4K Blu-ray

> Concorde Germany 4K Blu-ray, from nicwood:

Cohen has original SDR master, correct gamma, very good encode. Preferable to the Germany 4K with worse encoding, translated titles and fake HDR.

Lionsgate and StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray share the same video master: both have considerable improvement over the old awful Blu-ray but marred by teal grading and DNR. Lionsgate is additionally better compressed than StudioCanal.

Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray has the original theatrical 2.0 track, sourced from LaserDisc (absent on StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray), but the 5.1 track has issues which are not present on their new Blu-ray (LFE channel is missing, and instead it's the back left surround duplicated)

The 5.1 track on the UHD is a remix originally included on the 2024 Blu-ray, but missing the LFE track. The UHD 2.0 track is a downmix of the faulty 5.1, severely lacking bass.

The digital track on the earlier LaserDisc is most likely the same as DVD, minus the lossy compression.

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.

Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Extended Cut: The 30th Anniversary Extended Cut on fanedit.org has the additional TV footage and is also uncut.

The TV version is extended but is censored. The Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is restored from an interpositive, no release so far is confirmed to be from the Original Camera Negative.

> France Potemkine 4K Blu-ray > Germany StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray see caps. Criterion has the best encode.

While the framing of Criterion is different, they are actually both faithful to the original theatrical versions see post1 and post2 by b0b.

WB 4K Blu-ray but has MAJOR Color Timing issues. All cold blues are rendered teal. WB Blu-ray despite issues is a purist visual option in this regard.

First ever Dolby Digital 5.1 wide release film. 4K Blu-ray has new Atmos remix which replaces original sound effects and prioritizes music and bombast. A terrible audio experience to be avoided. 1997 WB DVD has open matte version on flipper disc. VHS also is open matte.

Fox 2002 NTSC DVD includes the original mix as discrete LCRS 4.0, later reelases only include a matrixed version an an inferior 5.1 upmix.

The matrixed stereo version on Shout! Factory's 4K Blu-ray sounds good.

Sony 4K Blu-ray for the separate release. Columbia Classics doesn't have Dolby Vision.

> US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray 

The US/Theatrical Cut on the Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is AI upscaled and has DNR, along with Kino Lorber's usual poor compression.

Director's Cut uses a proper transfer but suffers from terrible compression, even by Kino standards.

The Umbrella with its FiM encode looks blurrier due to a slight low-pass filter, but is still far better than Kino.

AU Umbrella 4K Blu-ray and US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray are the same.

The 5.1 track is a direct port of the lossy NTSC DVD track.

Criterion 4K Blu-ray (caps)

Criterion is a new restoration from the original camera negative, supervised and approved by director Neil Jordan, graded using a 35mm print from the Academy Film Archive as a color reference.

Criterion is a new transfer from the magnetic track and sounds better than previous releases. The 5.1 track on the NTSC DVD is a poor quality upmix.

> Italy Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray > Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray

DVD is about the same also. Blu-rays only have upmixes (and the 2.0 track from Kino Lorber is a downmix)