Hot War
Manufacturer: Universe
Price: $25
Sound: Dolby 5.1
Format: widescreen
Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin
Subtitles: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Indian, Thai
Extras: trailers, cast/crew bios, Ekin Cheng music video, 30-minute "making of" featurette
As this is a "Hollywood" style action film, it comes as no surprise that the DVD mimics US ones as well. The presentation -- complete with animated VR-style menus -- is pretty slick and the disc has a lot of extras. I thought it was nice that all the trailers (which include Eagle Shooting Heroes and A Hero Never Dies) included on the disc were the original HK ones, rather than the crap English ones Tai Seng puts on their discs. The featurette is somewhat interesting, but it comes off as more of a fluff promo piece for the film than anything else (and also sports horribly translated subs), and the bios, while containing some interesting information, are pretty poorly-written (or poorly translated, as the case may be). The actual film itself is a bit on the dark side, but the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack sounds great. My major annoyance with the disc is that the English subs are on all the time, even though the majority of characters in the film actually speak English. It drove me nuts after a while.
Rating: ***