Import Week 2025, Day 2: The Painted Veil

Today for Import Week, we turn our attentions to Germany.  And as promised, it's a title that's DVD-only here in the US, so if you want this film at all in HD, you have to import it.  I'm talking about Der Bunte Schleier, better known as 2006's The Painted Veil.

The Painted Veil is, of course, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel of the same name.  This is actually the third time it's been brought to the silver screen, after 1957's The Seventh Sin starring George Sanders, and probably the most famous Painted Veil, the 1937 version starring Greta Garbo.  Both of those films took a bunch of liberties though, especially The Seventh Sin, which changes the period, setting and everything; while the '37 totally cops out on the novel's poignant ending.  So this latest adaptation is the go-to choice for a vibrant, fleshed-out telling of the original story.

It's also the only one not studio bound, shot on exotic - both beautiful and disturbing - location rather than flat Hollywood sets.  With its fluid camera and naturalistic performances, this is the first to marry some reality to the author's vision.  When a young London doctor finds his high society wife cheating on him, he decides to drag her along with him into an expedition into a small Chinese village suffering from a deadly Cholera epidemic, out of spite.  So if you're expecting your usual breathy period melodrama, be prepared for how bleak and hard this story goes.  They definitely do not dial down the cruelty and smallness that run through Ed Norton's character like most movies would.  Besides him and Naomi Watts, who you see on the cover there, this stars Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones and The Avengers' Diana Rigg, all of whom are bringing their A game to this project.  Also, fun fact: Sally Hawkins (Bring Her Back, The Shape of Water) appears in the closing credits, but not the film itself.  She must've gotten cut.  If we ever do get a US blu-ray release of this film, let's hope it includes deleted scenes.

But I'm not holding my breath.  So until such a time, let's look at the options we actually do have.  Warner Bros released this as a barebones new release DVD in 2007 and... that's the whole story, at least here in the US.  But Germany came to the rescue in 2009 with a proper blu-ray release from Ascot Elite Home Entertainment.  It even has a little something by way of special features.

2007 US Warner Bros DVD top; 2009 DE Ascot Elite BD bottom.

2007 US Warner Bros DVD left; 2009 DE Ascot Elite BD right.

Warner presents The Painted Veil in 2.39:1, which Ascot tweaks to 2.41:1.  There's no extra picture either way; the image is just a pinch wider on the BD.  Honestly, I'm not sure which is correct, and wouldn't be surprised if the ideal is actually 2.40:1.  And unsurprisingly, this appears to be the same master used for both transfers.  The color timing, framing, contrast levels etc are all identical.  But the jump from SD to HD alone counts for a lot of clarity, as you can see in our 600% close-ups above.  It's like removing a sheet of wax paper off the picture to see the clear image underneath.  Of course, the difference is a lot more subtle when you're not zoomed in, but it's still enough to notice on a good sized set.  Obviously, a fresh scan would be ideal; we really don't see any film grain on either disc.  But the Ascot is still a worthwhile upgrade.

Another benefit of the blu, naturally is the lossless audio.  Warner Bros and Ascot Elite share the same 5.1 mix, but it's in DTS-HD on the blu.  The blu also includes a 5.1 German dub in DTS-HD, which is pretty immaterial, but it does lead to its one shortcoming.  The DVD includes optional English subtitles, as well as Spanish and French.  But the BD only has German subs.  Fortunately, the film does have burnt-in English subtitles for the rare bits of Chinese dialogue on both discs.

And did I mention extras?  Yes, Warner Bros has nothing but the trailer and some bonus trailers.  Ascot also has the trailer, albeit dubbed into German, and some bonus trailers.  But it also has a collection of cast and crew interviews. The four leads and the director all provide your typical EPK Q&As on location, and then there's another brief chat with Norton and Watts together at a press junket.  It's all brief, somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes total; but it's a lot nicer to have than nothing.  But that's it, though.  Ascot's release also comes with reversible artwork so you can hide the big, mandated ratings logo, which is appreciated.

So there you have it: a maybe not spectacular, but still essential foreign release of an under-appreciated American film.  Settle in for several more of those as Import Week continues...

