Extended:

DTS-HD Master Audio English 4255 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 4255 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio Portuguese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps

Subtitles:

English, Chinese (traditional + simplified), Portuguese, Spanish, none

Extras

• Disc 1: Cine-Explore: PIP: green screen footage & original art

• Theatrical cut w/ commentary by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller

• Theatrical cut w/ commentary by Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino

• 5.1 Audio Track featuring the Austin audience reaction

• Disc 2: Recut-Extended-Unrated Version of the Feature

• Disc 2: "Kill 'em Good" Interactive Comic Book in HD

• 15-minute Flic School (15 min.)

• All Green Screen Version (12 min.)

• The Long Take (14 min.)

• Sin City: Live in Concert at Antones (9min.)

• 10-minute Cooking School (10 min.)

• How It Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller (6 min.) *new

• Special Guest Director: Quentin Tarantino (7 min.)

• A Hard Top with a Decent Engine (8 min.)

• Trench Coats and Fishnets (8 min.)

• Making the Monsters (9 min.)

• Booze, Broads & Guns (11 min.)

• Teaser & Theatrical Trailer

Comment:

A few strands of melodrama have been pulled from Frank Miller's graphic novels and plaited together-just about-into a coherent comic-strip film. Miller himself co-directs, in collaboration with Robert Rodriguez (plus a little help from Quentin Tarantino), and there is certainly no letup, or pulled punches, in the heightening of style. The movie is in monochrome, splashed with occasional color, and the sheer force of overkill-the ear-crunching sound level, the disturbingly joyful violence-turns a sequence of horrific events into a stream of unfeeling comedy. The plots offer vengeance upon vengeance: cops against child-killers, cops against priests, hookers against cops, thugs against everybody. The cast is a blast, including Bruce Willis, Michael Madsen, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, a bewitching Carla Gugino, and a renascent Mickey Rourke. Most of them enter with sweat and gusto into the spirit of the thing-fortunately so, for without such eagerness the movie would feel merely cruel. What it has to tell us of life, let alone suffering, beyond the savage enchantment of the movies could be written on the head of a bullet.-A.L. (4/11/05)

[Intro]

The Movie : 9

When I bought the Recut version of the movie on DVD I decided to wait a year before watching it so as to minimize my concerns that making four short stories out of a single movie might be problematic.  So I may as well indicate my strong preference for the theatrical version since the Recut amounts to four separated stories from a seamless original and not the other way around, despite their origins to the contrary.  The segment titled "The Customer is Always Right" with Josh Hartnett is too short and disjointed to have any meaning, yet works perfectly as a frame for the theatrical cut. Another difficulty with the Recut is that we recognize incidental actors here and there who just happen to be in the scene but play no dramatic role in it.  In "That Yellow Bastard" when we see Mickey Rourke's character sitting at the bar as Willis' character walks in, we feel an instant recognition of his importance, but in fact he's just sitting there, a derelict from another episode.  If you did not recognize the actor and only saw this cut of the movie and not the theatrical, before or after, it would work, but that's not a practical reality.  On the other hand, the one misstep Rodriguez makes in his theatrical version is to include a voiceover for Clive Owen in the middle of Marv's episode "The Hard Goodbye".  It's the only place he interrupts the narrative in this way and it distracts in flow more than it offers in content.

While I really don't consider the Recut edition to be a viable movie, I do think it is interesting enough to watch once, if for no other reason than to see how brilliantly Rodriguez and Frank Miller adapted and melded the original stories which, we should remember, were separately published to start with.  And given that the actors are working against a green screen without much context to help them along, I think the Academy missed an opportunity by not nominating Robert Rodriguez for Best Director.  I mean: Jessica Alba, for all her sex appeal, has never given a more believable performance.  Whose fault is that, I ask you?

Image: 9/10  NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

The first number indicates a relative level of excellence compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a ten-point scale.  The second number places this image along the full range of DVD and Blu-ray discs.

The first thing we should keep in mind about the image for this movie is the shape of the intended grayscale.  In this case we have a pretty good idea what that is: Rodriguez wanted to remain as faithful as possible to the graphic design of Frank Miller's original comic, while observing the requirements of a theatrical presentation.  The comic is just black and white – no gray.  You can well imagine that wouldn't go down very well for a feature film.  It's an imaginative idea, but why pay A-list actors if they are only going to be seen in silhouette?   In some of the extra features we can see how the original full color HD image is transmuted into a high contrast black & white image, in which we can expect to find little detail in the shadows – even less than a typical noir film.

To cut to the chase here, this Blu-ray offers one hell of an image.  Textures seduce and surfaces glisten.  Shading is sinister.  There is often something palpable about the tone of surfaces, be they faces, leather and vinyl jackets, car paint, even digitally drawn backgrounds.  The image appears to be slightly oversharpened, but this, as with the edge lighting, seems entirely in character with the intent.

The bit rate of the less expensive, single-layered Canadian is typically half that of the other two and has a slight greenish cast, but still looks highly resolved compared to the DVD. The Canadian movie is brighter throughout, often permitting more dimensionality as a result.  We can see deeper into the shadows, which may or may not be desirable, given the dramatic content. The advantage to the higher bit rate of the Japanese and Disney editions is hard to discern because of the difference in brightness, but I still thought I perceived a subtle advantage in terms of resolution and density.  We would expect a digitally derived image to score big on Blu-ray, and so it does.  No other artifacts, enhancements or blemishes – only a subtle fine grain.  The contrast is very high as is intended, so I repeat: don't expect a long grayscale. 

ON PREVIOUS EDITION: Come April 21 Sin City will be now available on different Blu-ray production from three countries: Canada, Japan and the U.S. The Japanese is similar to the new U.S. Disney in respect to image, but not audio. Both the Japanese and Canadian are one disc and contain only the theatrical version of the movie. Only the new U.S. Disney contains both versions of the movie, as did the Recut-Extended-Unrated DVD set. The bit rate of the less expensive, single-layered Canadian is typically half that of the other two and has a slight greenish cast, but still looks highly resolved compared to the DVD. The Canadian movie is brighter throughout, often permitting more dimensionality as a result. We can see deeper into the shadows, which may or may not be desirable, given the content. The advantage to the higher bit rate of the Japanese and Disney editions is hard to tell because of the difference in brightness, but I still thought I perceived a subtle advantage in terms of resolution and density. The Japanese uses a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. Both the Canadian and Disney are DTS HD-MA 5.1, which I feel is to be preferred in this case.