R2 artwork is now up on DVDAnswers. It's entirely different than R1's.

even though I'm constantly reading the other HOTFD thread about which is the best version to get, I'm not in a rush to go out and buy as I got the original single disc Edko version (with the crappy transfer). To me, the movie isn't all that great. I just recently got Hero (Elite Group R2 version) and really liked it, beautiful and DTS track owns. compared to CTHD, it ranks below it but is still quite good and has far more fights. HOTFD was disappointing to me. Lots of dialogue in the beginning, great Echo dance, followed by some action, more dialogue, and then throw everything out the window and lets watch a total different story. We'll call it Love Triangle. What about House of Flying Daggers, oh forget about it. A majority of everything you've watched and learned about up to this point is merely window dressing and its a clash among lovers. If as was said before my post about the actress dieing and couldn't finish her parts is true, then okay but still they should have done something. Didn't do it for me. Rent it first.

btw, R1s always have crappy covers. Look at Infernal Affairs or Shiri, WTF ??????

Nesto, you're new here and can be cut some slack, but what you've just done is called a threadcrap and is frowned upon around here. Read this:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235044

It sounds like you were only looking for some cool fights, and this wasn't that type of movie. That's more of a marketing problem than something actually wrong with the movie.

ah, sorry about that, I just felt that I had to give warning to anyone who was getting this as a blind purchase, believe me I was tempted to say something long ago in the other thread but I refrained. I never heard of this term before but trust me I've been a regular member at many forums over the last near decade and I do understand its meaning very well.

It wasn't so much that I was looking for cool fights, hell I love Kill Bill Vol. 2 and to many that was lacking. I'm not an action junkie, I'm open minded and love all sorts of films. IMO this movie just did a complete 180. its called House of Flying Daggers and in the end it wasn't really about them at all. Again that could be due to the actress playing the head of the HOFD dieing before production was over.

Hey if you like it/love it, etc. go ahead and enjoy it. To those who haven't seen it, might want rent it first. It is beautiful and the DTS track owns but for me its not on par with his other films. That being said I'll still pick up a better version since I have the original inferior one but not this region 1 as it looks to be an edited version. Blasphemy !!

Well, it wasn't a complete threadcrap, IMO. You did talk about the DVD in the beginning. Maybe you should've stopped at "HOTFD was disappointing to me."

It's not like you only said "this movie sucks!!111!"

I received Sony's R1 release on Satrday, and after a quick flick through it is definitely cut. There is no blood when Mei removes the dagger.

The set does have both English and Madarin DD5.1 audio. The English dub is okay, and is nowhere near as bad as most; but then what I have listened to is not as good as the English CTHD dub. Stick to the original language.

I have taken a couple of comparison grabs tonight; however alongside my original R3 purchase, this R1 release looks stunning:

Old HK release followed by the upcoming US release:





















Whilst you can tell the subtle differences above, the R1 version houses absolutely none of the terrible ghosting that badly affects the original R3, and slightly affects the popular newer Asian release.

It also looks as if the US release is slightly cropped.

The extras look to be very interesting. I haven't had a chance to go through them yet.

Great screencaps, Willy...

Yeah, you can definately tell that the R1 transfer has more natural looking colors. And you're right, the R3 looks overly exposed or something.

Oh yeah, the R1 version does look like it's slightly cropped on the top. Not very much though. Probably not even worth complaining about.

Definatly looking forward to this disc in a couple weeks.

Also, aren't your screencaps slightly distorted in shape? They look too tall for a 2.35/40 transfer.

Sorted.

Any chance that anyone has the R3 2-disc Edko release to compare the above shots with? I used PowerDVD to capture the images (with 'keep ratio' selected).

Well, yeah, but certain versions of PowerDVD doesn't quite screencapture properly, even with the 'keep ratio' selection selected.

My current (free) "DELL" version of PowerDVD doesn't have screencapture, but a version that I used to have did and I remember when I took some screencaps of Scorpion King and Star Trek III that the images were always slightly stretched vertically.

