Boiled continues to be a problematic title for transfer to the digital medium. This 1080P dual-layered transfer is quite inconsistent - looking nicely textured with grain in some shots and blatantly soft, waxy and DNR-ish in others. Detail is gone. There is also some notable damage in spots - mostly frame specific - but still noticeable.  Despite a high bitrate - fans will consider this a disappointment - visually-speaking. There is something odd about this image quality that I will revisit to help identify.

Audio-wise the original Cantonese track offered fares better - it's a DTS-HD Master 5.1 at 3659 kbps and there is some depth and range - sounding frequently impressive in the many aggressive scenes of the film. Unfortunately, it appears as though these are, again, English DUB-titles which hardcore fans of Hard Boiled will not appreciate. My Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

Extras duplicate the 2007 Dragon Dynasty DVD with the excellent, detailed, Bey Logan commentary (with a warning to click thru first) and close to 2 hours of video supplements but it omits the trailer Gallery and Video Game advert.

Oyyy vey... This isn't as bad as Dragon Dynasty's The Killer in HD but we can't recommend this Blu-ray - it seems the errors outweigh the other benefits of a strong audio track and extras (although repeated). It can tend to look quite poor at times and we don't encourage purchasing or upgrading for those that already own the title on DVD. We wish the news was better.

  - Gary W. Tooze

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ADDITION: Dragon Dynasty - Region 1 - NTSC - July 07': the image of the new Dragon Dynasty can't come close to the English-unfriendly TF1 but it looks fairly unmanipulated with some scattered digital noise. Image quality it is probably most similar to the PAL Tartan Extreme edition.  Audio sounded excellent to my ear - it offers the original mono plus 5.1, DTS upgrades and even a 5.1 English DUB. Subs are available in English and English for the hearing impaired.

NOTE: the Dragon Dynasty subtitles are really DUB-titles and we therefore dismiss this recommendation.

Supplements are extensive - first a (new?) commentary by Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan. Then on disc 2 we have a 38 minute featurette called Baptism of Fire which includes a discussion with director John Woo. There are 3 interviews; Partner in Crime: with Terence Chong (24:56), Art Imitates Life: with Philip Chan (15:56) and Mad Dog Bites Again: with Kwok Choi (25:03). There is a short Hard Boiled location guide (8:49) and some trailers (Hong Kong and US Promotional) plus a sellout advert for John Woo's shoot-em-up video game. 

For the supplements it's a good price at less than $20 - but the DUBtitles are a serious error. 

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NOTE: Regarding the UK release (TARTAN), there’s a suggestion that the opening (Chinese) window-boxed credits are an effort to maximize the available image. I’m not convinced, however. There’s a hidden TITLE-4 on the disc (perhaps it’s an Easter-egg) that contains the English version of the opening and closing credits and these are anamorphic. I would venture that Tartan used an anamorphic master containing these English credits and simply lopped them off, replacing them with a conversion of non-anamorphic titles from their own older master. Might be worth noting. (Thanks Victor)

Henrik Sylow

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Addition: The Long Shong DVD is filled with problems - ghosting, severely cropped, hazy. It does sport an intermission where a color bar flashes for an instance and then a black screen, but not a reason to get this DVD in my opinion. It is filled with artifacts and the burned in dual subtitles are the final nail in the coffin. Add to that no Extra features. Take a pass.

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There are many fans of this film and, because of that, three of these editions at one time or another were OOP (Out of Print). Mei Ah have re-mastered their first effort and added 5.1 sound. All editions seem to have some issues. The TF1 Video edition has by far the best image, but most unfortunately no English subtitles (only French and an option for a French DUB). The new Mei Ah has no Extras worth speaking of, comes in a nice cardboard box, has flaws in the subtitles, is the only edition, aside from the TF1, that is anamorphic and the picture is slightly cropped and very saturated. Okay, the Criterion has the best Extras, is severely over-matted (cropped) and has the original Mono sound. The Fox - Lorber release is the best of the three English subtitled releases with the 'fullest' image (still miles away from the TF1 Video), a directors commentary and the original mono sound. I've read that the Mono sound is better than the 5.1/DTS offering on the Mei Ah - so our recommendation is quite scattered. TF1 for image, Mei Ah/TF1 for audio, Criterion for Extras. As a package with English subs, I would consider the Fox/Lorber.

NOTE: The Meh AI DVD is the only DVD that has an actual English translation of the Cantonese dialog.  The FOX and Criterion DVDs are dubtitles, which means they are based off the English dub.

First Row)      Tartan / Asian Extreme - Region 2- PAL TOP LEFT vs. Long Shong International - Region 0 - NTSC  TOP RIGHT

Second Row)  Fox Lorber - Region 1 - NTSC MIDDLE LEFT -. Mei Ah Region 0 - NTSC - MIDDLE RIGHT

Third Row)      TF1 Vidéo - Region 2- PAL BOTTOM LEFT vs.  Criterion - Region 1 - NTSC - BOTTOM RIGHT

1) Tartan / Asia Extreme - Region 2- PAL TOP