CSchmidlapp

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.

dvdmike said:

The YT version fell onto my harddrive by mistake and the subs did not follow, anyone have any that would sync?

Strange, happened to me also. pm sent.

captainsolo said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=haavrm3jUR0

This seems to be sourced from the new Japanese BD. New credits have been imposed that have both Chinese and English credits. They look quite good.

Color timing is nice, no added blue/green/pink and even the negative scratches in the opening shootout are gone!

The subtitles seem to be different than the dubtitles that are usually found, so maybe there might be a decent translation for once.

The subs on this link look like they are from the Tartan Asia Extreme u.k dvd release. This what I plan to do with the custom version.

Its great seeing Hard Boiled at this quality. Fingers crossed The Killer is as good.

Im with you there GAV.

Red Scorpion the Dolph Lundgren movie, got a great release on BD in the u.k by Arrow films. I only hope a label like this gets the rights. But its a major studios back catalogue release and normaly there fairly standard. The various Army of Darkness releases over time always gave me hope there could be a release, with it being the same producers Renaissance Pictures.

Glad you enjoyed it, fingers crossed here for the BD release.

GavSalkeld said:

I used the R-rated version because later on I used the Unrated version of the leg shot to try and recreate where a hired gun is shot at the top of the stairs at about 1hr 24mins, it was never shown Van Damme shooting at him but you see the hired gun fall in the background.

 

You know, that was so neatly done I did not even notice! Nice one.

I do hope the footage exists from the 116m and 127m versions, so an official version closer to Woo's intentions can be seen.

Awesome. Thanks. It still pops out to me lol but I know its there.

I hope the footage still exists also. Would be happy just to get a high quality telecine of the workprint released as an extra on a BD release. But a full Directors cut would be the right way to go.

LeonGaultier said:

Well-edited. Lot more better that the normal R-Rated cut. Damme cool. Hats off!!

Thanks LeonGaultier.

Damme Right.

GavSalkeld said:

Is there a reason why you chose to use the R-version of Douvee being shot in the leg and not the close-up from the International version?

I used the R-rated version because later on I used the Unrated version of the leg shot to try and recreate where a hired gun is shot at the top of the stairs at about 1hr 24mins, it was never shown Van Damme shooting at him but you see the hired gun fall in the background.

I tried to recreate some other detail from other sequences present in the work print with alternative and repeat footage but they did not work.

I thought this one worked o.k so left it in.

Interesting. Just seen this after doing my own fan edit of Hard Target. Did this version get finished?

singhcr said:

I just saw this a few days ago and it's a big improvement over the R1 DVD in terms of picture and sound quality. The cuts are seamless and the final shootout in the factory has a lot more shooting and gore and scenes that were completely removed from the R-rated US cut. I have only seen the movie once on DVD since I saw this so my memory of the movie is not spectacular but there are a number of gore shots added back into this movie throughout the film that were cut.

 

Overall, you will not be disappointed! I want to say thanks to Commodore Schmidlapp for all of the hard work! 

Thanks singhcr.

The gore shots you are referring to are from the european cut and make the film alot more in line with John Woos Hong Kong movies.

Glad you enjoyed and thanks for the feedback.

You have as many versions as me lol but different. Wonder how many there have been around the world?

Ive not got these.

 

Uncut, e-m-s:

- Trailer (german, kantonese, english)

- Picture and Text galleries

- Behind the Scenes ( 1:20 min)

 

Not seen any of these. Are the Trailers in better condition than the criterion and Tartan releases?

 

CoO USA:

2 Disc, Dragon Dynasty:

- Feature Length Audio Commentary by Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan

Disc Two:

- A Baptism of Fire: a Featurette With Iconic Director John Woo

- Partner in Crime: an Interview With Producer Terence Chong

- Art Imitates Life: an Interview With Co-Star Philip Chan

- Hard Boiled Location Guide

- Mad Dog Bites Again: an Interview With Leading Villain Kwok Choi

- Trailer Gallery (Hong Kong Theatrical Trailer & US Promotional Trailer)

Missing The commentary and the Terence Chang Interview. Not got the trailers also. The box of my bluray says there on there but I can not find them.

