Hard Target [4K Ultra HD] [1993] [Blu-ray] [Region Free]

Product Information

The new Blu-ray is pretty great if you’re not 4K-ready, but this new Dolby Vision transfer is where it's at. Universal Pictures UK will celebrate the 30th anniversary of John Woo's action thriller Hard Target (1993) with a brand new Collector's Edition 4K Blu-ray SteelBook, which will be available for purchase on June 26th.

track from the old Blu-ray release, and unless I am missing something, the new DTS-HD Master Audio 5. Excellent looking Steelbook with great extras as per the pics, however no video extras as they were on the DVD. The rules of the game are simple -- the hunters pay the businessmen a hefty fee and he delivers a live target willing to risk his life for ten thousand dollars. Perhaps some of the darker footage again produces light black crush, but the stylization is such that it is tolerable. Ningen on Jake Gyllenhaal goes full on Jackie Chan in the Trailer for Doug Liman’s ‘Road House’ also starring Conor McGregor But did you see Road House *2*?JJ Bona on Jake Gyllenhaal goes full on Jackie Chan in the Trailer for Doug Liman’s ‘Road House’ also starring Conor McGregor Yeah, I never understood that.

Whether that’s enough to liven up an otherwise routine JCVD action flick may depend on whether you come at the film from the perspective of a Van Damme fan excited to get a more competent than usual outing from the star, or a John Woo fan expecting more from the man who made The Killer and Hard-Boiled. And true to form as a film fan, he even repays Tarantino’s use of his signature standoff in Reservoir Dogs by cutting off the ear of one of Fouchon’s lackeys. s U-571 is coming to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in the UK this September, with extra features too: more details here. Most of the action and stunts in the first half to two-thirds of the film are very over-the-top and ludicrous, but more so of Van Damme’s oeuvre than Woo’s.

Running over schedule and losing an epic boat chase at the bequest of his lead actor (who preferred horses; the boat sequence would be saved for Woo's later Face/Off) the director turned in a first cut which was too long and violent for the studios - earning a dreaded NC-17 by the censors, back in the days when they refused to specify what exactly needed to be changed to secure a more studio-friendly R-rating.

Woo's trademarks are all present and correct: yes, slo-mo and freeze-frame, but also doves (well, pigeons), two-handed gunplay, back-to-back confrontations (where two characters trade words as they reload, separated only by a thin partition), and the lead character anticipating the actions of others through reflections in mirrored objects. The review will be updated in due course depending on whether a fixed replacement disc is forthcoming. The legendary “Muscles from Brussels” Jean-Claude Van Damme ( No Retreat, No Surrender , Kickboxer ) teams up with world-famous action director John Woo ( The Killer , Hard Boiled , Face/Off ) and executive producer Sam Raimi ( The Evil Dead , Spider-Man ) for this electrifying thriller. Details are sharp and crystal clear showing better detailing in clothing, production design, and the film’s New Orleans locations. In New Orleans, handsome drifter Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme, Death Warrant, Maximum Risk) is approached by a beautiful girl (Yancy Butler, Drop Zone, Fast Money) looking for her father, a homeless vet.When they need to start hunting Boudreaux, instead of just letting loose his lethal right-hand man Pik (the always awesome Arnold Vosloo), he instead gives select former clients the chance to pay him an exorbitant fee for the opportunity to kill the uber-mulleted Van Damme knowing full well most are likely to die. Van Damme is the target of an evil mercenary (Lance Henriksen) who recruits homeless combat veterans for the “amusement” of his clients — bored tycoons who will pay a half a million dollars to stalk and kill the most challenging prey of them all: Man. There’s consistently clear contrast between foreground and background objects, as well as subtle gradations of color tone.

And in sequence capped with a marvelously slapstick gag, Chance takes down Emil in a warehouse filled with junked Mardi Gras floats. To this day fans still yearn for a proper release of a bootleg workprint of one of Woo's earlier, longer cuts in favour of the least cut official version that is currently available (Kino themselves tried and failed to get it). If you can watch it in HDR, and tolerate the odd moment of distinct aural displacement, it's actually a whole lot of fun revisiting this action classic, which has certainly been done justice by some tremendous native 4K remastering. Set in a bizarre version of New Orleans where the streets are almost always empty and the entire city only ever has one police officer on duty (a very quick shot tells us that the rest are on strike, and that issue is never mentioned again), Hard Target is a 1990s update of that old yarn The Most Dangerous Game. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc, including the actual color values of this content.While the skin tones look pinkish, almost as if the characters have been sunburned, for the most part this is a really nice looking transfer.