Import Week 2025, Day 1: Return To Seoul

Okay, gang, it's time for a new "Week:" Update Week 2025!  For starters, as you can see, we've got 2022's Return To Seoul, where the import blu is superior to the domestic release.  Every Day hereafter will go another step even further: each release is DVD-only here in the states, and only available on blu via import.  Of course, as always, this is written from my local US-centric point of view in regards to what constitutes an "import."  Depending on where you live, dear reader, you may instead be learning some ways you're better off than your American compatriots.  Either way, you're going to be looking at some lesser known, yet higher quality, releases of some great films, so let's get started.

Return To Seoul is the second, but really the international break-out, feature by Korean writer/ director Davy Chou.  Park Ji-min is a French citizen whose holiday gets diverted to her birth country of Korea, where she gets unexpectedly gets put on the path to finding the parents who put her up for adoption/ emigration as a baby.  What's great about this film, besides its luscious photography and incredible lead performance, is how militantly unsentimental it is.  This is the polar opposite of some sappy, Hallmark family drama, and the plot goes in some directions I can guarantee you won't predict unless you've had it spoiled for you.  Is it dark?  Yeah, but more to the point, it just stubbornly refuses to replace honesty with your typical Hollywood romanticism.  This is the rare movie with an ending that hits because it cut no emotional corners along the way.

So Sony Pictures Classics released this on DVD and blu in 2023.  I've just got the DVD for us today, because it was barebones and so undesirable.  I mean, I would've gotten the BD if that was all there was, but in the UK, Mubi released it just a couple months later as a nice, little special edition.  There's also a French 2-disc set, which looks enticing as it also includes Chou's debut, 2016's Diamond Island, but neither blu is English-friendly at all, so that's off the table.  But Mubi's in the UK, so it's perfectly English, right down to the packaging (I don't know why, but I see some people online get really hung up on that).

2023 US Sony DVD top; 2023 UK Mubi BD bottom.

This is a new release, so it was safe to expect the same DCP to be used as a master on every release of this, as we can see is the case between Sony and Mubi.  It was also shot digitally, so there's no questions of film scanning or grain hunting.  But you can definitely see the quality jump between SD and HD.  First of all, Sony is slightly horizontally pinched to 1.83:1, while Mubi has the exactly correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  But more critically is just the jump in resolution.  Chou's imagery is full of fine detail, which gets soft and distilled on the DVD.  Furthermore, the many underlit club and night scenes get hazy, where it's harder to discern facial expressions on the Sony.  So it's really worth spending that little bit extra for a blu.

Of course, it helps that both blus have the original 5.1 audio in DTS-HD.  The DVD is obviously lossy.  Mubi also throws in a 2.0 mix, also in DTS-HD.  Both discs include optional English subtitles, parsed out into three separate versions on the Mubi: full, HoH and only for the non-English dialogue.   Sony drops the third, but throws in French and Spanish subtitles for international viewers.  So all in all, I'd say that makes the Mubi slightly preferable for English-language viewers.

Cambodia 2099

But of course where it really shines is in the extras.  All Sony has is the trailer, and a collection of bonus trailers.  Though, to be fair, the trailer is curiously absent from the UK release.  But that's hardly competitive to what Mubi's got, starting with an on-camera interview with Chou.  He speaks in English, though there are still optional English subtitles as well.  Then there's his 2014 short film, Cambodia 2099.  Presented in 1.86:1 HD with removable subs, it's not as powerful a work as Return, but it's still rather good.  Finally, there's a behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsal for Ji-min's famous dance scene.  Interestingly, here her friends are also dancing, which they do not do in the final film.  Mubi also springs for the fancier packaging, including six art cards and a slipcover.

So sure, if you just want to watch the film, the US release will do just as well.  But fans who care will definitely want to spring for the Mubi. And if you're thinking of getting any of these international releases this Import Week, I'll just throw in a gentle reminder that you might want to do so before our president locks us ever deeper into our tariffed off fortress nation.

