Michael Osadciw
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2003
- Messages
- 1,460
- Real Name
- Michael Osadciw
Blu-ray Disc REVIEW
RISING SUN
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Studio: 20th Century Fox
Film Year: 1993
Film Length: 129 minutes
Genre: Drama/Crime
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1 Theatrical Ratio
Resolution: 1080p
Video Codec: AVC @ 18MBPS
Disc Size: 25GB
Colour/B&W: Colour
Audio:
English DTS-HD MASTER LOSSLESS AUDIO 5.1 Surround
French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Film Rating: R
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Release Date: AVAILABLE NOW
Film Rating: :star: :star: 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Starring: Sean Connery (Capt. John Connor), Wesley Snipes (Lt. Webster Smith), Harvey Keitel (Lt. Tom Graham), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Eddie Sakamura), Mako (Yoshida-san)
Screenplay by: Philip Kaufman, Michael Crichton & Michael Backes
Novel by: Michael Crichton
Directed by: Philip Kaufman
It’s late at night and the lights are low in the offices of Nakamoto, a large Japanese corporation. In one room, the executives are hammering out a takeover deal with Microcon Corporation. In another room, a mistress is making love to a man the way she likes it – heightening her pleasure with asphyxiation. But her experience for pleasure has come to an end as she draws her last breath.
Detective Web Smith is called for the case. On his way to the scene he’s ordered to pick up another detective, former police captain John Connor. While Smith wants to believe he has everything under control, he’ll soon find out he is no expert in Japanese cases. John Connor is.
The two discover that evidence of the murder has been quickly concealed and tampered with. Facing a culture of honour and revenge, Smith embarks on a discovery using only clues to find the truth.
I had higher expectations for the film; I found the first 30 minutes slow. Beyond that the film was entertaining, but I couldn’t always get past the poorly written dialogue and seemingly amateur-like pans and framing of scenes.
VIDEO QUALITY 4/5 :star: :star: :star: :star:
I found this title a tough one to score. I don’t want to say that the image is difficult to describe but it does look unlike any other Blu-ray title I’ve seen so far. Take that as a good comment. Since high definition allows us to see the quality of the type of film used for this film and/or transfer, this is one of those titles that you can jump out of your chair and shout “this looks like film!”
Grain structure adds a pleasing effect to the warm feeling this title emits. There is the occasional artefact but it’s hardly distracting. Many scenes look very detailed and three-dimensional except for a few long shots and I’ve found the best words to describe this title are “softly focussed.”
Image contrast is exceptional in my opinion. Some may disagree with me on this but I always found all scenes – whether indoors or outdoors, darkly lit or bright – to have the appropriate contrast. All details can be scene and shadow detail, for the most part, is exceptional. There were just a few shots with Snipes in the foreground of a brightly lit background where details in his face were difficult to see.
The colour of the film could be described as slightly muted in appearance. Even the most saturated of items like Snipes’s red T-shirt never bloomed or appeared gritty. Again, this level of saturation is something I’ve always associated with a particular kind of film stock that is really showing its true colours in HD.
The aspect ratio of the film is correct at 1.85:1 and is framed perfectly in the middle on the screen with just a bit of the “black bar” on the top and bottom. Compression artefacts are absent to my eyes and edge enhancement doesn’t appear to be applied for this Blu-ray release, but seems to have been used for just a few key shots during the original transfer of this film. I am assuming this is not a new transfer but one used years ago for the DVD release.
AUDIO QUALITY: 2.5/5 :star: :star: 1/2
Rising Sun has a basic mix that has most of the energy placed in the center speaker. Left and right channel effects as well as all surround effects are much lower than I expected. The theatrical soundtrack was Dolby Stereo and this 5.1 presentation seems to have very little redirection of effects; in fact I don’t believe much effort went into making an entirely new mix. I didn’t notice any discrete surround effects and I felt a moment of dedicated LFE only once in the film at the film’s climax.
The tonality of the soundtrack is pleasing. I found it very comfortable to my ears with the top end sounding almost a tad rounded off. The dialogue from all actors sounds forward because of the lack of volume in the left and right channels. It’s not as open and “airy” as newer soundtrack. Much of the time it sounded like lines were spoken behind a blanket. The original soundtrack is obviously uses ADR and the lips don’t always look exactly on cue.
As with all Fox Blu-ray releases, the soundtrack is delivered with DTS-HD Master Audio. The core 1.5MBPS soundtrack was accessed here for this review because DTS-HDMA aren’t available yet, but I’m looking forward to revisiting this soundtrack to see how much of a difference an older and less dynamic soundtrack sounds in lossy vs. bit-for-bit lossless. The sampling frequency is 48kHz but I’m not sure what the bit-depth is.
TACTILE FUN!! 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: OFF
SPECIAL FEATURES 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
No “special” features are on this disc. You do get to view the Rising Sun theatrical trailer in HD. This one is presented in 2.35:1.
HD Trailers for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Kiss of the Dragon can also be found here.
IN THE END...
Rising Sun may not be the most entertaining film in the Blu-ray catalogue. Actually, I’m surprised this film was selected – it seems more of a catalogue title we’d normally see a few years later on a new format. But I’m also glad to see that titles such as this are being released because it’s showing a lack of discrimination titles that aren’t out to dazzle and impress. This is a slow crime drama, but entertaining and nice looking nonetheless.
Michael Osadciw
December 27, 2006.
