The Fast and the Furious (Superbit) (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Dolby Digital Trailer-City
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	102:29
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Rob Cohen
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Vin Diesel Paul Walker Jordana Brewster Michelle Rodriguez Rick Yune Chad Lindberg Johnny Strong att Schulze
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Brian Tyler Ja Rule Irv Gotti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Hindi English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Fast and The Furious is one of those films I really enjoyed. I know it has a fairly lightweight plot, I know it is not going to change the way I look at the world...but call me crazy I enjoy the foot-to-the-floor senseless machismo of it. I bought the Region 4 Collector's Edition of this movie the day it was released, and have enjoyed it several times since. The sound was excellent and the special effects were just a treat for the eyes. Now, for my first opportunity to watch a Superbit DVD, I have the chance to see if the already excellent transfer can be improved. Well, can it? Read on!

    First of all, a brief plot synopsis for those who may not have seen this movie. The basic premise of the film is taken from a magazine article, describing the slightly shady world of illegal street racers in the USA. The larger story is very reminiscent of Point Break (a hip young undercover policeman, Keanu Reeves, is assigned to work undercover within a group of surfers and expose the perpetrators of a number of bank robberies). In this film, Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is the hip young cop assigned to infiltrate a gang of street racers, some of whom have been hijacking trucks bearing expensive consumer electrical goods. Their crimes have netted them close to six million dollars, so obviously the stakes are high.

    To provide an entry to the world of the street racers, Brian ostensibly works at The Racer's Edge a parts supply store frequented by all the main players. In the cliquey and secretive world of the racers, no one has more street-cred than Dominic Toretto (the appropriately named Vin Diesel) so if Brian is to get to the root of the crimes, he must find a way to get in his good books. After attempting to impress him in a street race (during one of the finest uses of CGI you will ever see in a movie), Brian loses his car to Toretto shortly before the police arrive to break up the illegal race. When Brian manages to help Toretto evade capture by the police, he has his "in".

    The plot unfurls as Brian falls for Dominic's sister Mia Toretto (Jordanna Brewster), crosses swords with her suitor Vince (Matt Schulze), and crosses paths with the various rival factions of the racers including the frighteningly well-armed Johnny Tran (well played by Rick Yune). Brian begins to lose sight of his reason for being there, as he allows his judgement to be clouded by his feelings for Mia and his admiration of Toretto. Following numerous dead-end leads, he must preserve his secret identity whilst determining which of the racing gangs is responsible for the hijackings. Ultimately, Brian has to extricate himself from this shady world and perform his duty as a policeman - but will he be able to?

    The film is well cast with Diesel eminently believable as the too-cool-for-school Toretto and Walker only slightly less credible as a police officer. The dialogue is occasionally rather lightweight with some cheesy lines sneaking in every so often, but overall the screenplay is undeniably exciting and truly entertaining. The special effects in this film are superb. The street racing scenes rival any car chases you have ever seen. The soundstage is simply breathtaking. If you have not seen this, rush out and get it now - it is a superb popcorn movie.

Video

    The overall video transfer of this disc is almost perfect and is certainly of reference quality.

    The film is presented 16x9 enhanced at 2.35:1, which is very close to the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.39:1.

    Sharpness is supremely good throughout, with razor sharp images omnipresent. There are a couple of instances of very minor grain, usually against very bright sky backdrops. These do not distract significantly from the masterful transfer however. Colours are excellent throughout with the fluorescent greens and oranges of some cars so vibrant you can taste them. While the colours are very fully saturated there is never even a hint of colour bleeding. Skin tones appear very natural although there is sometimes the tiniest hint of an orange hue but, given the warm California setting, this may be more due to sun-tans than video defects. Blacks are coal-mine deep and rock solid with absolutely no low-level noise. Shadow detail is essentially perfect throughout.

