Blind Fury (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	82:55
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Phillip Noyce
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Rutger Hauer Terry O'Quinn Brandon Call Noble Willingham Lisa Blount Nick Cassavetes Rick Overton Randall 'Tex' Cobb Charles Cooper Meg Foster Shô Kosugi Paul James Vasquez Julia González
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	J. Peter Robinson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Danish Finnish Greek Hindi Hungarian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Swedish Turkish French Titling German Titling Italian Titling Spanish Titling Hungarian Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

The fictional character of Zatôichi is a wandering blind masseur and a prolific swordsman, originally portrayed by Shintaro Katsu who appeared in no less than twenty-six films. Recently Takeshi Kitano portrayed the character in Zatôichi (2003) which he also wrote and directed.

Blind Fury (1989), directed by Phillip Noyce, is the American interpretation of the Japanese character. The film is a predominately faithful adaptation of the character’s adventures in Zatoichi chikemuri kaido (Zatoichi Challenged) (1967) and Zatoichi tekka tabi (Zatoichi's Cane-sword) (1967).

The Zatôichi films and television series are set in the Edo period (1600-1867). For the American interpretation the character has been updated to suit a contemporary American setting:

Nick Parker (Rutger Hauer) is a Vietnam Vet who is left blind after a helicopter crash. Stranded, Parker is rescued by local villagers. The villagers are skilled in the art of the katana and teach Parker who willingly learns and becomes a highly skilled swordsman despite his blindness.

20 years later Parker is wandering down a road in search of his old war friend Frank Deveraux (Terry O'Quinn). Parker visits Deveraux’s former residence and speaks with Deveraux’s former wife Lynn (Meg Foster) and learns Frank is in debt and is living in Vegas. He also learns Frank has a young son named Billy (Brandon Call). Unfortunately Lynn is killed in a botched kidnap attempt and Parker is forced to look after Billy and find and help his friend Frank. As Parker treks across America with Billy he comes up against various characters who challenge him.

Noyce handles the action scenes well; they are rather comical and stylish. The filmmakers also left a number of Zatôichi character traits in the character of Nick Parker, such as his self-depreciating sense of humour and enthusiasm for gambling.

Blind Fury is good entertainment and shares the same warmth of its inspiration as Parker is concerned with protecting the innocent against the oppressive. This film is recommended to fans of Rutger Hauer and fans of the action genre.

Video

The video quality is decent.

The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

There are slight grain and film artefacts on the print but overall the picture is satisfactory, with the transfer being encoded at an average bitrate of 4.21 Mb/s.

The colour is bright and flesh tones are fairly well produced.

The subtitles are clear and true to the on-screen dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

The English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) soundtrack is also decent with no major flaws. There are no problems with audio synchronisation.

J. Peter Robinson's musical score is quite light and well suited to the on-screen action.

The surround channel and subwoofer usage is subtle and the majority of this soundtrack is spread across the front soundstage rather than being all-encompassing.

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Audio Ratings Summary

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

There are no extra features.

The R1 version has the following technical specifications:

• 1.85:1 Anamorphic NTSC
• English 2.0 Surround, Spanish 2.0 Surround and Portuguese 2.0 Surround
• Subtitles include English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai

Blind Fury is also available as part of a double feature disc with Omega Doom.

Extras included on this release include:

• Rutger Hauer Talent File
• Bonus Trailers: - Arctic Blue, Omega Doom, Blind Fury

A good action adventure film offered as a standard bare-bones DVD.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall