PS3's Stranglehold coming with Woo's Hard Boiled in HD
by Kevin Kelly 
{ May 17th 2007 at 3:01AM }
Midway had to work out a special deal with the Weinstein's Dragon Dynasty imprint, which owns the rights to John Woo's Chinese-language films. They'll be releasing a new special edition of Hard Boiled sometime later this year under that banner, so this may be the only way you can see the movie in HD for some time.
Mind you, the fancy version of Stranglehold will cost you $10 on top of your standard "next-gen" fee, resulting in a steep $70 price tag. No word on special features, or if the disc will play in regular Blu-ray players ... but we'll take our game with a shot of Inspector Tequila. Thank you very much.
Gallery: Stranglehold (PS3)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ill trooper @ May 17th 2007 3:29AM
Hard Boiled's "baby rap" in HD...
Jon @ May 17th 2007 3:45AM
An extra $10 isn't steep for an out of print classic. And one that is in HD.
W3sk3r @ May 17th 2007 5:19AM
That means :
Genius #1: "There's SO SO SO SO SO MUCH unused and wasted space on this blu-ray disc, we've got to fill it some way or we'll get b*tchslapped by users, fanboys, magazines etc."
Genius #2: "Hey! I know! I know! Why don't we put in an oooooooold film in 'new and exciting HD' and call it an EXTRA?"
Genius #1: "Dude, you're genius"
Come on... a WHOLE HD Movie inside a GAME disc? Yeah, now repeat with me: "Blu-ray is the future of gaming, if we don't have space to fit all the HD Awesomeness, we can't make good games!"
dontlikeitmodit @ May 17th 2007 7:35AM
@3 One of those dual layer disks can hold 6 complete DVDs. Even if its a single layer its holding 3 complete DVDs.
Keep knocking the benefits of Blu-ray, it only makes you look the fool because in 2 years you'll wish you had an HD experience in your home.
Phranctoast @ May 17th 2007 9:15AM
@3.
Theres also no word that this is all on one disc. I read this in several places and it neither mentions a second dic or fitting it all on one. Most likely the special edition will be 2 blu ray discs.
venk @ May 17th 2007 9:37AM
That clinches it for me. I'm getting the PS3 version over the 360 version. :)
the real steve @ May 17th 2007 9:41AM
Phranctoast,
if it needed two blurays, one for the game and one for the movie, the 360 version would be on atleast 3 dvd9s.
Which brings me to my second point,
W3sk3r,
bluray is stupid. It made the ps3 too expensive and it is not needed unless the game is going to be packed with prerendered hi-def videos.
polly @ May 17th 2007 9:47AM
This and Resistance's uncompressed audio is how Sony proves blu-ray is necessary for gaming.
Action Hank @ May 18th 2007 3:01AM
Odd, given that the Weinstein company is an exlcusive supporter of HD DVD...
You woudln't have thought they'd be willing to release a film on Blu Ray, whether on the same disc as a game or otherwise.
Andrew @ May 17th 2007 10:31AM
So is this an actual Blu-Ray movie you can play in a Blu-ray player or is it a PS3 game disc thus making it only playable on PS3s? Since Weinstein are exclusively HD DVD it wouldn't surprise me if the deal they made with Midway was for the latter.
Theta @ May 17th 2007 10:31AM
Very nice bonus. Although, it does speak volumes about how necessary Blu-ray is, as others have mentioned.
Cole @ May 17th 2007 11:41AM
I love the "Hot Fuzz" reference. Best film of 2007!
joe smith @ May 17th 2007 3:58PM
So they have finally found a use for all that extra (slow) storage... old movies. Wow, glad I paid all that extra cash to get the BluRay drive -- it really is making my gaming life 4D.
Brutus @ May 17th 2007 12:29PM
Gamespot UK says it will be on ONE disc. Too bad, this sucks for people who just want the movie and would otherwise sell the game.
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6170876.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews%3Btitle%3B1
Digi Smalls @ May 17th 2007 1:12PM
damn, talk about FMV.
this is one FMV i'd actually like to watch though.
blu-ray is 4 gamez!
.
Levi @ May 17th 2007 1:39PM
Cole
What was the Hot Fuzz reference? All I saw were Hard Boiled references.
Harlo @ May 17th 2007 1:51PM
Is it true that there's a point on a man's head where if you shoot it, it will blow up?
W3sk3r @ May 17th 2007 2:39PM
Kk, a couple of things
@4: See, i'm not judging Blu-ray as a Movie or media support, i'm judging it as a GAME optical support. No doubt everybody will use a BRD or a HDDVD for HD movies in a couple of years, but i don't even have a full HD equipment right now, it's TOO EXPENSIVE.
@7: I don't really think Blu-ray is stupid, but it's not justifiable as a game support. All that "oh look! mah game fits in 25 Gigs! it's bettah!" is just BS. Real-time cutscenes are the answer. With the real power of these 'next-gen' machine is plain absurd they are still doing scenes on FMV... but japan rules, and they luv some CG.
@14. "14. damn, talk about FMV.
this is one FMV i'd actually like to watch though.
blu-ray is 4 gamez!" --> THAT's what i mean.
Roflgoat @ May 17th 2007 5:00PM
The Hot Fuzz reference was the "firing-two-guns-whislt-jumping-through-the-air" line. I loved that movie. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost FTW.
You better not have gotten that just from the trailer.
alienclay @ May 24th 2007 3:25PM
even if a game is 11gb you've made a game bigger than one dvd9 and you didn't have to spend tons of time compressing data or cutting content to make it fit. imagine how bad ass gears would have been with the space to make the game longer than a short summer action movie.
with a 50gb BD you can hold up to 9 hours of high def content @1080p. with that much space you can make a game at 21 gb that would require 3 dvd's and still have space for a 2-3 hour movie on it.
something that even a 30GB HDDVD would struggle to match (had the 360 made the drive standard) given the challange.
it dosent take much to take advantage of BD over dvd and it seems the skys the limit to those who chose to use it fully.
alienclay @ May 24th 2007 3:35PM
and has anyone put forth the thought that if it wern't for the fact the 360 only has dvd that more multiplatform games made for ps3 would use more space for game content on blu-ray? GTA4 confirmed this.
i don't blame multiplatform devs for working lowest common denominator of preformance between the two consoles. maybe being mad at sony isn't the problem, maybe being mad at M$ for not including HDDVD (or hard drive) standard is.