The Limey (1999)
Crime, Drama, Thriller, Mystery • 1h 29m
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Barry Newman, Joe Dallesandro, Nicky Katt, Peter Fonda, Amelia Heinle, Melissa George, William Lucking, Matthew Kimbrough, John Robotham, Steve Heinze, Nancy Lenehan, Wayne Pére, Bill Duke, John Cothran, Ousaun Elam, Dwayne McGee, Brian Bennet, Allan Graf, Carl Ciarfalio, George Marshall Ruge, Lincoln Simonds, Rainbow Borden, Michaela Gallo, Jose Perez, Alex Perez, Brandon Keener, Jim Jenkins, Mark Gerschwin, Johnny Sanchez, Brooke Marie Bridges, Randy Lowell, Eva Rodriguez, James Earl Olmedo, Jamie Lin Olmedo, Clement Blake, Tom Pardoe, David Ward, Carol White
About the film
The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Universal 4K Blu-ray > Sony International, both a huge step up from old Blu-ray, but Sony international applied additional filtering: https://slow.pics/c/Cba9eFdD
Also they are cropped to 1.78 from 1.85
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
France L'Atelier d'images 4K Blu-ray
France L'Atelier d'images 4K Blu-ray best, but forced France subs
Director: Jamie Babbit
Australia All Interactive Distribution 4K Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
> Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray is a disaster. The compression on the base layer is horrid, and the oversized 18 Mbps FEL barely helps.
Australia All Interactive Distribution better encode than the US disc
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray includes original matrixed Dolby Stereo mix, albeit lossy, and a 5.1 surround upmix. The stereo track on previous BD and DVD releases is also lossy and sounds about the same.
Theatrical Cut: Italy Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray
Redux Cut: Lionsgate vs Eagle Pictures?
Final Cut: Lionsgate or Eagle Pictures, both are not great (visible chroma noise)
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Theatrical: Germany 4K Blu-ray/US Blu-ray DD 5.1 (1979 mix)
In the Lionsgate US/UK 6-disc set, there are 4 discs of the main feature. For whatever reason, the 4K discs lack the *original track. The Germany 4K Blu-ray release is different on this matter.
UBD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
UBD: Redux/Theatrical: Atmos
BD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
BD: Redux/Theatrical: Dtru5.1 (Redux mix?), DD5.1 (?), DD5.1 (Theatrical only), DD2.0 (downmix??)
As a result the Theatrical Cut has 4 tracks, The Redux has 3. Differences are unclear.
BD: Hearts of Darkness
BD: Special Features
Director: Barry Jenkins
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4k
Criterion 4K Blu-ray announced by director Barry Jenkins
Director: Damien Chazelle
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
US Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray re-release announced with Dolby Vision, a new exclusive bonus, and the previously retailer pre-order bonus-exclusive/Hong Kong-exclusive bonus interviews in HD
Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix
Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else and only included as retailer-exclusive pre-order bonus DVDs with the US Blu-ray
Director: Werner Herzog
Director: Paul King
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray minimal picture upgrade (2K upscale)
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray has good new Atmos mix
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Both come from a 4K scan of a 35mm film out which was made from the original 2K DI but the Lionsgate release has visible dust and damage marks while the Universal release is cleaned up more thoroughly. Both releases suffer from DNR which seems to have been baked into the DI. The colour grade is basically the same for both releases but the Lionsgate has Dolby Vision whereas the Universal is HDR10 only. The compression on the Lionsgate UHD base layer is apparently fine so the FEL doesn't make much of a difference.
The Lionsgate UHD has Dolby Atmos whereas the Universal UHD has DTS:X. Kick-ass was originally released with a 5.1 track which may be on the Universal Blu-ray.
The Lionsgate UHD is on a BD-100, the Universal UHD is on a BD-66.
The Universal UHD has no extras.
Director: Alexandre Aja
Theatrical Cut: Austria NSM Blu-ray
Director's Cut: France Metropolitan Blu-ray
Metropolitan got better picture (higher bitrate + better grain + more detail) than Lionsgate
Director: Roman Polanski
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray see caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered.
Atmos Remix: Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1: Imprint Australia Blu-ray or StudioCanal Germany/France Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray encoded the "Original 5.1" as lossy Dolby Digital, which is very different from the AC3 on the original DVD. This new "Original 5.1" may in fact be a downmix of the Atmos track. FWIW, the original DVD AC3 still sounds very good.
More Crime on Blu-ray
Director: Robert Altman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematrographe's HDR grading is overcooked, which is a known VinSyn tendency. Additionally, their booklet mis-credits the encode to FiM.
YMMV, but for some, the included BD encoded by Marcus Johnson—ironically may make for a more pleasing experience.
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Director: William Dieterle
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Director: Karel Reisz
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematographe is mis-credited to be an FiM encode. It isn't. Neither the encode nor the color grading are entirely satisfactory.
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