Thanks, I appreciate the response. I was about to say that the Fox Lorber Killer disc has the same hum but at an even worse volume level. Makes perfect sense since an optical track was used. Criterion states that they had access to the 3 track magnetic master audio for Hard Boiled.

Whoa! There's a definite difference there!

The only thing is that we can't exactly tell what is supposed to be saturated and what is supposed to be bright. Part of me likes the appearance of the new Japanese disc until some sequences are over-brightened and lack the color saturation in some of the setting lighting, and the tweaked version appears far more balanced yet the depth of saturation in the blues/purples of the background has never seemed right to me on other transfers on DVD.

Either way, this is the best the film has ever looked on home video. I just wish there was an accurate source we could work from.