little-endian said:

PDB said:

I haven't downloaded it but I know kk650/kingkong made a regraded version where he fixed the contrast.

Many thanks for pointing me into the right direction, PDB. I even had the chance to grab a copy in the meantime. The effort which was done is amazing and the result is definitely better and colorwise closer to the DVD for sure, however clipped whites still clip which was expected since kk650 can't perform magic and create detail which has been gone already, so my search is still valid, I'm afraid.

Thanks little-endian, very kind of you to say that.

You're right about the clipped whites of course, that detail has been burned out of the blu-ray transfer and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't bring back the detail lost in the clipped whites or crushed blacks.

I love Leon: Director's Cut, its probably my favourite film, so after reading this thread i've been looking into whether a hdtv version exists with more details in the shadows and highlights. What I was able to discover was that there was a 14gb 1080i release of leon available of the internet a few years back, it had the details in the shadows and highlights intact, the only problem is that based on the screencap comparisons i've seen, the detail was very poor indeed, the hdtv version looked softer even than the dvd. Here are some comparisons by Xylon on AVS below showing the hdtv version compared to the dvd and blu-ray:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/150-blu-ray-software/1200776-la-professional-comparison-pix.html

For now it seems that the best source is the blu-ray, warts and all. I just hope that at some point this film gets a 4K remaster, it really does deserve it, brilliant acting, fantastic script, great cinematography and an incredible score, with the Director's Cut it has it all, an almost perfect film IMHO.