Do you think the Code Of Bullets docs will fit in with the Hard Boiled Ultimate? If they were to be included I think it would be this one and not The Killer due to Hard Boiled being the more Gun Crazy one.

MrBrown said:

There was no Code of Bullet for HArd Boiled AFAIK. Do you want to put all CoBs together as Specials, even if they where according other Movies?

 

Whats with the (even if very bad quality) longer Taiwanese Version from Hard Boiled as a Special Feature? Running Time about 131 min. (It has 5 minutes of a faulty black image, so runing time of the stream is 136 min.)

I have the 5 Code of Bullets I mentioned.

Was thinking about doing that with the Code Of Bullets yes.

The Taiwanese Hard Boiled is on a 4.7gig DVD and untouched would take up half the special features disc for which I was going to produce a dual layer dvd.

MrBrown said:

CSchmidlapp said:

Agreed Big Rob. Best version of the film ive seen.

Anybody know if The Killer is like this also. It was released the same time and by the same label? Can not find anything on it myself.

 

I just ordered the japanese The Killer. I may check in some weeks, after it arrived...

 

Are there some (Fan)Subs, which could be aligned to the japanese Hard Boiled Video Stream?

Great. Does The Killer have English subs?

I have synced up the U.K Hong Kong Legends DVD subs to the Killer in 23.976fps. These should sync up with little effort to the japanese verson but will have to wait and see.

I have also synced up the U.K Tartan Hard Boiled subs and they work perfectly with the Japanese Blu Ray.

Hard Target is 20 years old this year so I thought Id finally finish my fan edit which originally began on VHS 15 years ago!

PM me for Details.

Hard Target - Ultimate Cut

Synopsis

In the City of New Orleans, Chance Boudreaux (Van Damme) is hired by <span><span>Natasha</span></span> Binder (Yancy Butler) to help find here estranged homeless father. quickly they become the target of an evil mercenary (Lance Henriksen) who recruits homeless combat veterans for the ‘amusement’ of his clients who will pay to stalk and kill the most challenging prey of them all… Man.

John Woo’s Hollywood debut see’s him electrifying deal with classic ‘Most Dangerous Game’. Shot with a modest budget & featuring some of the most extravagant action sequences ever put on film. Woo took Hollywood action cinema to new heights combining the Kick Boxing style of superstar Van Damme with his own explosive flair.
But Hard Target had to deal with studio politics, an actors ego and a NC-17 rating resulting in the film being re-cut and released in various forms.

Intention Of the Edit

The ‘Ultimate Cut’ is a ‘Fan Edit’ built from the various available versions of the film.
This cut contains a few tweaks and complete re-edits to bring it as close to John Woo’s original vision in DVD Quality.  The ‘Ultimate Cut’ follows the plot structure of the ‘Sneak Peek’ cut and contains an alternative audio mix including different music cues and enhanced effects.
The Ultimate Cut is not a reconstruction of the 'Sneak Peak / Work-print but a version close to its mood.

Sources used, & Work done

R4 DVD - 720x576i 16.9 25 fps - 5.1 Dolby Digital.

Conversion to 23.976 and colour corrected due to poor transfer, way to dark! Encoded Digital 5.1 Audio to 5.1 pcm and did a bit of tweaking. Creating .avi & 5.1 wav

R1 DVD - 720x480i 16.9 29.976 fps- 5.1 Dolby Digital.

Conversion to 23.976 using Pull down. Encoded Digital 5.1 Audio to 5.1 pcm and did a bit of <span><span>tweaking</span></span>. Also Ripped the trailer which was 4:3 and converted to 16.9 and tweaked to match the film as much as possible. Needed a couple of shots not in any of the released versions. Creating .avi & 5.1 wav

HDTV Rip - 1280 x 720p - 23.976 fps 2.0 Dolby Digital.

Created .avi & 5.1 wav

’Sneak Peek’ Work-print VHS Rip - 720x480i 4:3 29.976 - Mono Dolby Digital.

