My God, what a mess. I tell you, not a single Hard Boiled soundtrack has good sync. Be it the original mix from the laserdiscs or one of the DVD and BD remixes. They all suck in regards to sync sound once you sit down and examine them. Since Hong Kong films of that era were shot MOS and later dubbed, the voices are all off. Sometimes dramatically so. It goes unnoticed when you are just looking at subtitles.
With Woo, much more care was put into making sure gun shots lined up and here is where the laserdsic track is superior. Once I realized I could just line up some gunshots and let it go, I started making things easier.
You cannot sync this film up by fiddling with the laserdisc track until it lines up with the remix because the timing of all of the sound and music queues are different.
The remixes play around with where music starts and as far as background foley, forget it. They didn't even bother trying to get it right. That goes for gun shots, explosions, basic sounds, voices, etc.
I've just about finished the first 25 minutes, which is side 1 of the Criterion Collection laserdisc. I have nearly 40 edits and will likely have a few more before that first side is completed.
I hope to do a section every other day.
