Macao (1952)
Adventure, Drama, Romance, Crime • 1h 21m
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame, Brad Dexter, Edward Ashley, Philip Ahn, Vladimir Sokoloff, Abdullah Abbas, Rico Alaniz, Trevor Bardette, Genevieve Bell, George Blagoi, Truman Bradley, George Chan, Spencer Chan, Suey Chan, W.T. Chang, John Daheim, Art Dupuis, Marcello Estorres, Lee Tong Foo, Nacho Galindo, H.W. Gim, Everett Glass, Bhupesh Guha, Stuart Hall, Phil Harron, Sheldon Jett, Harold J. Kennedy, Paul King, Marc Krah, Esther Ying Lee, Tommy Lee, James B. Leong, Weaver Levy, Alex Montoya, Walter Ng, Emory Parnell, Manuel París, Alfredo Santos, Bhogwan Singh, May Takasugi, Philip Van Zandt, Michael Visaroff, Iris Wong, William Yip, Maria Sen Young, Don Zelaya
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 month ago
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Overview
Nick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he mislead the bad guys and still woo the attractive singer/petty crook, Julie Benson?
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
MoC slightly better than Kino Lorber http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_76/anatahan_blu-ray.htm
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
All very old restoration, but Kino Lorber > Germany Universum > MoC. Kino Lorber Germany Blu-ray has more noise reduction while English version's noise reduction is kept at minimum. MoC has very week encoding and crushed blacks.
Sources:
caps-a-holic on MoC vs Germany
DVDBeaver on Kino Lorber vs MoC
2001 Kino Lorber DVD or 2003 Eureka DVD
Director: Josef von Sternberg
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
Indicator Blu-ray has better encoding than Criterion Blu-ray, both 4K restoration, see DVDBeaver caps
No caps on France Elephant Films Blu-ray
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for Dec 2026 release
Warner Archive Blu-ray in October
More Adventure on Blu-ray
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode, work done to un-Nolan the 4K master, the first ever appearance of the 35mm mono track on physical media and a new restoration/remastering of the 70mm 6-track mix.
(early pressing has errors of a shot, later pressings fixed)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Criterion Box Set coming on October 20th with FiM encode
DTS:X mix most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD has additional features not found on the 4K Blu-ray
Director: Terence Young
WB 4K Blu-ray despite frozen grain
Director: James Cameron
Sources: movie-censorship.com (opens in a new tab)
Fox Blu-ray for original cuts without the extra scene added in the re-release and AI upscaling
Newer Blu-ray/4K has the extra scene, but is poor and has excessive AI upscaling
An additional scene was added to the ending of the movie in the 2022 re-release: https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=493908
Director: Sidney Lumet
Criterion 4K Blu-ray replacement disc for fixed audio (there were some dialogues missing)
While the video on the replacement disc is exactly the same as the original release, the Atmos with missing lines has been corrected as it was also corrected on the Criterion commentary. Criterion also included the 6-track which is almost identical to the PAL track; It’s 4.0 in a 5.1 container. This 6-track is slightly better than the PAL DVD track as the PAL has some flutter on some parts that Criterion doesn’t have.
The Atmos on the replacement is identical to the Imprint AUS Blu-ray track which also has all the lines. The compatibility track is also the same,
It is worth mentioning the Imprint only has the Atmos and no 6-track. The 5.1 surround is with LFE and split surrounds and it’s just a downmix of the Atmos. Ditto for the LPCM 2.0 on said Blu-ray.
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
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