Anora

Today we have Criterion's release of Sean Baker's biggest film yet, Anora.  And by biggest, I guess I mean mostly in terms of accolades.  It just won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Actress, Editing and Original Screenplay, plus a nomination for Supporting Actor.  And that's not getting into the Palme d'Or, its many BAFTAs and all its other prizes.  Compare that to his previous pinnacle, The Florida Project, which just got the one nomination for Dafoe.  Criterion's already been working with Baker, though.  They released his early film, Take Out, in 2022, and one of his more obscure films, Prince of Broadway, is scheduled for next week.  Maybe next year we can look forward to a Greg the Bunny boxed set.  Anyway, Anora.  It's just come out this month and is available in a 2-disc DVD set, a 2-disc BD set and a 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.

Anora, starring Mikey Madison (Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Scream 5) and Karren Karagulian (who's been in all of Baker's films), feels a bit like the perfection of themes Baker's been developing throughout his earlier work.  I mean, this is what, his fifth film about sex workers in a row?  And he's announced that his next will be, too.  This man is definitely settling into a groove.  Anora's living conditions with her sister and her boyfriend feel like a reprise of Starlet, and her desperate search for her husband Vonya throughout Coney Island plays almost like a remake of Sin-Dee's search for Chester throughout Hollywood in Tangerine.  But what the hell, we don't get mad at Dario Argento for making more and more giallos about black gloved killers.  And Baker is definitely in his Tenebrae period now, not his Card Player, so settle in and enjoy.

2025 Criterion BD top; 2025 Criterion UHD bottom.

2025 Criterion BD left; 2025 Criterion UHD right.

Anora is presented in its OAR of 2.39:1.  There's nothing about the transfer in the enclosed booklet.  This film was shot on 35mm, but as a brand new release, I'm sure Criterion was just given the same DCP Neon's been screening; they wouldn't have done any film scanning or restoration on their own.  There's a definite jump in PQ from the BD to the UHD, though, just from the resolution bump alone.  We can just about read that "11 23" window tag on either disc, but it's a pixelated mess on the BD compared to the smooth photo-realism of the UHD.  And the HDR breathes a little m ore life into this film's many shadows, though the club and neon sign colors are attractively vibrant on either disc.  Really, you can't go wrong, but the UHD does go that extra mile, and then even a little bit more.

Both discs also have the 5.1 audio track in DTS-HD with optional English subtitles.  In addition, there's an audio descriptive track in Dolby 2.0.

The extras package is really nice here.  Some Criterions have been getting rather light in recent years, but they're pulling out all the stops for Anora.  First off, there are two lively audio commentaries.  The first is Baker with his DP and producers, where they're having fun but still staying relatively focused and giving out a lot of behind the scenes information.  It does veer towards the technical at times, especially when the DP starts talking about the lighting, but personally I dug it.  Then Baker is back on the second track with his stars, Madison and Karagulian.  In addition, three of the Russian supporting players have comments edited into the track during their key scenes.  It's a good track, too, but Baker wastes a lot of time repeating himself (i.e. he points out every cameo from his earlier films in both audio commentaries, makes the same observations about the locations, etc).  But they're ample enough that I'd recommend both.

That repetition does leak into some of the other extras, too.  We've got an on-camera interview with Baker, a joint interview with him and Madison and a press conference with many of the cast and crew at Cannes.  Then there's another press conference specifically for sex workers with Madison and co-star Lindsay Normington, which is a bit silly.  For instance when Normington first brings up the term a big graphic comes up giving the dictionary definition of "sex worker," as if anybody on Earth would have made it to the special features blu-ray of Anora without knowing what it meant (and it's completely self-explanatory in the first place).  And anecdotes are getting repeated throughout all of these features, so viewers may prefer to skip around rather than watch everything all the way through.

One thing you should definitely not skip, though, is the feature length 'making of' doc, comprised entirely of on-set footage that takes us through every single day of shooting.  Additionally, there are a handful of deleted scenes (two of which I think they maybe should've kept in the movie), audition footage for many of the supporting cast members, and three trailers.  Criterion's combo-pack is a digibook housed inside an outer slipbox with a 24-page booklet with essays by experts Dennis Lim and Kier-La Janisse.

Playing Play It Again, Sam Again

They say physical media is dying, but there have been a lot of exciting blu-ray upgrades in 2025.  And it may not've been high up on the list of fancy, boutique label cult titles, but one of the ones I was most excited to see announced was Play It Again, Sam, a film by... no, not Woody Allen, Herbert Ross.  It stars Woody Allen, and is written by Allen, based on his own Broadway play from 1969.  Allen plays a film critic going through a break-up when he's visited by the spirit of Humphrey Bogart who gives him romantic advice.  It's as silly as it sounds, and some of it's naturally a bit dated, but it still largely holds up as smart and funny.  Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts also reprise their roles from the Broadway version, and Messiah of Evil's Joy Bang plays a small role.

Paramount first released Play It Again on DVD back in 2001.  It was barebones, which frankly most Woody Allen DVDs have been anyway, but at least it was anamorphic widescreen.  They released it the next year in the UK, and reissued it here in the US in 2017, but apart from the British disc being PAL, it's always been the same disc.  It was fine for the time, but it's been feeling pretty creaky for the past decade.  And finally, 2025 was the year.  It was restored in 4k and released on blu in the US by Kino and Australia by Imprint.  I see a lot of people went with the Imprint because it comes with a bonus documentary, but I went Kino.  I'll get into why below.

2001 Paramount DVD top; 2025 Kino Lorber BD bottom.

To Paramount's credit, the old DVD and the new 4k restoration don't look worlds apart.  The color timing is essentially the same, except the blu has slightly deeper blacks.  The framing is very similar, too.  The aspect ratio has shifted from 1.77:1 to 1.85:1, which mostly comes down to fixing a slight pinch.  The benefit all comes in the jump to HD.  Finer edges replace the typical softness of SD, and yes, more detail comes into focus.  We can now read the title of that book on Woody's desk ("THE COLLECTOR").  The DVD also has some light haloing, which the BD fixes.  Film grain is visible for the first time and fairly distinct.  It's captured a little unevenly, something that would surely come off much better on an actual UHD.  But for a 1080, this is pleasingly film-like.

Paramount's DVD offers the original mono track in Dolby 2.0 with optional English subs and a mono French dub.  Kino keeps the subs and bumps the audio up to DTS-HD, but dumps the dub.

As I said, Paramount's DVDs were all barebones, but the blu-rays give us something.  First of all, both include their own expert audio commentaries.  I've only heard Kino's, but I can tell you it's a solid mix of informative and fun.  Critic Justin Humphreys is joined by writer/ director Alan Spencer (Sledge Hammer, Tomorrow Man).  There's some joking around but they're also prepared to break down the differences between this and the original play and well researched historical info (you'll be surprised who was originally intended to star in this... it wasn't always Woody Allen).  Kino also located the original theatrical trailer (which neither Paramount nor Imprint have) and threw on some bonus trailers.  Both blus also come in slipcovers.  But as I mentioned earlier, Imprint does have one thing Kino doesn't...

2011's Woody Allen: A Documentary was directed by Robert B. Weide, who produced the Marx Bros doc In a Nutshell (which, you may recall, is the one that features an interview with Woody Allen), this is a made for TV, three and a half hour film that originally aired on PBS in two parts.  There's also a cut-down theatrical version that lost over an hour of material, but fortunately, every home video release seems to be the full TV edit, so we can forget all about that hatchet job these days.  This is essentially a career overview, it's not especially biographical, and definitely not interested in his scandals.  They do spend a lot of time with Woody, revisiting his old neighborhood and stopping by the set of his then latest film, You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger; but this mostly consists of interviews with practically all of his collaborators over the years: Diane Keaton, Jack Rollins, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Roberts, Mariel Hemingway, Martin Scorsese, Louise Lasser and so many more.  This is the documentary we'd all hoped we were getting when Allen handed us us Wild Man Blues.

Docurama first released this in a nice, 2-disc DVD set in 2012.  It has special features and everything.  But the doc did air in HD, so us die-hards naturally wanted a blu-ray.  And fortunately, there were a couple of import options who had our backs.  I went with the UK blu from Soda Pictures because it had an additional, exclusive interview.  And now, of course, it's available as a special feature on Imprint's Play It Again blu, but the doc must be in SD, if they're squeezing all 3 and a half hours onto the same disc with the feature and the other extras.

