I watched Shogun’s Ninja again, this time from the remastered Adness dvd. The old dvd was, as I suspected, double cropped. It means the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio had first been cropped to 1.33:1 (full screen) and then black boarders had been added ON the image to make it look like widescreen. This means Brentwood dvd is missing approximately 60% of the image. Action scenes were very hard to follow as people were literally fighting off-screen. Of course the great colors were also totally ruined by the shitty transfer.
Watching the film remastered in it’s original language with 60% more image made me totally change my mind about it. The action scenes were very good, and I loved the beautiful scenery and visual look. The soundtrack is still getting on my nerves, but everything else is great. Especially the opening fight scene (which took place off-sceen in Brentwoods dvd) is just pure magic. 8/10 (I’ve seen about 1500 movies and I have never raised a rating this much. Though I’m positive I would give 3 or 4/10 again if I had watched the old Brentwood dvd instead of Adness’s beautiful remaster).
Brentwood vs. Adness comparison review: <LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.10kbullets.com/reviews/shogu … arison.htm”>http://www.10kbullets.com/reviews/shogunsninjacomparison.htm</LINK_TEXT>
