I've seen a few posts on here about this latest of Argento flicks, and was wondering if someone who has seen any of the dvd's on the market or heard about them somewhere, that which one is the best in overall picture/sound quality to get?

I've heard most of the good things with the Czech dvd of THE CARD PLAYER. But is there any other one since then that came out that maybe better, or would this be about the best one out there right now? I've seen over at Xploited that Tony has the UK Pal R0, and the Korean NTSC R3, as well as the Czech R2 Pal.

Also, are there any rumors/plans about it gettting a US release anytime soon? I would have done a search in the MHVF archives to check this stuff out, but it seems to be disabled right now.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dean :)

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, but I reviewed the disc for Cinema Nocturna recently - and the UK DVD of this film (other than the ugly cover art) is a pretty good buy if you want to ee the film. No Italian audio options sadly, however at least non-Italian speakers will get to see the on-set documentary with English subtitles. Also it's priced quite reasonably unlike the Czech release, and in fact I think it looks better, the colors being stronger and more realistic.

http://www.cinema-nocturna.com/cardplayer_review.htm

There is a DVD forthcoming from Anchor Bay Entertainment in the US - however I am not sure of the date of release.

I was under the impression that the U.K. and Czech DVDs utilized the same master. Any differences in color would be due to mastering differences, and I can't imagine they'd be too severe.

Does the U.K. disc offer a DTS option? The Czech DVD has a superb English-language DTS track, and full-bandwidth DTS (1.536 mb/s vs. 768 kb/s) at that. If DTS matters, I'd go for the Czech disc, but if it doesn't, the U.K. one sounds good, especially if it looks at least as good as/possibly a bit better than the Czech release, which itself looks great.

One thing's for certain- AVOID THE JAPANESE AND KOREAN RELEASES. I have the Japanese release, and it uses the same PAL master as the Czech disc, albeit cheaply converted to NTSC without being "time corrected", with resulting motion artifacts and other picture anomalies, plus they've crammed the entire film plus all extras onto a single layer disc. The Korean release has the same running time as the Czech PAL and Japanese NTSC versions, so I imagine it probably is a port of the lame non-time-corrected Japanese PAL-to-NTSC conversion.

Also Kit, re: your review:

I don't understand why the lack of a dubbed Italian track would lead to a lower rating for the soundtrack. A rating of a DVD's soundtrack should reflect the quality of the sound provided, and seeing as how THE CARD PLAYER was shot in English to begin with, I don't understand why the lack of a dubbed Italian track should be taken into consideration when judging the quality of the original-language soundtrack that is provided. That'd be like giving a SuperBit DVD from Columbia a lower rating in the sound department for not providing a French dubbed soundtrack. Also, you might want to give your review a proof-reading and do some edits on it, as there are some incoherent sentences in there ("The camera work and not is not true of the same ilk as the true Argento of his fans, but there are moment, such as that of the black gloved killer and a slight feeling of unease in proceedings."... HUH???), and incorrect use of "who's" instead of "whose", etc.

Vincent

The UK disc doesn't have DTS, at least according to Karl Wareham's review. As to image quality, I've heard mixed reviews about it. Some say it looks superior to the Czech DVD, others say it looks worse, others say they both look the same. Confusing indeed. Myself, I'm very happy with the Czech DVD and it will do fine until the Anchor Bay version comes out next year (then again, if AB drop the bomb and don't include any extras I'll just be sticking with the Czech disc).

One other thing, Kit, regarding your review: your statement that a UK 15 roughly translates as a US PG-13 is not entirely accurate. I don't have the exact figures, of course, but I would estimate that as many R-rated films receive 15 ratings as they do 18 ratings. The BBFC has loosened up a lot in the last few years, and I suspect that a lot of the older Argento films, if resubmitted, would be given 15 certificates too.

[QUOTE]Also, are there any rumors/plans about it gettting a US release anytime soon?

Anchor Bay Entertainment has purchased the rights for the US and are supposed to be putting out a special edition (along with TRAUMA) in early to mid 2005. I'm looking forward to TRAUMA in widescreen but they better go all out on THE CARD PLAYER.

I've got the Czech DVD (the only game in town when I and a few friends were desperate to see it) and consider it one of my prestige acquisitions. I don't have DTS but the 5.1 track is great, the black levels are amazing, and I really love the motion menu screens which all contain excerpts from different tracks of the score. I'd say fork over the extra six bucks for the Czech disc.

Besides the UK, Czech, and Korean discs there is an NTSC Russian disc from CP Digital but I've heard that its fullscreen (its odd why anyone would bother doing a P&S transfer these days).

I find the reviews at the Dark Dreams website to be most dependable, though I wish someone would sort out the conflicting reviews of the Italian disc of NONHOSONNO. This is one I haven't picked up despite the low price because some reviews have said that the English track is recorded too low while others say that it compares well with the Italian track.

As for the Korean disc, does anyone know who the distributor is?

Anchor Bay says "Summer 2005" for The Card Player here. I think I'll wait and see what they're going to do with this before committing to one of the PAL releases. They say anamorphic SE is planned, so here's hoping. They seem to be much more reliable the past few years.

Regarding the "italian dub" thing Vincent mentioned, wouldn't only the two leads be dubbed in an Italian-language track on Card Player? Because the rest of the cast is quite obviously dubbed into English on the English-language track; the quality of that dub was my main complaint about the film. Also at that, wouldn't Stefania Rocca provide the dub performance for her character on an Italian audio track, leaving Liam Cunningham to be the only one not providing his own voice?

The English track on the Italian NON HO SONNO is noticeably quieter when compared to the Italian mixes, but this shouldn't be a huge issue unless your sound system is very limited in terms of volume. Either way, the Italian dub is so vastly superior to its English counterpart that I doubt you'll ever watch the film with the English track.

Michael:

Good point re: the U.K. "15" rating, which is probably a lot closer to the American R-rating. As a comparison, the Italian rating for THE STENDHAL SYNDROME is "14", and I'd hardly call that a "light" film.

As for the Italian NONHOSONNO, as Michael points out, while the English soundtrack is recorded lower in level than either of the Italian tracks, that can be easily compensated for simply be pumping up the volume when viewing the film in English. The only downside is that if you bring the English track up to an acceptable level and then were to toggle back-and-forth with the Italian track, you might blow out your speakers :-)

I also agree that the Italian dub is so vastly superior to the English soundtrack, that it's preferable to view NONHOSONNO in Italian with English subtitles anyway. Although you do lose Max Von Sydow's on-set vocal performance, the Italian voice artist who dubbed him did a superb job and the voice really fits the role.

And Henry:

Not ALL of the supporting players were post-synced with different vocal performers in THE CARD PLAYER. Listen to the morgue technician and the police investigator who gets into a tussle with Liam Cunningham and has several other scenes after that- they are clearly speaking in their accented, native voices, as is the police technician who identifies the seed. BTW, it's more accurate to say "post-synced" as opposed to "dubbed", since THE CARD PLAYER was shot entirely in English (except perhaps for the worker who we briefly glimpse at the second body discovery site in the quarry, whose mouth movements don't match his dialogue during the quick shot he's on-screen in the English version). Some of the supporting characters were re-recorded in post by non-accented vocal artists, whereas other performances were left intact as recorded on-set. The Italian version is ENTIRELY dubbed top-to-bottom- the English track is only partially post-synced by different vocal performers, and since the film was shot in English, I think English is the prefered viewing choice in this case since the bulk of the dialogue is from the leads and they both speak in their actual voices.

BTW, was THE CARD PLAYER the last film the late Nick Alexander worked on?

Vincent

According to Alan Jones' Profondo Argento, yes.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up, Vincent. I only wish they could've cast Italian-accented voice actors(or perhaps just GOOD ones regardless of accent) for the post-syncing done on the English-language track, as I found them rather grating. It was the major cause of laughter at the screening I attended.

Thanks alot folks for the recommendations. I was thinking of going with the Czech dvd from what I've heard about it in past posts. But just wanted to check to make sure nothing that has came out since, looks or sounds any better in the a/v department. So my choice will be that one. Even though the AB one will be coming out in mid 2005, and sounds promising, my patience for a new US released Argento flick won't last that long. :D

Thanks again,
Dean

Regarding the dubbing, I'm pretty sure Cosimo Fusco (he's the one that got in an altercation with Cunningham's character during the meeting after the first murder) also spoke English on set (NBC "Friends" viewers knew him as Paolo, Rachael's off and on Italian lover early on in the series - he was also the fashion photographer in the atmospheric but derivitive Italian-shot "The Eighteenth Angel").

P.S. regarding Nonhosonno, I think Roberto Zibetti dubbed his own English performance. He sounds the same as he did speaking English in Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty.

I'll have to give the Italian track of Nonhosonno a listen though Max Von Sydow in English is essential.

Eric:

As I pointed out already elsewhere in this thread, aside from perhaps the worker who's being interviewed near the quarry re: finding the second corpse, EVERYBODY in THE CARD PLAYER spoke English on set. Even as some of the secondary characters' voices sound weird due to the post-syncing by non-accented vocal doubles, it's obvious from their lip movements that English was being spoken during shooting.

And Henry:

The BEST solution is to simply use the actual actors' voices as opposed to replacing them at all. Since only SOME actors in THE CARD PLAYER had their accented voices replaced and not others, I have to wonder if this has anything to do with the Italian dubbers union, which I understand is very powerful.

Vincent

I agree completely with your sentiments.

Regarding the Italian dubbing union, I recall seeing a report on tv once about how the Italian dub actors associated with famous American actors such as Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, etc had become celebrities in their own right, so I find your scenario entirely plausible. I recall the difficulty I had when I was in Rome a couple of years ago to find a Hollywood film in it's original language w/Italian subtitles(they'd offer them, but rare showings, at odd times).