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I ordered the 2 disc LE from the aznfilms link above - thanks guys!!
Now - where is BR2? :) |
ravan,
I bought the one you have pictured above. It is a bootleg, but of decent quality. If you're interested in getting it for a couple viewings, then I would recommend it. Some of the problems with the bootleg are the colors look faded in some of the scenes and the subtitles look slightly blurred. Other than that, I think the dvd is great (this coming from a non-professional dvd reviewer) |
BR2 hasn't been released yet. Its supposed to be released mid to late January.
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BR2 is out in Japan (release date 12/21/03), but as is usual with Japanese titles, no English subs. Rumor is a Korean version is coming with English subs, but no firm release info. BitTorrent till then ;-) . . .
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Seen BRII with added subs.. Oh man, if it isn't a terrorist propaganda film I dunno what is. plenty of reference to a certain country dictating what should be considered freedom. Oh man, it's well worth a look but it doesn't fair up compared to the first.
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Originally posted by Class316 For something like this you'd want good subs, and only one that has good subs AND is extended is the UK 2-disc in a tin can. Isn't that the one with the strange "ghosting" effect throughout because they didn't do a proper NTSC to PAL conversion? Ravan, let us know when you get the DVD and how AznFilms.com ranks. Andrew |
For the record:
I've had a few orders from aznfilms.com, they're very fast, but if you're serious about your asian films, they can be found much cheaper elsewhere online. They don't seem shady at all. and on BRII: Jesus, somebody woke up on the wrong side of America...it's basically one long speech urging terrorists to rise up and bomb skyscrapers...the first movie in my life that i actually thought was just wrong . The "good guy" is a terrorist who destroys all of tokyo's skyscrapers in the first 2 minutes of the film... full of people. So it's best to just cradle your copy of BRI close to your heart and forget that a second one was ever made. (And I accidentally bought the Starmax bootleg, the subs are white body with white borders, which makes them undefined... but the picture quality is far better than the UK version... so you have to pick, subs or picture quality.) |
Just to add my two cents...
I have the UK 2-disc SE of BR that came in the tin. I am perfectly happy with this release. It is better than the Korean, IMO, if only because the extras are subbed. |
Originally posted by fnordboy Just to add my two cents... I have the UK 2-disc SE of BR that came in the tin. I am perfectly happy with this release. It is better than the Korean, IMO, if only because the extras are subbed. But how's the image? From battleroyalefilm.com about the UK Special Edition What's this "ghosting" all about? http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/wwwimages/ghosting1.jpg You see a ghostly image of the frame before the frame you're actually watching--two film frames interlaced over each other. Watching closely, this actually happens intermittently several times a second, causing a pulsing, stuttering effect. Here's how I figure the effect happens: When a film is converted to NTSC video, the 24 frames per second of film is distributed out over the 30 (29.97, if you wanna be picky) frames per second of NTSC. Fortunately, NTSC isn't exactly 30 solid frames of video, but 60 "fields," with two interlaced fields forming one frame. What film to NTSC conversion does is it distributes the film frames thus: Film Frame 1 = NTSC Fields 1, 2, and 3 Film Frame 2 = NTSC Fields 4 and 5 Film Frame 3 = NTSC Fields 6, 7, and 8 Film Frame 4 = NTSC Fields 9 and 10 So NTSC Frame 1 = Film Frame 1 NTSC Frame 2 = Film Frame 1 + 2 NTSC Frame 3 = Film Frame 2 + 3 NTSC Frame 4 = Film Frame 3 NTSC Frame 5 = Film Frame 4 Repeat this process six times, and you'll have the 24 frames distributed over 60 fields. You'll notice, however, that Film Frame 2 doesn't exist as a single NTSC frame--it's split up, interlaced with NTSC frame 2 (Fields 3 and 4) and 3 (Fields 5 and 6). Usually DVD's and DVD players sort this out so that you don't see the interlaced frames when you step through the footage frame by frame (NTSC frames 2 and 3 out of the five produced above), but sometimes (in the case of the BR UK NTSC DVD) they don't. But I digress. Anyway, the way the NTSC frames flow by one after the other, one doesn't notice the effects of the transfer, as interlaced frames (i.e. frames that consist of fields derived from two different film frames) are sprinkled uniformly on a small level--2 frames, followed by 3 non-interlaced frames. But in converting from NTSC's 30 fps to PAL's 25 fps, there are two issues: PAL has more lines of resolution than NTSC, meaning that some lines will have to be duplicated and interpolated. Moreover, one out of every six fields has to be dropped, and this is especially problematic because there's a vertical offset between odd and even fields, and we'll get frames where two odd NTSC fields