Encoded Digital Mono Audio to pcm and did a bit of tweaking_. Creating .wav_

Original CD Soundtrack - 44kHz Stereo

Ripped to .Wavs

No Mercy R1 DVD 720x480i - 29.976 - 5.1 Dolby Digital.

Needed a shot so encoded only that bit. Created .avi

John Fogerty- The Long Road Home CD

Used 2 Creedence Clearwater Revival tracks from the CD

Fortunate Son & Down On the Corner. (Born on The Bayou was used in the closing Credits and thought these were consist ant with that)Created .wavs

Video

The resulting files looked good. R4 looking the best. The R1 DVD is pretty poor compared but only need a few shots from it.
I later came across the HDTV rip which is of the ‘U.S Theatrical Cut’ but had a logo in the corner. Using a combination of frames from the R4 video I used After effects to cover the logo with video from just that area. If that was impossible I just cropped into it.

The edit consists mainly of the R4 video but I used the R1 / HDTV where I needed it for the alternative shots. As mentioned I followed the structure of the ‘Sneek Peek’ Work-print so moved scenes around <span><span>accordingly.

I uprezzed the final to 720p for the BD9 Disc.

Audio

Audio was pretty good quality but tweaked it to make it pop. I used the R1 cut mainly and added in the R4 for moments and the entire ending. The mixes differ slightly.
I used some dialogue snippets from the ‘Sneek Peek’, cleaned them up and blended them the best I could with the main audio. These include -

• Replacing dialogue through out where the production audio flowed better (Hard Target had alot of ADR done)
• Additional Dialogue not included that I thought fit.

I used alternative music cues in some moments from the Soundtrack CD and the Creedence Clear Water revival tracks. Plus added Aditional Sound Effects throughout e.g Bullet Ricochets.

Disc Details

BD9 / AVCHD on a Dual Layer 8.5gig with menus and patched for PS3 support.

• Video - H264 1280x720p 23.976
• Audio - Track 1 - Dolby Digital 5.1 640kbps. Track 2 - DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 core 1509kbps.

Final Thoughts

If you get to see this I hope you enjoy. There are a few problems with it still that I could tweak a little, but Ive got to put this behind me. Its been taking up way to much space on my hard drive and Brain. There maybe a V2 of the Edit in the distant future but for now I’m happy with this version.
I may do a Disc with all versions of the film on 1 Blu-ray disc / DVD set but I do not have a BR burner at present and Ive other projects to attend to.

Cheers All

Commodore Schmidlapp.

Agreed Big Rob. Best version of the film ive seen.

Anybody know if The Killer is like this also. It was released the same time and by the same label? Can not find anything on it myself.

Ive still got the R1 DVD so can supply the audio.

Could not find the 1080i mkv on rutracker tho. Just a 720p version.

Hi All.

Things are starting to move forward a bit in the past week as I got a Laser-disc Rip of the original mono for The Killer courtesy of singhcr. Its synced and sounds good. The Killer is about finished in this regard, but my plan was to do a custom 5.1 remix using all the assets I have to match the original mono mix. This will still take some time as I don't want to rush it.

I'm still searching for some assets tho if anybody can help.

Hard Boiled

Laserdisc PCM Mono for Hard Boiled.

Partner in Crime: An Interview with Producer Terence Chang - from the Dragon dynasty DVD

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan - from the Dragon dynasty DVD

A l'épreuve du temps : documentaire avec John Woo, Terence Chang, David Wu et Philip Kwok  From the French DVD's 2nd Disc. Not got the 2nd DVD. There is also an interview with Tony Leung. So the whole of the Disc 2 of the French Release really.

There is also the Code of Bullets features and the commentary's from the Fox Lorber releases as I understand these are different than the criterion.

Awesome. Keep us updated how this goes.

The PAL dvd is censored for violence.

They have removed Headbutts and lowered the sound of punch/Impact sfx.

Thanks for the heads up Bigrob

From the look of it Hard Boiled is a lot better than the Dragon Dynasty. And looks as tho its from a different master than the Fortune Star DVD variates. Its a bit bright like The Killer Blu from fortune star (HK edition)

captainsolo could you point me to some reviews.

