The Bourne Identity (1988) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Mystery	Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	187:52
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (92:35)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4	Directed By	Roger Young
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Richard Chamberlain Jaclyn Smith Anthony Quayle Donald Moffat Yorgo Voyagis Peter Vaughan Denholm Elliot Bruce Boa James Faulkner James Laurenson Philip Madoc Jacqueline Pearce Shane Rimmer
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Laurence Rosenthal

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Spanish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    No, this is not the recent film adaptation starring Matt Damon and Franka Potente (which I really enjoyed) but a much earlier TV mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain (Shogun) and Jaclyn Smith (Charlie's Angels).

    Those of you who have only watched the 2002 version and have not read the original novel may be surprised to find out that this version is a lot more faithful to the book by Robert Ludlum. The man known as Jason Bourne (Richard Chamberlain) in this version is older, more fragile, more vulnerable, less confident and above all more believable than the deadly efficient killing machine Matt Damon portrays him to be in the more recent film.

    A man (Richard Chamberlain) is shot on board a ship and goes overboard. Later, he is washed ashore, near death, and is brought back to health by a local doctor, Geoffrey Washburn (Denholm Elliott). He has lost most of his memories and can't even remember his own name. However, his face shows signs of being altered by cosmetic surgery, a Swiss bank account number is encoded on a microfilm embedded in his hip, and there seems to be evidence that he may be linked to a dangerous terrorist called Carlos.

    One thing is certain: he is very well known in certain circles. And they are all intent on killing him by all means necessary. As he fights to discover who he really is and avoid being killed in the process, the pieces of half forgotten memory fragments in his brain start to fit together ... or do they?

    The plot retains some of the detail and plot twists from the novel, such as flashbacks to Bourne's earlier life in Asia, more detail on his background, Treadstone 71, and Carlos the Jackal (the nickname of a real life master terrorist - Ilich Ramirez Sanchez - who was finally captured and imprisoned in the mid 1990s). Jaclyn Smith is well cast as Marie St. Jacques, a Canadian economist who gets caught up in Bourne's fight to avoid being killed by his pursuers.

Video

    Given that this was originally intended for TV broadcast, I am surprised to find a widescreen 1.78:1 transfer, 16x9 enhanced. It is also an NTSC transfer, although there is no indication of this on the DVD cover.

    The film source appears to be a fairly clean 35mm print. I have no idea what the intended aspect ratio is, but the framing seems reasonable, albeit perhaps a bit tight on the top and bottom on occasion.

    The quality of the transfer is good, with virtually no artefacts present. Detail levels are very good. The opening titles (black with a white silhouette) come across very well (in deep black and fully saturated white), however colours in general are just slightly faded.

    There is some grain present in the film source, but the print is fortunately relatively dirt and scratch free. I did not notice any compression artefacts apart from minor Gibbs effect ringing during the opening titles. Edge enhancement is very minimal and hardly noticeable.

    There is some minor telecine wobble in the opening and closing credits.

    English, French, and Spanish subtitles are available. In addition, NTSC closed captions are also present. I turned on both closed captions and the English subtitle track. The dialogue transcription appears to be more accurate for the closed captions, and in addition non-dialogue hearing impaired cues are also displayed with the closed captions.

    This is a single sided dual layered disc (RSDL). The layer change occurs between Chapters 26 and 27 at 92:35. This is in between Parts 1 and 2 and hence should be unnoticeable on most players.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio tracks present: English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround encoded (192Kb/s), and French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s).

    I was surprised to discover a surround encoded English audio track. What's more, engaging Dolby Pro Logic II decoding yielded quite a lot of surround activity, such as background music ambience and atmospheric Foley effects.

    I also noticed quite a few instances of panning of Foley effects across the front speakers (mainly car and train noises), so obviously some care has been taken by the sound engineer, which is unusual for a TV mini series. I did not notice any front to back pans.

    Dialogue was clear throughout the film and there were no issues with audio synchronization.

    The original music score is by Laurence Rosenthal. It is standard orchestral thriller fare and sounds quite clichéd.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Given that the main feature is over three hours in duration, I was not surprised to discover that extras are very minimal.

Menu

    The menus are 16x9 enhanced and static.

Filmographies-Cast & Crew

    This is a set of stills featuring filmographies for the following cast and crew:

• Richard Chamberlain ("Jason Bourne")
• Jaclyn Smith (Marie St. Jacques)
• Carol Sobieski (teleplay)
• Roger Young (director)

    R1 review websites only cite "cast and crew listing" as the only extra instead of filmographies, but I suspect the R1 and R4 releases in fact have identical content.

    This 3 hour TV adaptation of Robert Ludlum's novel is more faithful to the book than the 2002 film version.

    The video transfer quality is good.

    The audio transfer quality is average.

    The only extra is cast and crew filmographies.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall