Rating:

Movie Review

DVD Review index

Main Page

For more information on upcoming Dragon Dynasty releases, please visit their page on Twitter.

The Killer

Presentation

This 2-DVD set comes packaged in a cardboard slip case that highlights the simple, yet effective, cover art. The menus also have this aesthetic, offering nothing all that exciting visually, but being easy enough to navigate through. And, finally, we have a Dragon Dynasty release that doesn't auto-play a bunch of trailers before you get to the main menu.

The Movie

In general, Dragon Dynasty's re-mastering of the picture is nice, with an image that is noticeably sharper than previous standard-definition versions put out in the US. The video is MPEG-2 anamorphic widescreen 720x480 at 29.9 f/s at an average bitrate of 5.56 mb/s, with a running time of 1:46:18.

Unfortunately, some areas look to be a bit washed out, such as the sky in the picture below.

Fox Lorber

Dragon Dynasty

More screen captures can be seen here.

Unless you're a total audiophile, though, you're probably not going to find any fault with the sound transfer. There's the same English dub that's been floating around for years included, as well as a new Cantonese mix that corrects the audio errors on the Fox Lorber version. Both audio tracks are presented in Dolby mono.

Like Dragon Dynasty's other releases, the subtitles (available in English, captioned English, and Spanish) are easy to read. The translation has been re-done, fixing some of the poor English and grammatical errors that were on some of the earlier releases' subtitles.

It should be noted that this version appears to use the same source material as the UK label Hong Kong Legends' release, even going so far as to use similar menu screens. Unfortunately, this reviewer does not have access to the HKL DVD, so that cannot be confirmed. But the HKL version's trailer for the movie is included on this DVD.

The Extras

Deleted scenes (7 min.): Containing five short scenes, this section highlights footage previously only seen in the US on the now out of print Criterion DVD. While there is nothing story-changing present here, the video quality isn't the greatest, and the dialogue is dubbed over in Mandarin with "burned-in" subtitles, this is still a very cool extra, since not a lot of people have seen the footage. One particular part of note is an alternate take where Li, not Jeff, is the one who initally saves Jenny. Unfortunately, there is no option to watch the movie with these scenes in it.

Interviews with John Woo (70 min.): Three interviews are included. One was made specifically for Dragon Dynasty, and appears to be from the same session as the interview included on DD's Hard Boiled DVD. The other two are from a 2002 American Cinematheque screening of Woo's movies. All three of the interviews get pretty in-depth, much moreso than the usual fluff pieces included on DVDs, and are well worth a watch if you're a fan of John Woo, or the film-making process in general.

The Killer Locations (9 min.): Hosted by actress Kea Wong (Jubilee from the X-Men trilogy), this featurette takes us around Hong Kong to show the locations used in the film, as well as give some trivia about the movie. Overall, this is a nice little extra, and the sort of thing Dragon Dynasty should include more of in their releases.

John Woo trailer gallery: Includes the original Hong Kong trailers for The Killer and A Better Tomorrow, the UK trailer of The Killer, and the Dragon Dynasty versions of the Hard Boiled and Last Hurrah for Chivalry trailers.