are in the same PAL frame, and PAL frames that have an odd NTSC field in the even PAL field and vice versa. Film to NTSC Field: Film Frame 1 = NTSC Fields 1, 2, and 3 Film Frame 2 = NTSC Fields 4 and 5 Film Frame 3 = NTSC Fields 6, 7, and 8 Film Frame 4 = NTSC Fields 9 and 10 Film Frame 5 = NTSC Fields 11, 12, and 13 Film Frame 6 = NTSC Fields 14 and 15 Film Frame 7 = NTSC Fields 16, 17, and 18 Film Frame 8 = NTSC Fields 19 and 20 Film Frame 9 = NTSC Fields 21, 22, and 23 Film Frame 10 = NTSC Fields 24 and 25 Film Frame 11 = NTSC Fields 26, 27, and 28 Film Frame 12 = NTSC Fields 29 and 30 Film Frame 13 = NTSC Fields 31, 32, and 33 Film Frame 14 = NTSC Fields 34 and 35 Film Frame 15 = NTSC Fields 36, 37, and 38 Film Frame 16 = NTSC Fields 39 and 40 Film Frame 17 = NTSC Fields 41, 42, and 43 Film Frame 18 = NTSC Fields 44 and 45 Film Frame 19 = NTSC Fields 46, 47, and 48 Film Frame 20= NTSC Fields 49 and 50 Film Frame 21 = NTSC Fields 51, 52, and 53 Film Frame 22 = NTSC Fields 54 and 55 Film Frame 23 = NTSC Fields 56, 57, and 58 Film Frame 24 = NTSC Fields 59 and 60 NTSC FIELD TO PAL FRAME (Film Frames in resulting PAL frame) 1,2 = PAL FRAME 1 (FF1) 3,4 = PAL FRAME 2 (FF1 + FF2) 5,7 = PAL FRAME 3 (FF2 + FF3, fields mismatched) 8,9 = PAL FRAME 4 (FF3 + FF4, fields reversed) 10, 11 = PAL FRAME 5 (FF4 + FF5, fields reversed) 13, 14 = PAL FRAME 6 (FF5 + FF6) 15, 16 = PAL FRAME 7 (FF6 + FF7) 17, 19 = PAL FRAME 8 (FF7 + FF8, fields mismatched) 20, 21 = PAL FRAME 9 (FF8 + FF9, fields reversed) 22, 23 = PAL FRAME 10 (FF9, fields reversed) 25, 26 = PAL FRAME 11 (FF10 + FF11) 27, 28 = PAL FRAME 12 (FF11) 29, 31 = PAL FRAME 13 (FF12 + FF13, fields mismatched) 32, 33 = PAL FRAME 14 (FF13, fields reversed) 34, 35 = PAL FRAME 15 (FF14, fields reversed) 37, 38 = PAL FRAME 16 (FF15) 39, 40 = PAL FRAME 17 (FF16) 41, 43 = PAL FRAME 18 (FF17, fields mismatched) 44, 45 = PAL FRAME 19 (FF18, fields reversed) 46, 47 = PAL FRAME 20 (FF19, fields reversed) 49, 50 = PAL FRAME 21 (FF20) 51, 52 = PAL FRAME 22 (FF21) 53, 55 = PAL FRAME 23 (FF21 + FF22, fields mismatched) 56, 57 = PAL FRAME 24 (FF23, fields reversed) 58, 59 = PAL FRAME 25 (FF23 + FF24, fields reversed) http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/wwwimages/ghosting2.jpg So out of 25 PAL frames in a second, only six are perfect frames made up of two properly matched fields from the same film frames (there are 18 out of 30 perfect frames in Film->NTSC conversion). 12 out of 25 frames are interlaced (12 out of 30 in Film->NTSC), and 15 of them have fields that are mismatched or reversed (none in Film->NTSC). Add to this the fact that PAL frames obviously linger in your eyes slightly longer than NTSC frames. Moreover, the distribution of all these different types of frames is uneven over the span of a second, and if you look closely you'll actually notice this pulsating change in quality in the film (when to a casual observer it's just ghosting throughout). I think that to someone who's never seen BR on DVD, and who isn't told about the problem, this may not be bothersome or even noticeable--they'll more likely blame this on the quality of the film itself and not a result of the transfer. But to someone who's seen one of BR's other DVD releases, you can notice the difference right off the bat, and it's going to bother you a lot. The image on the Korean edition: The transfer is rich and sharp, maybe a tad bit brighter than the Japanese release (which, it goes without saying, is the ideal transfer), but it's razor-crisp. IS THE TRANSLATION REALLY THAT BAD? It's not horribly bad...the scenes from the original have decent subs (I think it's derived from the Hong Kong version), but the additional scenes are wretched. "Mitsuko" turns into "Mizko" in her flashback. After doing some research, I'm probably going to stick with picking up the Korean R0 edition. I like my movies lookin' good, not ghosty. And I rarely have time to watch extras these days anyways. Tho I wouldn't mind checking out the Gaiden Documentary (Did I spell that right?). Andrew |
Originally posted by j_sutton and on BRII: Jesus, somebody woke up on the wrong side of America...it's basically one long speech urging terrorists to rise up and bomb skyscrapers...the first movie in my life that i actually thought was just wrong . The "good guy" is a terrorist who destroys all of tokyo's skyscrapers in the first 2 minutes of the film... full of people. So it's best to just cradle your copy of BRI close to your heart and forget that a second one was ever made. Agree with you on that one. Lets see not to spoil anything for those who haven't seen the first Spoiler:
Hell, they even go on to say that the AK-47 is the true weapon of freedom fighters world wide. The skyscrapers that come down in the first two minutes well... there is two of them that is the main focus but it has a strange 9/11 effect. the other buildings follow down. eventually there is a lot of tangents about how "the country" dictates what the world should consider "freedom". There is a Battle Royale battle mixed in there and BEAT comes out in it, which is always a plus in my book for films. :) |
Watching BR:2 right now, I'll let you know how I feel when I'm done.. About halfway through.
