Films

The Terror Vision Blu-ray has 4 cuts of this film (whereas Blu-ray.com states 3), see the Terror Vision website or the back cover image on Blu-ray.com for information on said cuts. Anyways, included in this set as 2 of the cuts (one presented as is, one modified by Terror Vision) is the competitor Redwood Creek's Blu-ray restoration, which had some negative reviews on Indiegogo and the Blu-ray Forum.

MoC > Kino Lorber, former has correct aspect ratio (and higher bitrate and looks better/less compressed) while the latter has a squished aspect ratio, see DVDBeaver for comparison

(original is missing LFE)

Old Sony DVD has an isolated score

Fox but low bitrate

Both Kino Lorber and Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray have poor encode. See nicolas review on Eureka Blu-ray. It seems the 4K restoration on that disc and the Olive Films Signature US release served as the basis for the HDR master Kino Lorber commissioned. There are the same traces of grain management in the opticals and the small number of shots from a lower quality source that were spliced in between the Original Camera Negative footage. The SDR grayscale looks great though and after having compared everything, I would’ve preferred a 4K SDR release. The Eureka Blu-ray release wasn’t encoded by FiM and it shows. For those with the Blu-ray and an appreciation for optimal encoding, consider an upgrade.

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray: It seems that Kino Lorber commissioned the HDR/DV grade and some additional cosmetic work on the master. They used to mention "… brand new master by studio X" on their back covers when they were supplied with ready-made materials. This isn’t the case here but maybe someone’s in the know and things are different. The HDR grade is darker than the SDR one and flattened the grayscale quite significantly. I mentioned this in the Sabrina and Sunset Boulevard thread as well but I’m not really a fan of these grades and doubt that they’re enhancing the grayscales to make them appear more film-like. I’ve seen worse and it’s not the end of the world when the film is viewed in a dark environment but don’t expect anything as luminous and sparkly as The Big Heat. Kino Lorber’s encoding can be seen here via ko8ebryant’s caps.

Eureka 4K Blu-ray (BD-100): Same 4K master and same HDR grade as on the Kino Lorber 4K but now expertly encoded. Thanks to no compression anomalies standing in the way, we can now scrutinize the master much better. In comparison with the SDR master, I noticed that there are opticals that got hit with further noise reduction and sometimes egregiously so, such as in the scene with Grace Kelly at the train station at roughly 18 minutes into the film. Parts of that scene were sourced from a lower-quality source. In the HDR master, grain was practically erased altogether whereas in the 4K SDR master on the Eureka Blu-ray, grain is visible in the same shot despite the iffy encoding.

I’d still recommend the Eureka 4K Blu-ray as the Original Camera Negative shots and scenes are frequently gorgeous, beautifully detailed and at most only minimally tampered with. The imperfect HDR grade bugs me but I’ll still use Eureka’s 4K Blu-ray for my future viewings due to the FiM encode.

Eureka 4K UHD image is frequently stunning and far better than the Kino UHD using the same master. (no surprise) However there is frozen grain throughout baked into the Paramount master, some shots are soft due to management (some are inherently soft) and the HDR is questionable in areas. In some areas the old Eureka BD using the same scan in SDR is preferable. As usual, the issues are Paramount's doing and the only way to escape them would be starting from scratch.

Kino and Eureka UHDs have a mix of new and legacy extras. To have every supplement you will need both UHDs and the original Criterion Laserdisc for the exclusive commentary.

Criterion 4K Blu-ray second pressing from March 2022 as first pressing has shots in one scene placed in wrong order

Correct grade and archival extras missing from the Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray

Both Arrow 4K Blu-ray and Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray are worse.

Criterion USA LaserDisc [CC1397L]: Original Cantonese mono.

Best Cantonese mono still was from Criterion LaserDisc, as the Shout one was boosted with clipping, with some filtering and losing dynamic range over the Criterion LD.

There’s no need for other Cantonese audio, as all 5.1 remixes are extremely bad and not worth including.

For English Dub the Shout offered the best, it was pure mono. All other 5.1 remixed of said dub are also terrible and offer no value, only less fidelity and more echo.

More info.

(2025 re-release includes lossless 5.1 and better 2.0 compared to previous editions)

The 70mm mix in 5.1 was lossy on the 4K 2018 pressing, missing from the 2023 pressing for some reason, and then put back on the 2025 pressing in lossless.

Arrow 4K Blu-ray, comparison: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=22712768&postcount=297

Criterion Blu-ray and Germany Kinowelt Blu-ray are similar

Kadokawa/MK2/Park Circus/Artificial Eye probably even better