By the Gods!

Steve Reeves, Sylva Koscina and Gabriele Antonini in HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959)

Tuesday, I wrote a quick review of the Japanese Blu-ray of HERCULES (1958). Even with its peculiarities, I'm glad I bought it. It's cool to see that film in such a high resolution. Unfortunately, the same thing can't be said with the Blu-ray of HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959). It's a poor transfer. Not only is it too dark and cropped but blotchy and blurry. I enjoyed watching the movie regardless but it doesn't even come close to being the ideal HD transfer.

Just to give you an idea of the cropping, below is a screen grab of the (heavily cut) German DVD. It's the opposite of the Japanese one: the image is too bright (Sylva's dress looks radioactive) but there's no cropping going on. The widescreen image is seemingly intact. There's so much more information on all sides.

Notice how cropped the Japanese Blu-ray is compared to the German copy below. They really zoomed in on the image. I can only imagine how great this shot looked like on the big screen, and how it will look like once it gets a proper HD transfer.