International HD-DVD's

[Grain]

This thread is for those who are interested in international releases of HD-DVD's currently not available in North America, and with no planned release date there. It is not intended to be exclusive, nor am I vouching that it's 100% correct, however every effort has been made to provide accurate information. Pre-release information can be highly speculative, and whether they come to fruition only time will tell. Information has been gathered from many areas of the web, some reliable, some unknown. Please feel free to add or correct anything, and perhaps someone else will start a BluRay thread.

Some notes:
-I've not included any foreign films. ie ones that aren't English friendly via subtitles or language tracks, but that doesn't mean someone else can't add them!
-If I've come across any issues, they'll be noted, however just because it's not mentioned, doesn't mean they may or may not exist. ie If you buy a disc based on information from this thread, it's at your own risk.
-Some Japanese HD-DVD's appear to be packaged in a regular DVD case, not the smaller red case we find in NA and Europe (I'm unsure of Australian and other Asian releases)
-I personally don't endorse any on-line shops, but I've had good service buying from http://www.Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom), http://www.Amazon.de (Germany), http://www.Amazon.fr (France), http://www.yesasia.com (Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, Australia etc), http://www.ezydvd.com.au (Australia), http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (Japan). The Amazon France & Germany sites are rather hard to negotiate if your an Anglo only like myself, but using 1 click helps. Amazon.co.jp seems to require a separate enrolment unlike all the other Amazon's which work under your amazon.ca or amazon.com membership (I've not bot from amazon Japan, I personally can't negotiate their site enough to sign-up).

Abbreviations
Fr = France
UK = United Kingdom/England
Ger = Germany
Jpn = Japan
Aus = Australia
Sp = Spain

[Grain]

Available Now

-Alexander - Fr
-Arizona Dream - Fr
-Band of Brothers (Mini Series) - Jpn
-Basic Instinct (Unrated) - Fr - UK - Ger
-Brotherhood of the Wolf - Fr - UK
-Brothers Grimm - Jpn
-Elephant Man, The - Fr
-Enemy at the Gates - Fr
-Equilibrium - Jpn
-Fantastic 4 - Ger
-Finding Neverland - Jpn
-First Blood - Fr - Ger
-Fog, The - Fr - Ger - UK
-Four Brothers - Jpn
-Fragile - Jpn
-Ghost Rider - Fr
-Gift, The - Jpn
-Goal! - Jpn
-Graduate, The - Fr
-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - UK
-Holiday, The - UK
-Island, The - Fr - Ger - UK
-Jersey Girl - Jpn
-Killing Me Softly - Jpn
-King Kong (1976) - Fr - Ger
-Leaving Las Vegas - Fr
-Machinist, The - Jpn - (several sources report poor English audio track sync to video)
-Mr & Mrs Smith - Poland
-Mulholland Drive - Fr
-Oliver Twist - Jpn
-Pans Labyrinth (3 DVD, 1 HD-DVD & 1 CD THX set) - Fr - no known english subtitles or language tracks
-Patlabor - Jpn
-Pianist, The - Fr - UK
-Prestige, The - UK
-Rambo 2 - Fr
-Rambo 3 - Fr
-Reign of Fire - Jpn
-Renaissance - Fr - Fr - Ger
-Running Scared - Ger
-Serpico - Fr
-Taking Lives - Jpn
-Terminator 2 (2 disc, Theatrical and Unrated) - Fr - (theatrical has forced french subs, unrated doesn't) - UK
-Three Days of the Condor - Fr - (forced french subtitles)
-Total Recall - Aus - Fr
-Toto: Live in Amsterdam - Fr
-Two Brothers - Fr
-Underworld Evolution - Sp (reported to be released in Fr also)
-xXx - Jpn

[Grain]

Release Dates and Rumored Releases (TBA)

Alone in the Dark - Ger - Sept 15/07
Asterix and the Vikings - Fr Oct 3/07 (may not be English friendly)
Bridge to Terabithia - Fr Oct 3/07
Brothers Grimm - Ger - Sept 15/07
Bullitt - Ger - Sept 15/07
Christmas Vacation - Ger - Sept 15/07
Fantastic 4 - Ger - Sept 15/07
Getaway, The (original w/ Steve McQueen) - Ger - Sept 15/07
Hero - Ger - Oct 11/07
Jackal, The - Ger - Sept 15/07
Perfume - Ger - Sept 15/07
Reaping, The - Ger - Sept 07
Silent Hill - Ger - Sept 15/07
Tideland - Ger - Nov 7/07
Tomb Raider - Ger - Sept 15/07
Tomb Raider 2 - Ger - Sept 15/07
Underworld - Ger - Sept 15/07
Mad Max 2 - Ger - Jul 20 07
Wolf Creek - UK Nov 12/07


Fifth Element Fr - TBA
Resident Evil - Ger - Amazon.de misprint, NA
Resident Evil Apocalypse - Ger - Amazon.de misprint, NA

[Wesociety]

Sweet list! Links to websites that you can purchase these from would also be nice.

[Wesociety]

Here's a good spot for purchasing HD DVD imports in the US:
http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/hd-dvds-c-35.html

[Grain]

Sweet list! Links to websites that you can purchase these from would also be nice.

Right, added links in the top post.

I'll also be adding or correcting the two lists as I come across anything new, and will try and note the additions in bold.

