How much did that sucker cost you? Where do they stick the disc(s) in?

The keepcase is what you see in the "inner front cover" of the case.

And is there by any chance English subtitles on that set? I am thinking no, but just wanted to be sure. That would help me covet your set a lot less. Right now, I am turning green.

The Japanese release has English subtitles. I have the standard edition, which costs a little under $30 IIRC.

The transfers on the r0 (all three mainland China releases - DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-9 DTS) and r3 (both South Korean and the sole Hong Kong release) discs cannot compare to the r2j.

http://www.wuken.com/screencaps/hero/hero.html

I would hope Miramax gets their transfer closer to the r2j and NOT the r0.

Although I am no audiophile I found that I also preferred the DTS 5.1 track on the r2j over the DTS-ES 6.1 mixes on the r0/r3s.

You'd be the first. The DTS ES track on the Edko is supposed to be clearly superior to the Elite Group. The Edko is FULL BITRATE 6.1 discreet DTS. The Elite is 5.1 HALF RATE. I own the Edko, and the sound is simply AMAZING. I have no major issues wih the picture on a 70" GWIII XBR & a Zenith DVB318 @ 1080i.

Got my Edko copy on ebay about a month ago for $8! It's worth searching for.

wow, that boxset looks incredible. Thx for posting the pics.

Just caught this in the theatres a few days ago. Next to Bourne Supremacy and Collateral, it's a must see. Simply jaw-dropping. The fight scenes are like watching a ballet. And it really demands the big screen view factor.

Glad Jet Li bailed on the Hollywood machine (at least temporarily)...and went back to his roots.

That packaging on the Japanese version is nice, but I think the figures look horrible. Anyway, I'll stick with my R0 DVD; I like the translation on my DVD better than the one I caught in the theater.

I'm more than happy with my Korean 3-disc "ultimate" set (wich kills the Jappanese version in extras - it includes a 3 hour "fly-on-the-wall" behind the scenes making-of, not to mention, DTS, killer packaging, a big booklet and much more):

where did you get the korean version?

I got the Korean version from dvdAsian - but it doesn't look like they're selling it any more. It was either a limited edition, or Miramax is keeping them from selling it.

DvdHeaven has it for $25 - it looks like they have it in stock:

http://www.dvdheaven.com/list_detail...t02=1&idx=8604

I think I might give that Korean one a shot. Thanks for finding a place that has it in stock.

Where did you read that the Elite is half bitrate?

I own the Rentrak/Elite r2j and PowerDVD XP 4.0 is showing its DTS 5.1 at 1536 kbps. Is there another program I can use to double-check this?

The Edko disc isn't correctly flagged for 3:2 pulldown and shows too many compression artifacts for my tastes - I can see them on my Mitsu 42" RPTV at 1080i via Liteon LVD-2001 - but more importantly its color palette and contrast levels are not the same as those in the theatrical release. The Edko disc does not show the film at its best. In contrast the Elite r2j comes pretty darn close.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare3/hero.htm

I know it doesn't make sense that the Elite's DTS 5.1 sounds better than the highly-praised Edko's DTS-ES 6.1 track but it just does to my ears. The bass feels deeper, and the highs and mids sound crisper. At first I thought I was imagining things, but when I flipped to the Edko disc and back to the Elite disc again and again I was surprised to find myself preferring the latter's track. YMMV. Even if the r2j's DTS track is missing a channel it performs competitively against the DTS-ES tracks of other releases.

I have handled nearly every Asian release of HERO (all three Face DVDs, the Face Extended DVD, the first South Korean disc by EnterOne, the Hong Kong Edko, and the Japanese Elite), and if I had to recommend just one version to fans it would be the Elite r2j. The Ultimate Edition r3k looks like a good deal on paper as it reportedly contains the Cause "making of HERO" DVD, but I don't like I've seen of its transfer, with its hotter highlights over the r3hk.

Darn! So many versions out there. Can someone summarize this? Which one is the definitive version to get in terms of video/audio and extras? And is it coded region 0?

With so many excellent DVDs of this film already out, MiramAxe's release is pretty much superfluous. Unless their release has an extra of Maggie Cheung sitting on my lap and giving me a commentary, I'll stick to the one I've had for over a year.

Are the extras done in English?

And is it region 0?

Re: the "Ultimate Editon"

About half the extras are either in English, or have English sub-titles. And except for a couple of interviews, the other half of the extras that don't have English are just behind the scenes stuff where it really doesn't matter what language it's in.

I believe it's region 3.

My friend just picked up a r0 copy but it doesn't have the intro with any subtitles. We scanned forward just to make sure the rest of the movie had subtitles, and it does. We stopped watching it right there cause we weren't sure how much we miss by not being able to read the intro.

Anyone who's got the version with the intro subtitled, does it make a big impact on watching the movie or help us understand what's going on better? Anyone know where to find the english translations of the intro and ending?

This is the version that I bought too. I just purchased it. The auction said Full screen though.

Does anyone know if this version came in full screen?

I am hoping that the auction was listed wrong and it is indeed widescreen.

Oh well, I guess I will see when it comes in and I can always resell it.

It's not fullscreen. On the back of the box it clearly states it's 2.35:1.

It was probably a goof up in the auction description. I don't believe this edition has a full screen version. Actually, I don't recall any version of Hero being in full screen. I may be wrong, though.

Found the answer myself. Here a great review of the different versions.
http://207.136.67.23/film/DVDCompare3/hero.htm

Here are the english translations for the chinese text in the beginning and end:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompare/hero/hero.txt

Thats what I thought too, so I went ahead and bought it. There were only a couple auctions with this version out there.

I wanted this one since it supposedly has the best pq of the R0 versions.

Thanks for the input.

Thats cool....I will print this out and keep it with the disk.