This would be an interesting project to do. I can't really say which audio would be the best, as I know there were tampering with it. Most releases contained an audio track different than the original (overdubbed lines, new sound effects etc.); the theatrical audio track may have been never released.

Back in the day, Hong Kong Legends made an effort to recreate the theatrical track for their DVD by using different sources. They've ended up an reasonable compromise. I don't know if a better audio for the Hong Kong version ever came. If the Japanese LD version is surely untampered with then fine.

As for the video quality, I've seen the Japanese Blu-ray, and it looks OK for an old movie. It's not super-sharp but much more detailed than a DVD. The colors are pretty dull. If I would do this project myself I'd take the luma levels and colors from the New Line laserdisc version (they look superb), and eliminate the burned-in subs with masks using other releases. Police Story could look awesome again.

A very worthy project. I shall be following with keen interest!

Snide remarks aside, I am doing my best with a busy work schedule. I was out of the country for a month and am now playing catch-up. I'll be doing my best to post updates. 

The Japanese Extended Blu-Ray IS REAL. Yes, the Extended cut is a true High Def transfer. I just finished watching it.

Subtitling it is going to be very difficult for a sub movie like myself so any help is greatly appreciated. 

Matt_Stevens said:

Subtitling it is going to be very difficult for a sub movie like myself so any help is greatly appreciated. 

I don't understand what are you trying to say here. You mean covering up the burnt-in subs?

No, creating, timing and adding the English subtitles because as of now, there are none.

You can rip existing subs from DVDs with SubRip via OCR (optical character recognition). After it's done you can edit the subs with Subtitle Workshop.

But, first of all, I believe it's already been done by someone else. The very same Japanese Blu-ray with English subs added. Is this all that you wanted to do now? Because syncing the laserdisc audio would be probably much more useful. In case the LD Cantonese audio is really that much better. But, you have to rip the audio from LD together with the video then and be aware of all the frame differences and do the syncing (strictly cutting and pasting) according to those differences.

Syncing the audio is easy. That I can do with my eyes closed (I am actually about to start HARD BOILED and hope it won't be too problematic).

But the subtitles, I have read posts that it's done, but cannot find anyone who says they are willing to share an srt file. 

Syncing audio to audio is one of the harder thing in doing hybrids. On what basis do you think it is easy? How many times you've synced audio from different sources? Handling the subs is a piece of cake compared to that.

Hard Boiled is quite straight forward. Tho there are a few cuts here and there to make it gel properly. I have only synced up a version of the mono ac3 track from the criterion DVD tho, I do not know how much the laserdisc PCM version may differ.(I gather this is the one you are using)

As for Police Story, the subs from the U.K HK legends DVD are the best place to start, as I believe they tried to re-create the original version for there release.

Best of luck with the project.

I've done it before. As long as the sound is clean and the video source is free of errors, it just comes down to lining them up and when they go out of sync, make a cut and slide. If there is constant syncing issues, frequently it's because one is running faster than the other, even though it should. In those cases a speed and pitch adjustment is needed. Sampling Hard Boiled, I don't think it will be difficult.

Subtitles will be hard for me because I have always had help. This will be my first time going it alone and I am quite frankly intimidated. 

I've no idea where to begin. 

Do you have the U.K Hong Kong Legends DVD?

For Police Story? Yup. Still do.

Just seen this while doing alittle research on the subs for your project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJhlmGoZvaQ

Might be worth getting in contact with him/her about your project.

There is also a member on bluray.com called flashback8 that seems to have done most of the work on the subs.http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=202245&page=5 post 96

I see you are already a member there and have contributed to the thread, have you already tried him?

Edit: the youtube clip was posted by oldpangyau and it looks like he is a contributer to the bluray forum also.

I had trouble getting through to flashback8. He didn't respond for the longest time, but as luck has it, he finally replied to me last night. 

Thanks for the link. I left a message on the video. Unfortunately, that Youtube user has PM's disabled so I cannot contact him directly.

Awesome.

I think oldpangyau who is the you tube account holder, is posting in the same bluray.com forum.

proberbly worth a try.

Laserdsic sound is in my timeline and partially synced. Thankfully it seems it will not need the hundreds of edits required to fix HARD BOILED. 

The audio has a hum, as does the audio on the BD. I'll do what I can to remove it. It's also more than twice as loud as the DD 2.0 mono on the Blu-Ray. With some EQing it should sound a-OK. 

Could you perhaps do the noise filtering and EQing after the syncing, and keep a copy of the synced (but otherwise untouched) track? Of course only if you're willing to share that as well.

Sure thing.