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While we're on the topic - any recommendations for other japanese movies to check out? Very limited experience - saw a few j-dramas, BR and not too much more.
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Ok I finished it.. Not sure what to think.. Definently not as good as the first one. Some cool moments in it - but it was hard to ignore that the story was full of holes.
And (even with me not being american) it was seriously out of to get America in the process. Perhaps they were going for the 'rebel without a cause' effect somehow - provocation for the sake of it? Dunno. Didnt love it, didnt hate it. First one remains the best one by far. |
Originally posted by The Valeyard But how's the image? |
Originally posted by ravan While we're on the topic - any recommendations for other japanese movies to check out? Very limited experience - saw a few j-dramas, BR and not too much more. Suicide Circle - for an interesting movie that's more along the lines of Battle Royale in the respect that its a social commentary Audition - a much slower (for the first bit) character drama that turns into much more Ichi The Killer - now this movie is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. the violence and gore is beyond extreme, with some of it being cartoonish while other parts are quite serious (such as violent depictions of rape). before you watch this one, make sure to check out the trailer first at www.ichithekiller.com (warning - the trailer is quite graphic) those are just a few, and there's a lot more out there. check out just about anything by director Takashi Miike (he directed Audition and Ichi the Killer which are mentioned above). and by the way, all four of those movies - Versus, Suicide Circle, Audition, and Ichi the Killer have region 1 releases, so you don't have to import if you don't want to (just make sure you get the unrated cuts of all 4. unlike most american movies that get "unrated" releases, such as the American pie films, which aren't very different from the rated versions, these films are drastically different in their cut forms, especially Versus and Ichi the Killer) |
The Korean 2 disc version is excellent as far as I'm concerned. Great picture, great DTS sound. The subs aren't perfect, but I've seen far worse (I've watched alot of badly subbed HK films over the years, so the Korean BR is a cake walk IMHO).
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Well after the discussion last week on BR, I broke out the 2 disc PAL tin to watch the film. On my Toshiba 3900 the image was crisp, but the film looked jerky/stuttering, and not smooth (viewed on an old Toshiba 4:3). Kinda looked like the way films looked on my old Apex 1200. Most other PAL films look better than this one tho. I was a bit disappointed, but on the plus side thought the subtitling was excellent. I found the Starmax version to be adequate at best, though not as bad as some other Asian imports as others have noted.
Maybe other players will do a better job at converting this disc. But I'll probably stick with the Starmax for future viewings. . . |
Originally posted by mljones99 I have this one that I ordered from hkflix.com but apparently it is out of print now. http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID....qx/details.htm |
I'd like to have the extended cut, but the Starmax version's subtitles were horrible (not the translation but the thick, undefined font) and I don't want the screwed up PAL version... After the Canadian Pianist fiasco, I'm avoiding anything with that ghosting problem.
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My personal solution was this:
I bought the Starmax (before I researched it), copied it to my pc, deleted the old subs, downloaded the correct script in .srt format, and put the new subs on. Granted, it had to be downsampled a bit, but even so, I'm now the proud owner of the best version of the Special Version that exists. So if you have a DVD burner, that's one option. You get the picture quality (the downsampling is barely noticeable on my 30' Widescreen HDTV), with the correct subs in a readable font. And as far as I know, it's perfectly legal. |
what software did you use to do this? I can extract the vob's but everything after that is a mystery ;)
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Anyone have any info for this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...429241-4336609 It says it comes out in Feb, Region O, PAL 2 Disc from Tartan..... Andrew |
check out doom9.org for more information than you ever wanted on downsampling video, etc.
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Interesting look at IGN about the two versions.
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