Have no idea what the Killer looks like tho gather its from the same source as the HK Disc.

p.s somebody has uploaded Hard Boiled to youtube in 1080p if anybody was inclined to search! I think posting the link here would be against forum rules.

Those 'Code Of Bullets' Docs sound interesting Mr Brown

Are they about the weaponry used in the films they accompany?

If not what are they about?

Cheers for the information on them.

Hi All.

Anybody Know any of the music featured in The Killer? There was never a soundtrack released so I think all the Music by Lowell Lo Ill have to use from the films Audio tracks but a lot of the score was created from other movie scores.

Ive located these in good quality.

Red Heat OST - James Horner

Hero And The Thief OST - David Michael Frank

No Mercy OST - Alan Silvestri

Handel's 'Messiah' - Colin Davis

Face To Face - Sally Yeh (Thanks for the heads up milw50717.)

Anybody know of anything else?

The Sally Yeh album contains 2 tracks from the film but IMDB says there are 3 with completely different Titles Ha Ha.

Not got the Code Of Bullets Documentary's Mr Brown. I gather they were spread over the John Woo Fortune Star Releases. I think the Killer Blu I got was a Bootleg as it has No Menu & No Extras on the Disc. The Feature just start when you insert the disc.

What ones have you got?

The Killer.

Again For the Final Version of this I intend to do a Multi-Disc Version with Custom Menus and Everything.

The Movie

What I have is

German DVD Version. PAL 720x576 16.9 Cantonese 5.1, Mono
U.K Hong Kong Legends Disc PAL 720x576 16.9 Cantonese and English 5.1 (Best English Subs)
Criterion DVD NTSC 720x480 4:3 Letterbox Mono & Commentary.
Fortune Star Blu Ray 1920x1080p DTS 5.1 Remix (Direct translation Subs)

THE PICTURE

Ive taken the PAL Versions and Done a 25fps to 23.976 Conversion to them and the Subs.
And done a reverse telecine from 29fps to 23.976 On the Criterion.

All Of them sync up well in the edit suite with a little tweaking here and there.

The german DVD is hands down the best Ive got. It has English opening and Closing Credits so will have to replace the opening and end with another addition and try to match it in Colour ect the best way I can. Probably the Hong Kong Legends Version. The problem is The german DVD is Hard Interlaced and will take a really good De-interlace Method to bring it back to a suitable progressive format. I am looking into this at the mo.

The Bluray is quite poor when you look at them side by side. It does have a higher resolution and is True Progressive but the Brightness has been higher-ed to such a degree that it has blown out. Some backgrounds that were present in the German Print are now just White. It also has a lot of noise. Ive synced all the audio to this for my Version 1 as I was making HD mkv’s.

AUDIO

The Best Audio is the Mono original. Guns and Soundfx have more power and its a more pleasing EQ. Again next to the Dub it sounds a little empty I think down to the same reasons I out lined in the Hard Boiled Audio section.

The Hong Kong Legends audio lacks power I tried a custom mix of this but I'm still not happy with it I just EQed it and added gun sound fx to the Left and Right Channels to try and give it a little more bang. May have to do a custom version at some point like the Hard Boiled one I'm attempting but will be a lot harder as there is no CD Soundtrack available with a decent quality. It uses some Music from Red Heat tho and I have that. Maybe using the English Dub and the Remaster DTS from Fortune Star I can get something but Ill look at that later.

The Bluray Remastered Soundtrack is one of those terrible remixes with over the top added effects that stick out a mile. I don't mind adding effects if they blend well and don't replace original elements of the mix but this is like the Better Tomorrow mixes from Japan that are dire.

Again maybe the Criterion Mono from the Laser-disc will be a good Original Audio Track for the Final.

SUBTITLES

The Consensus is that the HK Legends DVD contains the Best Subtitles. I have these synced and also a Direct Translation Version from the Blu Ray.

EXTRAS

What I have.

