Note that this print is censored, although it's an edit that should match what played in Hong Kong cinemas. There are various snippets of gory violence removed from most action scenes, such as impact hits and general bloodflow, that perhaps would've propelled this Jet Li vehicle up to the Cat III rating. In all we're talking about 40-50 seconds ''missing'' but the censored parts remain present in the Taiwan version and the various International versions, all working from an uncensored print. The cuts are not very noticeable overall if you don't know of them but the scene involving the severed hand is a jarring cut if I ever saw one.

I never looked through the old Mei Ah dvd but that did not have the neck bloodspurt during the beginning. That is now reinstated here along with the text crawl from the Taiwanese print that goes more into detail why the experiments went wrong. The Taiwan edit also adds a few more moments of gore plus slight extended dialogue, primarily with the men at the library. Thundermedia released that edit and the transfer is average, subtitles are burned onto the print and only a Mandarin dub is available. If you're like me, you'd want that version also, just to know what's supposed to be in there when watching the Mei Ah remaster.

Mei Ah offers a rich selection of sound and with me only on a Pro Logic setup, the Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 option was choosen here. It's a lively mix mainly in the front channels, dialogue seems well balanced with music and effects but it does come off as a bit manufactured. With that I mean that it's a bit noticeable where effects have been foleyed in during post-production. This I don't believe is a remix issue, I think it's the original surround mix that came out like this. There's two brief sound dropouts on this track. First occurring at 48 minutes and 23 seconds, the other at the 64 minute, 26 second mark. They're especially noticeable since, in both cases, we're in the middle of an action scene. This dropout is only present on the Cantonese 2.0 track. Other audio options are Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 (this track seemed to be mixed higher in volume, even if it's downconverted for my setup), Cantonese DTS 5.1 and Mandarin Dolby Digital 2.0.

Mei Ah upgrades the subtitle situation by providing optional English ones as opposed to their old release that had the burned in English/Chinese subtitles. Looking at the scene where Tsui Chik and Shek are playing chess, the optional subs offer a straight copy of the original burned in subtitles but I can't say if same is true for the rest of the film. That doesn't present much of a problem though in terms of errors in grammar and structure though as the subs are pretty consistent throughout.. Whether or not they offer a good translation I can't say. Traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles are also available.

Under Special Features we find the theatrical trailer (with the black & white segments from the movie now in colour), a trailer for the much maligned Black Mask 2 (dubbed into Cantonese), Jet Li's filmography and the usual worthless Mei Ah Databank with plot synopsis plus cast & crew listing.