[izzybell] A Better Tomorrow (1986) [JPN 4K Remaster] [1080p] [Multi-Audio] [BD Remux] [FLAC]

Video

Audio

| Language | Source | Source Media | Channels | Format | Provided by | | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | | YUE | 1986 1.0 Original Cantonese Mono Mix | Paramount JP BD | Mono | FLAC | Colek | | YUE | 1986 1.0 Cantonese Mono / Japanese Theatrical Mix | TWIN Co. JP UHD | Mono | FLAC | MAMA | | YUE | 2004 5.1 Cantonese Surround Remix | IVL HK DVD | 5.1 Surround | DTS | SARTRE | | CMN | 1986 1.0 Mandarin Mono Mix | Disk Kino HK UHD | Mono | FLAC | ANKO | | CMN | 2004 5.1 Mandarin Surround Remix | IVL HK DVD | 5.1 Surround | AC-3 | SARTRE | | ENG | 1987 1.0 English Export Dub | Shout Factory US UHD | Mono | FLAC | CiNEPHiLES | | ENG | Commentary by James Mudge | Shout Factory US UHD | Mono | AC-3 | CiNEPHiLES | | ENG | Commentary by Bey Logan | Optimum UK DVD | Stereo | AC-3 | CiNEPHiLES | | ENG | Commentary by Frank Djeng and FJ DeSanto | Arrow UK UHD | Stereo | AC-3 | CiNEPHiLES |

Subtitles

Notes:

Video - A Better Tomorrow has had two 4K restorations. One done around 2016 by acclaimed restoration house L'Immagine Ritrovata for Fortune Star (scanned internally on an ARRISCAN), and another done in 2025 by Duplitech for Shout! Factory (scanned at Interface Video Production, Ltd. in Hong Kong on a Cintel Mark III). Both scans have their strengths and weakness; the Ritrovata scan was done on much better equipment and is, IMO, more consistent, but is seemingly sourced from worse materials (I couldn't find any restoration notes) and has a green-washed color grade. Shout's scan is much sharper with better-ish colors, but was done on much worse equipment and is inconsistent to me. For this reason I have elected to do two versions of this release with the 2016 restoration being released first; an alternate version with the 2025 restoration will follow in the future. I opted to go with a remux of the included Blu-Ray in the TWIN Co. UHD set. If you'd prefer 4K, all subs and audio from this will sync to the TWIN Co. UHD disc with a -41742ms delay. This will not work on the Disk Kino UHD as the timing is strangely different despite being sourced from the same SDR UHD master. Comparison Pics

Audio: A Better Tomorrow was originally released theatrically in Mono. Dialect depended on region so it can be assumed the Mandarin and Cantonese ADRs were recorded at the same time and released at the same time (Wikipedia notes the South Korean premiere in 1987 used the Mandarin dub). The English dub is a complete anomaly with the only info known about it being that it was recorded in London and was distributed by Atlas International (a German company). Release dates are unknown, but it can be assumed it was recorded and was premiered a year or so after the original Hong Kong release. Throughout the years, the film received many surround remixes for Hong Kong DVDs and Blu-Rays (as is typical for films of its era).

The original Cantonese mono track had a plethora of sources to choose from, and from my research and testing, the track from the Paramount JPN Blu-Ray sounded the least manipulated. The Shout UHD mono is serviceable, and without a comparison, is not noticeably worse, but it does seem to have a certain amount of filtering and is boosted significantly, not to the point of lost dynamics or anything, but still boosted. The TWIN Co. UHD had a special "Restored Japanese Theatrical Version" Cantonese mono track that has also been included. I didn't in-depth compare them for differences, but the spectrogram does show some minor differences to the Paramount JPBD track. Both Mandarin mono sources (Disk Kino UHD & Netflix WEB-DL) had heavy filtering so I went with the Disk Kino UHD track as it was uncompressed. I only had access to the English mono from the Shout UHD so it was what I went with, no other mixes exist to my knowledge.

Controversially, I've decided to include the surround mixes for both Chinese dialects. I found that the 5.1 tracks from the IVL HKG DVD were the most respectful to the original sound design out of the available surround tracks, and sounded much less filtered than the Cantonese 7.1. In spite of this however, There is still plenty of SFX changes and added foley in both mixes. Disk Kino had a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track for the Mandarin dub that is very close to the DVD track, however, it had phasing issues with the music, so I decided to keep the DVD 5.1. The Cantonese 7.1 remix sounds like complete shit and was excluded. These surround mixes will not be the Shout mux as additional syncing work would be require and honestly I don't want to do that for these, they were only included here because they were already synced to this source

Subtitles: The main subtitles were sourced from Arrow's UHD which has an excellent translation done by the highly-talented Dylan Cheung. I decided to not include any alternate translations as they're all significantly inferior to Dylan's work. The dubtitles for the English dub were sourced from Shout Factory's UHD as Arrow's SDH track is just their translation with SDH added. Arrow's sign translations were inserted into the SRT dubtitles.