Commentary by director John Woo and producer Terence Chang From The Criterion DVD
Deleted scenes 5 of them from the HK Legends DVD
Theatrical Trailers from the HK Legends DVD
Interviews with Kenneth Tsang Sally Yeh and Peter Pau from the HK Legends DVD
Interview with Director John Woo From the Dragon Dynasty DVD
American Cinematheque Q+A on The Killer From The Dragon Dynasty DVD
The Killer Locations From The Dragon Dynasty DVD
Taiwanese cut from The French DVD, Better Quality than the Hard Boiled one and in 16.9 Ratio with Burnt in Subs and is Disc 2 in the set.
Documentary From The French DVD in English about 30 mins.

Anybody know of anything else?

EXTRAS

Here is the stuff I already have collected.

Commentary from John Woo, Terence Chang, Roger Avery and Dave Kehr from the Criterion DVD

Original Theatrical Trailers - Hong Kong & English Variation from the Tartan Releases and The Criterion DVD

Interview on the Career of John Woo - From Chinese T.V in 1992 / 93 from the Tartan DVD

A Baptism of Fire: A Featurette with Iconic Director John Woo.

Art Imitates Life: An Interview With Co-Star Philip Chan.

Mad Dog Bites Again: An Interview With Leading Villain Kwok Cho.

Hard Boiled Location Guide - All from the Dragon Dynasty Blu Ray

Hard Boiled Taiwanese Cut - DVD of the Tiawanese cut. In Mandarin Alternative Edit contains alt music and camera angles ect. More info available on the net but its not really an extended cut and the reason it is listed as running longer is that there is a gap of Black video in the middle of the film! Its 4:3 letterbox and pretty poor quality but a nice extra feature.

American Cinematheque Q+A on Hard Boiled From The Dragon Dynasty 'The Killer' DVD

Original Music Soundtrack - From the CD Soundtrack by Michael Gibbs Either as a audio track on the main DVD when Ive synced them up or as a jukebox on the Extras Disc or Both.

Here is stuff I'm on the Prowl for!

Partner in Crime: An Interview with Producer Terence Chang - from the Dragon dynasty DVD it was not included on the Blu-Ray! There is also a Trailer Gallery and a Making Of Stranglehold.

Feature Length Audio Commentary by Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan  Can not get this working on the Bluray! don't think it is on there.

A l'épreuve du temps : documentaire avec John Woo, Terence Chang, David Wu et Philip Kwok  From the French DVD's 2nd Disc. Not got the 2nd DVD there is also an interview with Tony Leung. So the whole of the Disc 2 of the French Release really!

There was an interview with Woo on a Special Edition VHS boxset from Tartan I used to own that went on for 30mins and was uncut footage form the Little Picture show, I think from 1993. I no longer have this and wish I did came with a limited edition TShirt i wore to death lol. Anybody else got this?

Anything else anybody knows of?

A picture gallery would be nice with Posters ect if anybody has any?

There are also various versions of the open and end credits available on the various Discs. From Clean open, English Open and Chinese Open. Plus a dedication on the end credits.

Will go through the Killer another day, its alot more straight forward.

Hard Boiled.

For the Final Version of this I intend to do a Multi-disc version with custom menus and everything.

Ill try my best not to be confusing but there's quite a lot to cover and I have to go to work soon.

The Movie

From the research and work ive done so far and the various versions Ive collected over the Years here is what ive got and where I am.

What I have is.

French DVD version. PAL 720x576 16.9 Cantonese 5.1, Mono

2 Tartan DVD editions (Tartan Asia Extreme and Hard Subbed Version) PAL 720x576 16.9 DTS, AC3 5.1 and mono mixes in both Cantonese and English (Best English Subs)

Mei Ah Remastered DVD NTSC 720x480 16.9 Remastered DTS, AC3 in cantonese. (Direct English Translation subs)

Criterion DVD NTSC 720x480 4:3 Letterbox Mono in Cantonese and English Comentary.

Dragon Dynasty Blu Ray. 1920x1080p DTS HD 5.1 Cantonese, AC3 5.1 English

THE PICTURE

I have taken the PAL Versions and done a 25fps to 23.976 conversion to them and the Subtitles.

and done a reverse telecine from 29 fps to 23.976 on the NTSC Versions.