2012 Docurama DVD top; 2012 Soda BD bottom.

There really is a strong difference between the SD and the HD.  Both discs present the film in 1.78:1, although the DVD is slightly off at 1.73:1.  Just like with Play It Again, the DVD's a little pinched.  In this case a little bit moreso.  The DVD colors are also very slightly more feint, which is especially clear in some close-up interview shots, where the subjects appear a bit paler on the DVD.  But mostly it's about the clarity.  You can really see the difference in steady HD shots like that set second above (there's also plenty of vintage footage and film clips from different sources in varying degrees of quality).  Just like you could only read the book title before, here you can clearly read the visible license plate numbers next to those girls on the blu but not the DVD.  And there's some funky compression noise on the DVD when you get in close, that just gives the whole thing a low quality sheen.

The DVDs give you an option between a 5.1 and 2.0 mix with optional English subtitles.  Soda just gives us the 5.1 (which is fine, as that's the actual original mix, and it'll just down mix on your stereo TV anyway) in lossless DTS-HD, also with optional English subs.

Docurama's set includes five deleted scenes/ featurettes ranging from an interview with Weide, 12 questions with Woody to the shortest, a 45-second clip of Allen's mother.  It's not massive, under half an hour's worth of stuff, but any Allen fan who enjoyed the doc will appreciate these.  And these core extras are featured on just about every Woody Allen: A Documentary release, including Soda's and even Imprint's Play It Again blu.

But Soda goes further, with two additional featurettes.  The first is called Woody's Favourite Actor, an interview between Weide and John Doumanian, the actor who's actually been in more of Allen's films (sixteen!) than anyone else.  And the other is a a 16-minute pre-screening Q&A with Weide.  It covers a lot of the same ground as the first director's interview, but hey, I'll take it.  Obviously the Doumanian interview is the bigger prize.  And you won't find either of these on the Docurama set or the Imprint disc.  Soda's blu also includes a bonus trailer for Eames: The Architect and the Painter.

So Imprint's doc is a nice bonus for many viewers, but if you're serious about it, you need the Soda blu anyway.  And at that point, you might as well get whichever Play It Again blu is easier to obtain in your region.  I suppose, if you're really hardcore, you might even want both for the two commentaries.  But they're just experts and presumably cover most of the same ground.  So I'd recommend the Kino/ Soda route, it's how I went myself, but if you're just mildly interested in the doc, I'm sure you'll be more than satisfied with the Imprint and saving the extra cash.

We Watched... We Waited... Now Our Time Has Come. Lifeforce, the Director's Cut in 4k!

Lifeforce has a hell of a pedigree.  It's a script by Dan O'Bannon, adapting Colin Wilson's novel Space Vampires, directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.  For Cannon, this was their entry into blockbuster budgeted special effects epics meant to compete with the likes of Star Wars and Krull.  For Hooper, this was his homage to Hammer; the kind of film they'd be making had they still been making them in the 80s.  In terms of box office, this movie wasn't such a success, but in terms of what's up on the screen, I'd say both parties pulled off exactly what they were going for.  This is the Hammer summer tent-pole release that never was.  It stars Steve Railsback (Helter Skelter, Trick Or Treats), Peter Firth (Equus, Northanger Abbey), Patrick Stewart and most iconically, Mathilda May.  The effects are lead by Star Wars' own John Dykstra and there's an amazing score by Henry Mancini and The London Symphony Orchestra.  In short, it's a blast.

Significantly, there are two cuts of this film: the theatrical cut and the international cut.  The latter is over fifteen minutes longer, with many alternate shots and takes.  I recommend movie-censorship.com's detailed break-down if you really want to study the differences.  Now, calling the longer version the International version can be misleading, implying that it's an extended alternate cut, sure, but maybe excessively lengthy or extended arbitrarily.  One need only dip your toes into the film's many special features (more on them later) to hear that this is unquestionably the director's cut.  It's the whole crew's preferred cut.  The distributors (Trimark) took the film away from the filmmakers, and even Cannon, and cut it down against everybody's wishes.  They also changed the title from the novel-accurate Space Vampires, though some of the crew concede that may've been a wiser choice.

