Blind Fury

Blind Fury (1989), directed by Phillip Noyce, Kino Lorber remaster, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including original theatrical stereo, commentary track, and English subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096945/

Video encoded in two-pass 12.0 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. Audio encoded separately with Apple AAC for the highest-quality AAC sound available. Subtitles converted to SRT.

Note : Rutger Hauer is an actor who pops up a lot when you're into genre cinema from the last decades of the last millennium, but here, playing a blind, sword-wielding vigilante Vietnam vet (this is a loose Zaitoichi remake, after all), he's supported by an almost equally iconic cast, including Terry O'Quinn, Lisa Blount, Randall "Tex" Cobb, and Meg Foster, and they're all directed by Australian action-thriller specialist Phillip Noyce, who I'm almost surprised hasn't come up until now. It's max 80s action comedy romp, with one-liners, hilariously severed limbs, uzis and shotguns, cowboy hatted, cigar chomping villains, and an adorable kid in tow. Hauer kind of steals the show, though, he's rarely been as charismatic as he is here, and he shows a real talent for comic timing. There's also a small appearance from ninja film legend Shō Kosugi.

Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar in Vietnam, and rescued by local villagers who taught him to master his other senses, and also be very good with a sword for some reason. Now, he's back in the US, and decides to drop in on Frank, an old friend from the army, but Frank is missing, and soon after a group of thugs and corrupt police officers show up to kidnap Frank's son Billy from his mother's house. Nick fights them off, but Billy's mother is killed, and our blind hero has to babysit the kid and get him to Reno, Nevada to find Frank. In their way are a number of broadly stereotyped redneck villains who are quickly separated from various body parts and earthly existences at the edge of Nick's sword, but finding Frank is only half the job, when it turns out Frank's boss is an evil drug lord with a thirst for revenge.

This remaster is pretty good, not overly sharp or detailed, and with somewhat prominent grain, but color and contrast are nice, and it's pretty clean, although it's 16:9 full frame. Stereo track sounds good, commentary track with the screenwriter is fine.

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