Hannibal Rising (Polish import) - impressions

[kannisto]

Received Hannibal Rising today from Poland (Merlin.pl) (see import thread for direct link). Shipping was 28 zlotys and it took 1 week (mid-priced shipping option). They shipped it within 24 hours from ordering. It was packaged very well, several layers of cardboard boxes.

Checked it quickly, PQ/AQ seem to be excellent!

Specs:
2 discs, main feature on HD DVD and 142 minutes of extras on a separate PAL DVD. (Can't play the extras DVD on my HD-XF2 because it's PAL, but I have another NTSC and PAL upscaling region free DVD player that I can play it with. Not sure if DVD is region protected as my DVD player doesn't care.)

Main feature:
Video: VC-1 (1080i High Definition 16x9 1.78:1, probably 1080p24 on disc anyway)
Warning: OAR seems to be 2.35 : 1.
Audio: DD+ 5.1 English, DD+ 5.1 Polish, DTS HD ES 6.1 English
Subtitles: Optional Polish

Some pics:

[Ron_M]

Cool! I would wait till it is released in North America by Weinstein though but still pretty cool - thanks for the pics!

[kannisto]

I finished watching the movie now. As a movie it was rather disappointing even though I knew beforehand that it didn't get so good reviews and I didn't have that high expectations. I read the book some months ago and enjoyed it enough to be interested in seeing the movie, even though it wasn't among the best in the series as a book either. Anyway, now I think the book was a whole lot better than the movie overall.

I think the scope of the book was much too large for a movie of this length, and the movie seemed to jump through all the key scenes from the book as quickly as possible especially during the first half, without any proper room for character or proper story development. The only character who had enough screen time to build up some real interest was Hannibal himself and the actor for the part didn't seem to have the right kind of charisma to make it really work. 2nd half of the movie worked a bit better than first though. I felt throughout that it would have been pretty difficult to follow the overall plot if I had not read the book beforehand as so many events took place in such a little time with little or no background story or buildup. Overall I'd score it 2/5 as a movie.

PQ was excellent in scenes with good light and fairly good in lower light, with moderate grain throughout. There were a couple of darker scenes that had some distracting pattern noise in some dark surfaces or backgrounds. Those problematic scenes were short and few though.

As noted in the original post, the aspect ratio was not the original one. Original is 2.35:1 and this release 1.78:1. I haven't seen this with the OAR so I can't really say how much that affected the experience, but even in principle it's quite bad that OAR was not kept.

[sehnzeleid]

Originally Posted by kannisto

As noted in the original post, the aspect ratio was not the original one. Original is 2.35:1 and this release 1.78:1. I haven't seen this with the OAR so I can't really say how much that affected the experience, but even in principle it's quite bad that OAR was not kept.

Well, it's a Super35 film, so I doubt it's cropped. Like Magnolia's HD DVD/BD of The World's Fastest Indian, the 2.35 matting was probably just opened to 1.78.

It's a change, but it's not the end of the world.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by sehnzeleid

Well, it's a Super35 film, so I doubt it's cropped. Like Magnolia's HD DVD/BD of The World's Fastest Indian, the 2.35 matting was probably just opened to 1.78.

It's a change, but it's not the end of the world.

If that's the case, I won't mind I was assuming it has been cropped.

[Moon Panda]

Thanks for this, and the pics.

The DVD of extra features - are they all in english?

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Moon Panda

Thanks for this, and the pics.

The DVD of extra features - are they all in english?

The extras seem to all have English audio with forced yellow Polish subtitles. There are some making of type extras, some deleted scenes etc. I didn't watch them through, just peeked here and there.

[Arkadin]

compared to the two movies that followed, this movie is great. I mean the 2 most recent ones really sucked IMO.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

compared to the two movies that followed, this movie is great. I mean the 2 most recent ones really sucked IMO.

What are the "2 most recent ones" you refer to? In my understanding this "Hannibal Rising" is the newest one as a movie (2007) and as a book although it is a prequel in terms of story.

Maybe you meant that this one and Red Dragon really sucked?

[Arkadin]

exactly! Those are the one's.
imo the only one's worth a toot are
1. Manhunter
2. Silence
3. Hannibal