Region 4 Winners and Losers

    The R4 version of this DVD misses out on:

• 2.0 Surround English audio track
• Audio Commentary by writer Sheldon Lettich
• Commentary by Douglas Porch, noted author of `The French Foreign Legion'
• Interviews with cast and crew
• Rare Footage of legionnaires in action
• Trivia Games
• Archive Photos of real Legionnaires
• featurette on real weapons used by the Legion
• DVD ROM screenplay access and internet connection
• a correctly framed 2:35:1 transfer (non-anamorphic)

    The R1 version of this DVD misses out on:

• an anamorphic transfer at 1:78:1
• 5.1 Dolby Digital Mix

    Now here is the dilemma. The R1 version of this film is framed at 2:35:1, but has a pretty ordinary transfer with lots of aliasing and halation problems, plus instances of noise interference. Importantly, it is also not anamorphic. The R4 has a superb transfer framed incorrectly. I did a direct comparison and came to the conclusion that our version is better simply because the print was outstanding and the missing information captured at 2:35:1 did not add that much to the overall film.

    The clear choice on paper would be the R1 version for the abundance of extras and for being in the correct aspect ratio, however I prefer our transfer. To each their own.