DO NOT BUY ANY OF THE DISCS ON AMAZON or on EBAY.
They are all bootlegs.
They are all CRAP.
So are the Region 2 Terence Hill/Bud Spencer Collection discs being sold throughout northern Europe! These are legal, supposedly, but they're horrendous full-frame transfers from dirty prints.
But the real deal is out there. You've just gotta look for it. I just got finished watching it tonight and was BLOWN AWAY by both the quality and the memories that came rushing back after having not seen the film in 26 years! You might pay a little more, around $25-$28 U.S., but judging by some of those ridiculous price they're shafting people with on eBay, you might actually SAVE a little bit.
The disc has been released in Italy by DVD Storm, Region-Free, PAL (TELL me you have an all-region, NTSC/PAL player! They're everywhere and supercheap) with THREE Italian tracks (mono, DD5.1 and DTS) plus the ORIGINAL ENGLISH MONO AUDIO TRACK. The film, as you probably know, was filmed ENTIRELY in English with only sporadic dubbing to clean up the accents. Hill speaks in his actual voice, as does just about everyone else in the film. The DVD also includes Italian subtitles, presumably because even Italian viewers will realize the film wasn't recorded in their language when they select one of the
The picture is ANAMORPHIC 1.85:1 and looks absolutely phenomenal.
This was the first movie I went to see when I was finally allowed to go to the movies by myself, and as such it holds a special place in my memory. There was no way I was gonna settle for that JUNK they're selling on EBAY. That JEF Films edition is an outright travesty according to so many sources. A friend of mine, poor sucker, bought a copy and showed it to me when he realized what garbage it was. Clearly it was a transfer from an old video tape! And people actually think that crap is legit?
But not this Italian disc, no sir! To date, this is the ONLY DVD in the ENTIRE world to feature the film in its original aspect ratio. Even the U.K. edition available on Amazon.co.uk as part of the Terence Hill-Bud Spencer Collection, you know, the one with the video captures masquerading as sleeve art (!), are full-screen transfers sourced from aged materials, likely dupe prints. The Italian DVD looks like it was sourced from a beautiful camera negative. It also includes the original Italian trailer PLUS interviews with Sergio Corbucci's wife Nori and actor Sal Borgese (who plays henchman Paradise in the film). Both of these are unsubtitled, however.
One things for certain, when you get this baby, you'll definitely want to switch over to Italian DTS to listen to that freakin' AWESOME theme song during the opening credits.
So here's how to find it:
Go here:
www.ebay.it
and type in this (do NOT type "DVD" with it):
Poliziotto superpiù
From the listings that come up, select ONLY the ones with Terence Hill sitting on the rainbow against the blue sky background with the Italian logo in red!
Obviously, this is an Italian eBay site, written in Italian, but many of the sellers ship worldwide! If you're not sure about something written in their auctions, type "Google Translator" into your search engine, cut and paste the text in question, and select "Italian to English" from the pulldown menu. Worked for me! I live in Canada and my disc took about a week and a half to get here for around $17 total! And boy, was it WORTH it.
One of my all time Holy Grails of Cinema has now been scratched off the list!
You can also find the disc at these Italian DVD retailers, but I'm not sure if they ship overseas.
www.unilibro.it/find_buy/dvd/dvd_storm/poliziotto_superpiu_.asp?sku=12067392
www.dvd.it/page/dett/arti/230958/nv/DVD/poliziotto_superpiu'.html
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