La Môme (The Passionate Life of Edith Piaf) (French import)

[kannisto]

Received a surprisingly big package from France today!

Pictured here next to normal size HD DVD:


This Limited Collector's Edition includes the following:
- HD DVD (movie with extras including English subtitles)
- DVD (more extras)
- CD (soundtrack)
- 2008 Calendar
- Photo book of the movie (144 pages)
- Music Sheet "Hymne A L'Amour" (Copyright 1949)

Movie is reported to be 2h:20min VC-1 encoded, 16/9 Cinemascope.
5.1 Dolby Digital TrueHD and 5.1 DTS HD audio tracks.

Amazing package!

More impressions later after I have a chance to watch it a bit.

[Kimba1970]

This looks very interesting: this could be my third French HD DVD after "Reinessance" and "Enemy at the Gates"... I did enjoy the movie (but being an Edith Piaff fan I am probably biased)

[vital22]

Loved this movie saw the SD Version. I am very interested in your observations. Is a domestic release planned or announced? Looks like it's @ $74 is that about right?
Thanks!

[kannisto]

Some more pics:





I watched the movie last night. The PQ aspects really shined, the film looks gorgeous with very beatiful cinematography and sets and glowing richly saturated colours. The reds, blacks and various hues of gold are very strong especially in darker scenes and they always look just right and very artistic. I would definitely give this a 4.5 or 5 for PQ myself. It's actually also excellent demo material, looks more artistic and colorful than most movies. The sharpness and level of detail is great as well. AQ was excellent too but in my setup I can only utilize up to 1.5 mbps DTS, but that sounded very good.

The movie itself has been so beatifully shot that one can admire every shot as a beatiful painting or art photograph. The movie tells the story of Edith Piaf from 5 year old until her death, but not so much in chronological order. The acting is great, all actors who play Edit at her various ages are really excellent. There's not so much of continuous storyline or plot though, it's more about the various hardships and triumphs along her way and pretty much all the scenes are centering on her at various ages. The movie is mainly carried by the great visuals, music and the great acting. Overall I liked it quite much.

The main disc has the trailer for the movie in full HD (looks great) and also has some interesting web enabled extras. The downloadable content includes some magazine articles about the movie that could be easy enough to read through on the screen as they can be zoomed well and there is also something that looks like a screenplay in the downloadable materials. There was no account creation or login procedure needed when accessing the online contents, just needed to confirm that you want to connect to the internet. The problem for me with the extras is that everything is in French so I can't really read it with my ancient 2-year elementary school French studies as base.

The DVD containing more extras is PAL and region 2, and the contents on it have French audio without any subtitles.

Definitely recommended, either this version or the standard HD DVD release. This version is of course a bit more expensive (49.99 EUR) while the standard version is 29.99 EUR. I got this version cheap because of a pricing mistake in Amazon France early on, I paid 8.35 EUR for it + shipping. I was positively amazed that Amazon France honored that price. If it were not for the pricing mistake I would have probably ordered the normal version as I'm not a big collector of special box sets normally and I don't have much space for storing them. Anyway, I'm very impressed with this set and it's not that expensive even at normal price considering all the nice content and the great quality of the disc!

[kannisto]

2 more pics that couldn't be put in the same message as 10 is a limit:

[Geonosis]

The only songs I know of her are Hymne à l'Amour and La vie en rose. The movie does look good, and the packaging is great. She is a true French legend. Merci for the great photos you took.

[Pro-bassoonist]

I have the Blu-Ray version at home. Region-free and with optional English subtitles. From what I see on the pics above it is identical to what I have. sans the Blu-Ray encode.

Pro-B

[ls111553]

I have the Blu-Ray version at home. Region-free and with optional English subtitles. From what I see on the pics above it is identical to what I have. sans the Blu-Ray encode.

Pro-B

I am having trouble playing the HD version on my dual LG drive. I am considering returning it to Amazon.fr and sending for the BluRay instead.

Anyone else having problems playing the HD?

[kannisto]

Somebody was also reporting in AVS Forum that this was not playable on an LG player - or was it you there as well?

I didn't have any problems on my HD-XF2 with my disc.

[Cochise]

Thanks for the pics & info. I ordered the "standard" HD DVD release from Xploited Cinema, $41.95.

[Njål]

There's a faulty batch that some players have problems with, there's an exchange program from the distributor.
Info from user Wendelius @ The DVD Forums.

[Citizen Erased]

kannisto, is that Twilight Samurai (the comparison disc in the regular sized case)?

[Jester217300]

kannisto, is that Twilight Samurai (the comparison disc in the regular sized case)?

Yeah, there's an HD-DVD in Japan with no English subs

[kannisto]

kannisto, is that Twilight Samurai (the comparison disc in the regular sized case)?

The one in the picture is not "Twilight Samurai", it is "Love and Honor". Both were released on the same day (as was Hidden Blade). None of them have English subs though.

I made some posts about them in the import sticky earlier. Twilight Samurai pics are at the top in this post:
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/show...&postcount=510

Another one:
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/show...&postcount=505

[Cochise]

There's a faulty batch that some players have problems with, there's an exchange program from the distributor.
Info from user Wendelius @ The DVD Forums.

I had initial problems getting my copy from Xploited to play on my A35. The first few times I tried loading it my player first displayed "HD DVD" on the LED, but then quickly changed to "Error" while the display on the TV said the disc wasn't in the DVD format. Finally, after spraying the disc with Discwasher cleaner solution & wiping it clean & dry worked; might be issues with residue on some batches.

Beautiful looking & sounding HD DVD; highly recommended.