RISING SUN
[url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/c/c4/htf_imgcache_4328.gif]
[/url]Studio: 20th Century Fox
Film Year: 1993
Film Length: 129 minutes
Genre: Drama/Crime
Aspect Ratio:
1.85:1 Theatrical Ratio
Resolution: 1080p
Video Codec: AVC @ 18MBPS
Disc Size: 25GB
Colour/B&W: Colour
Audio:
English DTS-HD MASTER LOSSLESS AUDIO 5.1 Surround
French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Film Rating: R
[url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/5/52/htf_imgcache_882.gif]
[/url] [url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/9/9c/htf_imgcache_883.gif]
[/url]Release Date: AVAILABLE NOW
Film Rating: :star: :star: 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Starring: Sean Connery (Capt. John Connor), Wesley Snipes (Lt. Webster Smith), Harvey Keitel (Lt. Tom Graham), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Eddie Sakamura), Mako (Yoshida-san)
Screenplay by: Philip Kaufman, Michael Crichton & Michael Backes
Novel by: Michael Crichton
Directed by: Philip Kaufman
It’s late at night and the lights are low in the offices of Nakamoto, a large Japanese corporation. In one room, the executives are hammering out a takeover deal with Microcon Corporation. In another room, a mistress is making love to a man the way she likes it – heightening her pleasure with asphyxiation. But her experience for pleasure has come to an end as she draws her last breath.
Detective Web Smith is called for the case. On his way to the scene he’s ordered to pick up another detective, former police captain John Connor. While Smith wants to believe he has everything under control, he’ll soon find out he is no expert in Japanese cases. John Connor is.
The two discover that evidence of the murder has been quickly concealed and tampered with. Facing a culture of honour and revenge, Smith embarks on a discovery using only clues to find the truth.
I had higher expectations for the film; I found the first 30 minutes slow. Beyond that the film was entertaining, but I couldn’t always get past the poorly written dialogue and seemingly amateur-like pans and framing of scenes.
VIDEO QUALITY 4/5 :star: :star: :star: :star:I found this title a tough one to score. I don’t want to say that the image is difficult to describe but it does look unlike any other Blu-ray title I’ve seen so far. Take that as a good comment. Since high definition allows us to see the quality of the type of film used for this film and/or transfer, this is one of those titles that you can jump out of your chair and shout “this looks like film!”
Grain structure adds a pleasing effect to the warm feeling this title emits. There is the occasional artefact but it’s hardly distracting. Many scenes look very detailed and three-dimensional except for a few long shots and I’ve found the best words to describe this title are “softly focussed.”
Image contrast is exceptional in my opinion. Some may disagree with me on this but I always found all scenes – whether indoors or outdoors, darkly lit or bright – to have the appropriate contrast. All details can be scene and shadow detail, for the most part, is exceptional. There were just a few shots with Snipes in the foreground of a brightly lit background where details in his face were difficult to see.
The colour of the film could be described as slightly muted in appearance. Even the most saturated of items like Snipes’s red T-shirt never bloomed or appeared gritty. Again, this level of saturation is something I’ve always associated with a particular kind of film stock that is really showing its true colours in HD.
The aspect ratio of the film is correct at 1.85:1 and is framed perfectly in the middle on the screen with just a bit of the “black bar” on the top and bottom. Compression artefacts are absent to my eyes and edge enhancement doesn’t appear to be applied for this Blu-ray release, but seems to have been used for just a few key shots during the original transfer of this film. I am assuming this is not a new transfer but one used years ago for the DVD release.
AUDIO QUALITY: 2.5/5 :star: :star: 1/2Rising Sun has a basic mix that has most of the energy placed in the center speaker. Left and right channel effects as well as all surround effects are much lower than I expected. The theatrical soundtrack was Dolby Stereo and this 5.1 presentation seems to have very little redirection of effects; in fact I don’t believe much effort went into making an entirely new mix. I didn’t notice any discrete surround effects and I felt a moment of dedicated LFE only once in the film at the film’s climax.
The tonality of the soundtrack is pleasing. I found it very comfortable to my ears with the top end sounding almost a tad rounded off. The dialogue from all actors sounds forward because of the lack of volume in the left and right channels. It’s not as open and “airy” as newer soundtrack. Much of the time it sounded like lines were spoken behind a blanket. The original soundtrack is obviously uses ADR and the lips don’t always look exactly on cue.
As with all Fox Blu-ray releases, the soundtrack is delivered with DTS-HD Master Audio. The core 1.5MBPS soundtrack was accessed here for this review because DTS-HDMA aren’t available yet, but I’m looking forward to revisiting this soundtrack to see how much of a difference an older and less dynamic soundtrack sounds in lossy vs. bit-for-bit lossless. The sampling frequency is 48kHz but I’m not sure what the bit-depth is.
TACTILE FUN!! 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: OFF
SPECIAL FEATURES 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:No “special” features are on this disc. You do get to view the Rising Sun theatrical trailer in HD. This one is presented in 2.35:1.
HD Trailers for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Kiss of the Dragon can also be found here.
IN THE END...
Rising Sun may not be the most entertaining film in the Blu-ray catalogue. Actually, I’m surprised this film was selected – it seems more of a catalogue title we’d normally see a few years later on a new format. But I’m also glad to see that titles such as this are being released because it’s showing a lack of discrimination titles that aren’t out to dazzle and impress. This is a slow crime drama, but entertaining and nice looking nonetheless.
Michael Osadciw
December 27, 2006.
