xXx: State of the Union (2005)
Action, Adventure, Crime, Thriller • 1h 41m
Director: Lee Tamahori
Cast: Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss, Xzibit, Michael Roof, Sunny Mabrey, Nona Gaye, John Gleeson Connolly, Ramon De Ocampo, Barry Sigismondi, J. Anthony Brown, Bruce Bruce, David Rountree, Ned Schmidtke, Lisa Joyner, Gina St. John, Michael Don Evans, Brian Larsen, Jeanne Sakata, Jeffrey Moon, Todd Louiso, Matt Gerald, Eddy Shalita, J.J. Perry, Sarah Mack, James Lewis
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 4 months ago
Overview
Darius Stone's criminal record and extreme sports obsession make him the perfect candidate to be the newest XXX agent. He must save the U.S. government from a deadly conspiracy led by five-star general and Secretary of Defense George Deckert.
Director: Lee Tamahori
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: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Frank Capra
Director: John Carpenter
Sony 4K Blu-ray or Carlotta 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode)
Sony 4K Blu-ray and France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode) are similar
Director: Michael Arias
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray is a sharpened upscale. Caps
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray has a true lossless English dub and correct volume levels for the Japanese audio
Director: David Fincher
4K Blu-ray has exclusive “unrated” audio with a small change to one line under the request of David Fincher (removed the poor dub over of frickin’ in the line “Screw it, let’s gut the f**kin’ nerd.”).
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
Sources: blah-ray.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab)
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook fixes duplicate shot seen on the previous Columbia Classics release and has better encoding
Original mono mix: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1991 Columbia LaserDisc
The 4K Blu-ray mono is only minimally worse (see blah-ray).
5.1 remix: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Director: Michael Apted
Video format: HD Streaming
More Action on Blu-ray
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: 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.
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Michael B. Jordan
Caveat: No IMAX expanded aspect ratio
Director: James Gunn
Commentary is only on Streaming
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