    I noticed absolutely no MPEG artefacts. Edge enhancement is not noticeable (although a couple of instances of backlighting made me double-check to be sure) which is something of a miracle given the razor sharp image. I could not spot a single instance of aliasing which, given the large amounts of chrome and endless car radiator grilles, is damned impressive. There is no sign of telecine wobble, even during the title sequences.

    Film artefacts are virtually absent. There were one or two miniscule white flecks, but you really have to concentrate hard to even spot them.

    There are four subtitle tracks available. I sampled both of the English versions (one for the Hearing Impaired) and found them to be well timed and generally true to the on screen dialogue, albeit with the occasional dropped word for the sake of brevity.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc, but I did not notice the layer change. The Collector's Edition had a fairly disruptive layer change at 74:46 but that is certainly not present here.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The overall audio quality of this disc is outstanding - it is amongst the finest I have ever heard. This is a reference quality audio track, perfectly designed for demonstrating why you spent all that money on your surround sound system.

    There are two audio tracks available. The first is a dts 5.1 track encoded at 768 kbps and the second is a Dolby Digital 5.1 track encoded at 448 kbps. I listened to both tracks in full and came to a difficult conclusion. Both of these tracks are flawless, but I felt the dts track had the edge in terms of overall impact with the bass slightly deeper and the meshing together of the overall sounds just that bit more integrated.

    Dialogue was crystal clear, and audio synch was virtually perfect, although there is a hint of trouble at 12:05 and 14:05 when Ja Rule speaks - these may simply be due to his particular (limited) facial mannerisms.

    The original music is minimal with some strings cutting in every now and again. The main music is courtesy of the scream of tyres, the sweet revving of engines, and the whine of turbo chargers. The well-chosen and frequent bass-boosted pop music songs add immensely to the adrenaline-charged ambience of the movie without ever threatening to overpower either the dialogue or the sound effects. It is a very, very well engineered soundtrack.

    The soundstage is the single most enveloping I have ever heard. There is hardly a moment when all speakers are not in use. The front-to-rear panning, rear panning, front speaker separation and localised sound effects are astounding. This is a veritable assault on your senses and really makes your head spin. Outstanding stuff!

    The subwoofer is used constantly to carry the bass beat from the rocking soundtrack, but as importantly to provide some truly gut-wrenching LFE effects for the engines, shotgun blasts, explosions and crashes. If this track doesn't turn your subwoofer on, it's dead.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are absolutely no extras on the disc, as would be expected for a Superbit release.

Menu

    The silent menu consists allows the selection of playing the movie, audio set-up, subtitle selection or choosing one of twenty chapter stops. That's all folks!

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    As far as I can determine, the Superbit version of this movie is not available in Region 1. The Region 2 version is slated for release on July 9th, 2003.

    The Fast and The Furious is a hugely entertaining film if you can dig the subject material. The plot is not completely original but is very respectable and the characters are generally quite believable. This movie is one to have in your collection for demonstration purposes at the very least.

    However, and here's the rub, the original Region 4 Collector's Edition had near perfect audio and video transfers, plus a heap of extras (see the review on this site). Will you pay more for "less"? Is it better on Superbit than the previous Region 4 Collectors' Edition? The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio surely is - it is fuller and clearer than the Collector's Edition version. I could not detect a significant difference between the two dts tracks however. The Superbit video quality is superb - but to be honest, the improvements over the previous version are small. It already had an extremely good video transfer - if anything there seemed to be slightly less edge enhancement and perhaps some richer colour saturation. If I could only own one version, I would take the Superbit - the Collector's Edition extras, for me, held no replay value.

    The Superbit version of The Fast And The Furious is essentially flawless, make no mistake. If you do not already own the movie, then this would (only just) be my preferred version. If you do already own the Collector's Edition, and have the ability to decode dts audio, then I cannot see a significant reason to purchase the Superbit disc.

    The video quality is of reference standard. It is sharp and clear, with beautifully rendered colours and no flaws.

    The audio quality is of reference standard and will ensure that every single speaker gets a workout they will never forget. This is a breathtaking soundtrack.

    There are (of course) no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall