Region 4 Winners and Losers

    The Region 1 release comes courtesy of MGM as part of its World Films collection. The only extra on the disc is the theatrical trailer. It features the same language and subtitle options as the Region 4 release. Interestingly the playing time of the Region 1 release is almost identical to this Region 4 release. Does that mean the Region 4 release is taken from an NTSC master or does it feature some extra footage? It would be interesting to get an answer on this point, as I cannot find any reference anywhere to additional footage.

    There is a Region 2 release from France courtesy of TF1 Video, which runs 127 minutes (which would be right for a 4% speedup on the NTSC runtime of 132 minutes). It features additional extras in the form of an interview with Gong Li recorded at Cannes in 1994, as well as filmographies for Zhang Yimou and Gong Li. The theatrical trailer on the disc runs to 2:40, making it almost a minute longer than that on this Region 4 release, and there is also an additional French dubbed soundtrack. This all sounds like a favourable recommendation in favour of this release - until you find out that the only available subtitles are French and they are non-removable. Egads, that means this Region 2 French release is not really recommendable to any other than French speakers who need non-removable subtitles. The video transfer is apparently not the best anyway, with compression artefacts amongst other issues noted.

    There is a Region 3 release from Taiwan courtesy of ERA Home Video (actually it is a Region 0 release) that has no extras other than filmographies and features just a Mandarin soundtrack with removable Traditional Chinese and English subtitles. Unfortunately the video transfer is not 16x9 enhanced and is in an aspect ratio of 1.69:1 thanks to some vertical squeezing. The video runs to 126 minutes (in NTSC format), suggesting that it has lost some footage along the way too. It also features some colour brightness boosting (that probably goes against the muted palette intended by the director) along with digital manipulation. It is also presented on a DVD-5 disc as opposed to the DVD-9 formatting of the three alternative versions. On all counts, this release can be wholeheartedly ignored.

    All things considered, the Region 4 release seems to be the way to go - even though it may be taken from an NTSC master.