| Tai Seng presents the movie in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 approximately. While fairly clean, the dark and murky transfer doesn't do the movie any justice. Shimmer around objects can be seen at various times as well.
In glorious mono we get the original Cantonese track along with Mandarin and English dubs, also in mono. Sound and dialogue sound a bit muffled but otherwise it's a serviceable soundtrack.
The disc comes with optional English subtitles that presumably were reworked for Tai Seng's release as is the case with some of their better titles. Despite being a bit too big they're completely free of grammar and structure errors.
The so called Special Edition content only has one really significant extra and that is the audio commentary with Hong Kong Film Expert Stefan Hammond who is joined by co-writers Laurent Courtiaud and Julien Carbon. The focus lies heavily on how their script was changed in places to suit the Hong Kong audience (it was a much darker story in one of their earlier drafts) and it's a good, gap-free listen. They also add some interesting notes on the preparation with the actors for the movie and the general working experience in Hong Kong. Stefan Hammond adds some basic facts about the players in front and behind the camera and does very little of his infamous play by play commentary. For fans of the movie this is a worthwhile addition to the disc
We also get three trailers for Running Out Of Time. One is the Tai Seng edited promo and the other two are the Hong Kong trailer dubbed into English and in its original Cantonese language respectively. There's also trailers for Dragon Inn and Armageddon. The final extra on the disc are basic animated biographies for stars Andy Lau, Lau Ching Wan, Yoyo Mung and director Johnnie To with the Andy Lau one being the most informative. |