Willy, thanks for the screen shots, but as far as comparing it with the old Edko single-disc, it's obvious which one will win. It would be nice to see those R1 shots against the Edko 2-disc or Korean SE. And do you think you could show some shots where contrast seems to be a bigger issue....like the scenes of the guys in the bamboo trees or the cool simultaneous 4-arrow shot or the snow fight or close-ups of the echo dance or wide-shots of the flower field. Hope I'm not asking too much, thanks.

I'd be curious to hear some more details about the commentary track on the disc. That's the one element that might tip my re-buying this.

the R1 images look great. that was one thing that I was hoping with the upcoming release, that the brightness issue was fixed on the DVD. also someone mentioned that the R1 is cut? how much of the movie is cut?

What would you like to know? It is a very interesting if you want to hear specifics of the shoot and the intent behind everything. I enjoyed it, subtitles and all.

What exactly was edited is details here. Of course, SPOILERS are there. It doesn't seem like too much, but it always hurts to find out you got an edited dvd without knowing it. There is also a link at that site to a place that has the edited scenes up for download.

Thanks, onebyone.

The main thing I was waiting on was to confirm that the commentary track was by Yimou. It seemed like the reports were lacking that essential info. It's definitely one I'll pick up now.

It is Zhang Yimou and Ziyi Zhang, and they talk...a lot. If that is what you want, you should be well pleased with the commentary on this one.

Just picked this up. Man, I shoulda just stayed with the 2-Disc Edko version. The transfer on the R1 is terrible, and I don't have the eye that some of you do when it comes to that sort of thing. The commentary is good though(Zimou is pretty insightful, but Ziyi just laughs the whole time), but I don't think it's enough to warrent a new purchase if you already have one of the foreign versions.

Yeah, my friend bought one of the R1s and I sampled some scenes and didn't notice any difference between that and the 2-disc Edko. I watched the 45 min doc, which was interesting, but could've done without all the intercut movie scenes. I'll wait until I can find it used for 8 bucks.

Terrrible? You may prefer that Edko, but to say something is terrible sort of implies that it is like something from the Artisan horror line, aka blurry, full screen, and with scratches and artifacts everywhere, which is not the case here.

I just found this site which has a pretty good comparison of the various discs and speaks of the extras on the R1. It may help.

The transfer on the R1 is far from terrible. I compared it to the Edko 2 disc and it is, to me eyes, identical although very slightly cropped as was mentionned.

For those that haven't sifted through the bargain threads, I noticed that BB is having a CTDH/HotFD 2-for-$20 sale this week. I don't have either (I avoided CTHD because it seemed like something that would ultimately get a good 2-disk package), but I'm not sure if I'll go for the sale. The news of the edited version is bothersome. I know it's only a few seconds, but it just bothers me to have something altered from the filmmaker's intentions (even mildly) because the American distributors feared an R rating.

i saw that deal in the sale ad and was all over it. personally to me, the studio digitally taking out a spurt of blood isn't too big of a deal to me, but to each his own

Just watched this this morning. Image quality? Very vibrant, but a little on the soft side. Not bad, but just enough for one to say that it was a tad soft.

However where this disc shines is the soundtrack. Awesome mix. Good use of LFE on the drum dance scene.

Where I got a little bored with the film is with all the love story scenes. Those could have been cut a little shorter.

As far as editting, I honestly couldn't tell you where anything was cut except for the deletion of the blood splatter on Ziyi. However, the UK censorship board is gonna have a hey day with this one with several scenes of brutal horse falls. They even made me go, "Daimmnn."

I have both the Starmax Acrylic and Edko 2 disc sets and just picked up the R1 vsn. In looking at all of them, I think the Edko is definately the best of the bunch. I felt that the colors on the R1 were way too soft. The subbed commentary track on the R1 though is absolutely fantastic! So my own personal dvdbeaver-esque score book goes thusly:

Visuals-Edko/Starmax
packaging-Starmax
Extras-Columbia Tri Star/Starmax
Audio-Columbia Tri Star/Edko (DTS)

I already have the Edko disc but thought I'd pick up the R1. I stopped by my always trusty Wal*Mart (I was in the area anyways) and the shelves were EMPTY.

I wasn't upset but actually very happy that it was selling well.

You are correct. 18 seconds were cut in the UK for animal cruelty involving just those falls.