well : how would anyone let a film go out if footage they had left over significantly improved upon it...? ofcourse its no better : just more complete... fleshed out... longer.
more of the same. its an abstract reason to buy more than true reason : but its a reason...

Well there are many reasons why extra footage enhances a movie (see LOTR) and many reasons why footage is cut to keep running times down. Plus, the involvement of Harvey Scissorhands pretty much guarantees cuts. I trust Zhang Yimou more than Harvey but wonder if it makes a big difference or not. Sounds like it's not much of an upgrade, film-wise.

I bought 1 Hero extended dvd from edaymovie.com and got it yesterday, it's a wonderful movie and it can play in my regional code 1 DVD player which is in the NTSC format!!!!! it only cost me $1.99 in shipping, you may enter the coupon [hero93] to get $3 off! HeHe

The 108-minute cut is not a drastically better, or even very different, movie, no. In fact, a strong argument can be made that the 98-minute cut is tighter and more effective. Some of the fight scenes in the extended cut just go on and on forever. The duel on the lake between Jet Li and Tony Leung is edited almost incoherently. The spatial relationships between the characters shift completely and needlessly from shot to shot (in a tight shot the characters are moving left, cut to a wide shot of them moving right, etc.). There is no new plot and very little new dialogue added in the extended version.

I would rate both cuts equally. The extended cut makes some of the visuals feel more poetic, but the fight scenes are more visceral in the short version.

Josh, can you or anyone comment on the video and audio quality of the dvd? How does it compare to the HK 2 disc theatrical release or even the japanese release which is supposed to have the best video quality?

thanks

There's a whole thread about it here:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=376843

the video seems just a tad blurry. it looks like it is the same transfer as the other gung dong release. the dts track does seem stronger though.
I got a big oversized red box, with a little booklet glued in. its all in chinese, so thats the bad part.
I also figured out how to get rid of the logo that appears everyonce in a while. hit the subtitle button, change to chinese, then back to english, and its gone.

My extended edition arrived today with the "Wooden" box, which is cardboard.

Obvioulsly koreandvds.com were given (or misunderstood) the details of the pre-order.

The description on their website has changed and the shipping cost has dropped from a crazy $17 US to $8 US.

I emailed them this fact, and they kindly gave me a store credit for the difference...

It stays gone?


I will test this out tomorrow as I was a bit worried about opening it up since I might return it if there was not a fix.

Quote:

Originally posted by gcribbs
It stays gone?


I will test this out tomorrow as I was a bit worried about opening it up since I might return it if there was not a fix.

Please post if it works or not. IF it does work, i may actually pick this puppy up.

the logo is gone, and then about 5 min later, it appears again, so you have to do the same thing over. if you have the remote handy, there should be no problem

True....and a pain in the ass. Which, I suspect, is the reason it's there.

To get rid of it completely, rip the DVD to your hard drive, demux it, edit the subtitle file, reauthor it and burn it back to DVD.

That's the only way to watch the director's cut of "Hero" logo free with english subtitles.

You make it sound so convenient

Does the logo appear within the 2.35:1 movie image, or above it in the letterbox bar?

Upper left corner, in the movie image.

I wonder who thought that was a good idea? It is presumably an anti-bootleg measure.

Or perhaps it's in the contract between Miramax and GD Face. The "Miramax" cut (which I suspect this is) has the logo with english subtitles.

To get it logo free, you buy the upcoming Miramax region one release. Or reauthor it as I did.

Sounds more like an anti-"making a good DVD" measure.

My guess is that China really doesn't know any better or doesn't care.

Have you done it? I am not sure it's possible. How in the world can you edit a '.sup' file????

There are programs on the web, some even shareware, that allow to do conversion and authoring.

:!

Ok....I've been reading the "Hero" threads. I'm trying to understand......is the Japanese (R2) the best DVD? I don't really care about extended cuts or whatever. Just the best video quality and English subs.

And where's the best place to order from?

Thanks!

That is what I got out of all this discussion. You want the Japanese "Elite" version. I'm considering ordering it too. Check out the other thread in this forum "comparing version of hero" and the dvdbeaver comparison for more info.

Here is a link to Amazon Japan where you can buy it.

ok. I assume that the links are all the same as amazon's US site. But can you me what the cost of this version ends up to be?

Thanks.