The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)
좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Western • 2h 10m
Director: Kim Jee-woon
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung, Yoon Je-moon, Ryu Seung-su, Song Young-chang, Son Byung-ho, Oh Dal-su, Lee Chung-ah, Kim Kwang-il, Don Lee, Son Jin-hwan, Park Jin-woo, Jo Kyung-hoon, Lee Hang-soo, Kang Hyun-joong, Lee Sung-min, Yoo Chang-sook, Yoon Yeong-mok, Yeom Cheol-ho, Seo Seung-won, Jo Deok-jae, Kim Gil-hyeon, No Jin-yeong, Oh Il-yong, Kwak Yeong-jae, Hong Gi-jun, Jeon Seung-jae, Kil Eun-sung, Jo Yong-jae, Yang Do-hyun, Ryoo Je-seung, Kim Man-gi, Kim Pil-joong, Choi Kyeong-man, Jung Mi-nam, Kim Ha-joon, Lee Han-sol, Lee Seung-joon, Lee Seol-gu, Kang Seung-cheol, Choi Rak-jin, Song Seung-hyeon, Lee Tae-rim, Kang Jae-eun, Park Seong-gyoon, Yeom Woo-sang, Jasurbek Mavlyanov, Bana Tehrani Ali Asghar, Deligeer, Hakuryu, Shoken Kunimoto, Sin Sang-woo, Alexander Pavlov, Yoo Yeong-wook, Kim Hee-moon, Kim Hong-soo, Jeong Se-hyeong, Jeon Jae-eun, Min Young, Oh Yeon-ah, Oh Seo-won, Kim Chan-hyeong, Yoo Sang-jae, Choi Gi-hyeon, Cha Jeong-hwan, Jeong Seong-woo, Son Jeong-man, Lee Soo-hyeon, Jang Gwang-soon, Choi Dae-sung, Kim C, Cho Hwa-sung, Go Yoo-mi, Sung Jung-hoon, Kwak Do-won, Kim Min-jae, Park Gwang-bok, Son Sang-gyu, Shin Jae-hwan, Lee Sung-Ho, Lee Geun-hoo, Lee Yoo-Soo, Lee Chang-soo, Im Joo-hyeon, Jin Sun-kyu, Ki Eun-se, Kim Sun-young, Ganna Pionova, Kim Soo-nam, Park Yeon-ah, Choi Woo-hyuk, Kang Seon-ah, Park Jae-hyeon, Uhm Ji-won, Choi Jin-ho, Jang Moon-suk
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 9 months ago
> UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray (US is uncut, UK removed horse falls)
UHD tiers
US Arrow> UK Arrow (US is uncut)
Overview
The story of three Korean outlaws in 1930s Manchuria and their dealings with the Japanese army and Chinese and Russian bandits. The Good (a bounty hunter), the Bad (a hitman), and the Weird (a thief) battle the army and the bandits in a race to use a treasure map to uncover the riches of legend.
Director: Michael Mann
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · thedigitalbits.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray is encoded by FiM and is better than Criterion, see caps https://slow.pics/c/Z2RRQAAT
Criterion 4K Blu-ray vs Blu-ray: caps colors are more different and nuanced than anticipated even in the SDR-converted caps and the usual gain in highlight detail is also apparent. Encode looks excellent except for the brightest areas as usual.
5.1/5.0 mix (essentially a 4-track mix in 5.1 and 5.0 containers respectively)-Arrow/Criterion 4K Blu-ray. Only imperceptible differences in bit-depth: 20 vs 24.
2.0 mix- Arrow 4K Blu-ray (original stereo)
Director: John Boorman
Sources: highdefdiscnews.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
(Arrow 4K Blu-ray's mono seems to be out of sync, suggested by comparisons. Issue is TBC officially)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray is FiM encoded, see caps
Arrow LE will have an exclusive 3rd disc which will not be on the standard edition
Director: Lewis Teague
> disappointing US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
Director: Steve De Jarnatt
2024 Kino Lorber Blu-ray
UK Transmission 4K Blu-ray in January 2027
Either the 2015 Kino Lorber Blu-ray or the Arrow Blu-ray
The 2024 Kino Lorber Blu-ray is botched.
Director: George Pavlou
Arrow 4K Blu-ray teased
Germany Wicked Vision 4K Blu-ray better than US Kino Lorber?
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
More Action on Blu-ray
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
US Magnolia BD
UK Entertainment One release contains directors commentary track
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.
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
> Germany Wicked Vision Blu-ray > US Flicker Alley Blu-ray see DVDBeaver caps
Director: Simon Wincer
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
4K is defective with color space issues and poor encoding, UHD replacement disc is also defective with worse encode. The UHD has visible artifacts from the bad encoding. The HDR is overdone and the Paramount 4K master has grain management.
The new Kino Blu-ray has none of the UHD's problems and is superior to the UHD in every way though it still uses the same Paramount master.
DVD 5.1 or LaserDisc 5.1 AC3, LD PCM 2.0 for the matrix stereo version. The LD and DVD seem to be the theatrical audio mix untouched with plenty of low end. This low end like a number of 90's Paramount titles was mixed out or tamed on subsequent releases.
The Lionsgate BD and Paramount BD share the same lackluster HD master with DNR and image distortion. The Lionsgate is much better encoded but has a 7.1 remix which messed up the original mix design by lessening all the great Foley work in favor of the score. The Paramount BD had a 5.1 lossless version of the original mix but it's a new version where the bass has been tamed so the track has lost its punch. The Kino Lorber UHD and Blu-ray recycle this same lesser 5.1 mastering. The original mix can still be heard on LD and DVD. The 2.0 stereo on the Kino is matrixed but also does not sound as good as the 2.0 matrix audio on DVD or LD.
Kino has a replacement program for the defective UHD to fix the color space issue. The new disc is not marked, has a worse encode AND DOES NOT FIX THE COLOR SPACE! Thus it is a worse defective disc version of the original defective disc.
The Billy Zane interview on the Kino BD has technical issues in the editing and clip quality used.
Director: Iain Softley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both 88 Films and Germany Capelight are superior to the Shout! Factory in HDR10 but their FEL layer may even things out. Objectively, the Capelight looks best as they avoided the chroma blocking that’s visible in 88’s disc but they in turn included an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Shout! Factory has the exclusive The Beauty of the Baud and the You Can't Stop Us All featurettes.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
review: Disk Kino
Both have better encoding than Disk Kino, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow
Shout Factory still has the best video while Arrow did a questionable regrade. Arrow definitely has less grain in most shots, has a worse encode and is cm v2.9 compared to Shout’s cm v4.0.
Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono
Director: Luc Besson
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
2020 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray vs 2017 Sony 4K Blu-ray (20th annivesary) vs 2025 Sony 4K Blu-ray (Luc Besson Box Set). The first two have totally different texture.
StudioCanal: More natural looking. Better defined grain. The white balance is rather yellow/orange. Some say it is closer to the original theatrical release.
2017 Sony: More vibrant and impactful. The white balance is rather neutral. While color noise and grain can look busy because it had been sharpened and had micro-contrast boosted.
2025 Sony: Supposedly an improved version of the 2017 release? Shows around 20mbps-higher overall video bitrate. caps
2007 Sony Blu-ray or LaserDisc AC3? (TBC) https://fanrestore.com/thread-7303.html
The Atmos on the Sony release is reportedly better than StudioCanal's.
Disc info of the box set discs. This film have recieved multiple encode/versions in different regions over the years. The 2017 Germany4K Blu-ray is encoded differently than the 2017 Sony but not better. Also, the same can be said to 2024 France Gaumont 4K Blu-ray while comparing to the 2020 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray omits all the extras from previous releases, being barebones.
Director: Tony Scott
The 70mm 6-track mix has a higher bitrate on the Paramount 1998 DVD, but is more limited than on the THX LaserDisc The Paramount 1998 DVD also has open matte versions in fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 instead of the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.39:1, but the 2.00:1 widescreen presentation is non-anamorphic. The THX LaserDisc is available in both fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 variants.
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