Almost all of them don't sync up as it seems There are various versions of the film from completely different masters made custom by the distributor of the film in that region. (The Killer Is A Different Story and Sync up almost perfectly)

The only 2 that do are the Dragon Dynasty and Criterion Versions.

The French DVD is the best Picture overall. Has a bit of a blue tint but over all has nice grain and all the detail. The 2nd in line is the Dragon Dynasty which has a much higher resolution but has the dreaded DNR issue that plagues this format and has wiped out much of the Detail kind of like the Predator Ultimate Edition! (Plus it has a weird Aspect ratio where the picture has been squashed slightly!) The Tartan Asia extreme is good but not as good at the above and the others are way behind.

So its The French for the picture then.....

Well its missing bits! and when I say bits its 3 or 4 frames from at the end of a shot sometimes and its random through out as i mentioned above all have this characteristic a little (With the Meh Ah Remaster The audio is in-sync to the audio with others when you realign at where a reel change would of occurred, there are some other sync re-alinement but it took me about 2 days to finish it, More on this later)

When considering the other factors like the Multiple Audio Tracks available (Most of them from the Dragon Dynasty & Criterion)and that the Criterion is The only one that had John Woo Supervise the Telecine (From his own Print I believe.) its a bit more hard. Remember the Dragon Dynasty syncs up with the Criterion.

For my version 1 I synced up to the Dragon Dynasty with good success. The only thing I did not finish is the Proper Subs from The Tartan.

The other thing would be to go into the French version and remaster all the picture to the Audio and add frames here and there ect or re cut all the audio tracks to the French Picture.

Its a decision Ive not fully made yet. What do you think?

AUDIO

The audio an Hard Boiled has always sounded crap to me. It was fine on a T.V on VHS in the early days but you put it through a HiFi and worse a Digital Amp it sounds weird. Compare it to the English Dub where the music and Sound Fx sound good to me.

The best audio for me were the original Mono. Just sounds the best, more bass and better eq. Hard Boiled was released in mono and all the 5.1 mixes have been created from the mono mix. The DTS track on the Blu ray is passable but I have tried e.qing it myself add in more bass and a custom LFE channel to spruce it up a bit. sounded Better but nothing to the clarity of the English Dub.

Now I gather in 92 when Hard Boiled was released the foreign markets were given a print with the original Mono mix and a Sound Fx and Music audio track for there dub. This must still be floating around because it sounds like the Meh Ai remaster uses these tracks and mixes them with the original Mono. Sounds Much better  but at times has horrible POPs, glitches and phasing. Still not good enough really but sounds better than all the 5.1 mixes.

My plan is to use the Blu ray DTS, Cantonese and AC3 English tracks, the Meh Ai DTS and CD soundtrack and create my own custom mix. Its a tough one as they all have problems. I have started syncing the soundtrack up to the film (Dragon Dynasty Picture) with is a big job in its self as the tracks on the CD Soundtrack run at a different speeds, Mixes and are edited different (3 different tracks used on the CD make up a sequence in the film) Plus some music is not included on the CD. At the end I will hope to have a separate Dialogue Track, Sound Fx Track, and Music Track some of them will cross but it will be close enough to make a decent 5.1 mix.

How much Better does the Criterion Mono on the Laser-disc Sound to the DVD? I gather it PCM? If its a lot better would be grate to add this as the Original Audio track on the final.

SUBTITLES

From what has been wrote before on various forums the general consensus is that the Tartan DVD has the Best Subtitles available. I'm trying my best to sync these up to the Dragon Dynasty Release. A PAL to NTSC conversion is not possible due to the problems outlined in the Picture Section above. It takes time but Ill get there.

I watched the Mei Ah remaster and the Subs are Direct translation from the Cantonese. They suffer from most Chinese translations and are a bit all over the place but add more to whats going on. Would a mix of this and the Tartan into a new translation be worth while?

Next I will go through what extra features I have collected and some things I know are available but have not got hold of.