Watched the U.K. HD DVD of The Prestige last night, very nice. Also got the Jpn HD DVD The Brothers Grimm today, so I'll have to check it out tonight. It's supposed to be AVC Mpeg 4, which will make it the first of that codec I've personally seen.

[Wesociety]

The title 'Arizona Dream' has really peaked my interest.
This film stars Johnny Depp and it is not available in Northern America.

It has a 7.2/10 rating on IMDB, and it takes place in my state of residence.

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106307/

I'm very tempted to import this sucker...

[Grain]

That does sound good. Another Depp film that has never been released in NA is The Brave, which also sounds good.

[Grain]

Updated both lists in bold, let me know re errors and omissions.

[dolphinius_rex]

Amazon.co.jp seems to require a separate enrolment unlike all the other Amazon's which work under your amazon.ca or amazon.com membership (I've not bot from amazon Japan, I personally can't negotiate their site enough to sign-up).

They have an option to shop from their site in english actually, it's a button in the top menu on the site (near the right side). Or you can follow this link:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/In-English/b/re ... de=1094656

I've not bought anything from them either, but I do browse around to see what nifty optical media they get there that we don't, from time to time

[Grain]

I'll have to spend some more time on this, looks like there are a lot of German releases I don't have listed. I just ordered both Resident Evils.

[Grain]

Added new German releases and dates to the Announced section.

[Grain]

Received Ghost Rider on HD-DVD today from France. Thankfully actually is a HD-DVD Not a great movie, but the FX are cool, and I was/am a big fan of the Ghost Rider comics.
Got Terry Gilliams "Tideland" coming from Germany on HD-DVD, hopefully they get that one right

[dolphinius_rex]

Received Ghost Rider on HD-DVD today from France. Thankfully actually is a HD-DVD Not a great movie, but the FX are cool, and I was/am a big fan of the Ghost Rider comics.

Was it the theatrical edition, or the extended edition? Just curious.

[Grain]

It's supposed to be the extended, but I'll have to confirm the running times.

[Grain]

Case shows the 123min runtime, that of the extended version. Also shows that it has the extra from the 2 disc DVD version "Sin And Salvation, the comic origins of Ghost Rider", which isn't included on the BluRay releases. That was the one extra I personally enjoyed the most from the SD DVD. Has English DTS-HD as opposed to PCM or Dolby Digital, but all of these spec's I'll have to double check, misprinted covers are still very common for all formats unfortunately. One major concern will be whether the French subtitles are forced or not.

[dolphinius_rex]

One major concern will be whether the French subtitles are forced or not.

Ugh... that would annoy the heck out of me REALLY quick if that was the case!! (always a concern when bringing in international movies)

[Grain]

All checked out well, extended cut, French subs don't even turn on when using the English audio tracks (a DTSHD 5.1 and DTSHD 2.0). They do default on during the extras, but you can turn them off via the remote. Had the excellent "Comic Origins" extra I was hoping for too. Two wierd issue's though, when bringing up the menu it would pause the movie, and FF doesn't work incrementally, it goes straight to the fastest speed.

[Wesociety]

Two wierd issue's though, when bringing up the menu it would pause the movie, and FF doesn't work incrementally, it goes straight to the fastest speed.

Weird, could be authoring/encoding issues on the Discs themselves...

[dolphinius_rex]

Two wierd issue's though, when bringing up the menu it would pause the movie, and FF doesn't work incrementally, it goes straight to the fastest speed.

Weird, could be authoring/encoding issues on the Discs themselves...

Without stable recordable media to be used for pre-replication testing, it's very possible that it's a kink that couldn't be worked out before the discs were pressed, and wasn't deemed important enough to fix AFTER the discs were pressed.

[Grain]

Could also be a player issue that will be fixed with a firmware update.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I have an Oppo 970HD DVD player. Excellent machine on all fronts, with the only weak spot being that it had some vertical crush with 2.35:1 DVD's (it vertically compressed the film slightly when upconverting to 1080i). Not a lot, but as I'm a bit of a videophile it quite annoyed me, enough so that I didn't use that player when watched 2.35 or 2.40:1 aspect ratio DVD's. I'd seen other people complain online about it at other forums also, so I thought it was just something I had to live with. Finally the other day I sent them an email complaining. 15 MINUTES! later I got an email response, with a new firmware attached that completely fixed the problem! For some reason this firmware is not posted at their site. Anyway, if you want an excellent DVD player with fantastic customer support, check out OPPO's, only available online. When/if/hope they make a new format HiDef player, I'll be all over that as well.

[dolphinius_rex]

On a somewhat unrelated note, I have an Oppo 970HD DVD player. Excellent machine on all fronts, with the only weak spot being that it had some vertical crush with 2.35:1 DVD's (it vertically compressed the film slightly when upconverting to 1080i). Not a lot, but as I'm a bit of a videophile it quite annoyed me, enough so that I didn't use that player when watched 2.35 or 2.40:1 aspect ratio DVD's. I'd seen other people complain online about it at other forums also, so I thought it was just something I had to live with. Finally the other day I sent them an email complaining. 15 MINUTES! later I got an email response, with a new firmware attached that completely fixed the problem! For some reason this firmware is not posted at their site. Anyway, if you want an excellent DVD player with fantastic customer support, check out OPPO's, only available online. When/if/hope they make a new format HiDef player, I'll be all over that as well.

I gotta agree, that's awesome service!!