The original Vestron laserdisc of Lifeforce was a cropped, fuzzy 1:33 presentation of the theatrical cut that barely felt better than watching a VHS, so it was a big deal when MGM introduced the director's cut in 2.35:1 in 1995.  And it's that second laser that MGM carried over to DVD back in 1998.  Unfortunately, as you could probably guess of a disc that old, it was non-anamorphic; and all of these discs were barebones.  They reissued it on DVD in 2005, and I copped it at the time hoping for an upgrade, but sadly the actual contents of the disc were the same.  So it was a big deal when Scream Factory and Arrow released special editions of both cuts in 2013.  I went with Arrow because they had more extras, and their steelbook retained the original poster art.  And when the film was remastered in 4k, both companies released it again.

But I figured a proper 4k disc would be coming around the corner soon enough, and predictably, Scream released an actual UHD release in 2022.  But what's this?  They only put the theatrical cut on 4k?  Yes, it's proven to be one in a long, infuriating line of Scream Factory cheaping out on their 4k editions (see also: Army of Darkness, Exorcist III, Night Of the Creeps, etc).  I understand times are tough and budgets can't be unlimited, but I'm sure not gonna pay for a UHD when the only version I'm ever going to watch is still BD-only!  So I kept the faith in Arrow and sure enough, now in 2025, they've released both cuts in true Ultra 4k HD via their latest 2-disc limited edition.  It even has some more, new extras.

1) 2005 MGM DVD; 2) 2013 arrow BD; 3) 2025 Arrow UHD.

Well, the back of the MGM case says it's 2.35:1, but it's actually 2.42:1, cropping a little more around the edges than Arrow's actual 2.35 discs.  But it's really the non-anamorphic part that makes it unacceptable now, even by SD standards.  Also, whoops!  Is the DVD missing a red filter for the early space tunnel sequence?  Lifeforce was released in 70mm, so it's primed to benefit from the higher resolution of a UHD than almost any other movie actually shot on film.  And that bears out.  Besides just much better encoded film grain, the UHD has more real detail.  Like, you can read the word "MEDICAL" on the doctor's badge in the first set of shots on the UHD, but not the DVD or BD, where you can't even make out the semblance of letters.

Arrow's new booklet keys us into some interesting facts about their image.  Specifically, that they're using Scream's transfer for the theatrical cut, which was scanned from the original 35mm negative (yes, the film was shot in 35 and blown up for 70mm prints... so I guess the increased detail is actually just the natural benefit of a fresh 4k scan) in HDR10/ Dolby Vision.  But then Arrow restored the international cut in 2024 by scanning a 35mm interpositive in 4k and compositing that in on their own.  So most of this is the 2022 transfer with newly scanned IP footage spliced in.  Above, I took the first set of shots from the theatrical cut and the second is a shot only in the international cut.  I have to say, I never spotted the seams in motion, but zooming into the footage on PC, the grain is definitely less defined.  You can barely make any out in that last screenshot, which is also true of the older blu.  So yeah, the difference in quality is there, but I can't imagine using it as an excuse not to release the composite cut in 4k.

For the audio, MGM just gave us a 5.1 mix (obviously not original for a 1985 movie) with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles.  In 2013, Arrow preserved that 5.1 mix in lossless DTS-HD, but also gave us the original stereo in LPCM, with just the English subs.  For the record, Scream did the same with their release, except their 2.0 was also DTS-HD.  Anyway, now in 2025, Arrow keeps both of those tracks (and subs) but also adds a third Dolby Atmos mix, which was apparently also made (for the theatrical cut) by Scream.  Then Arrow went ahead and produced their own Dolby Atmos mix for the International cut as well.

MGM started us off with the bare minimum special features: an equally non-anamorphic trailer and an insert booklet with notes.  It's Scream Factory and Arrow who brought the extras to the table, and many were the same across their dual releases.  For starters, both have audio commentaries with Hooper (excellent despite his moderator constantly cutting him off) and effects artist Nick Maley, who worked more on the make-up side of the effects.  Both also have three excellent on-camera interviews with Hooper, Railsback (a little short) and Mathilda May.  Seriously, if you're only willing to spend a little bit of time with Lifeforce, just watch these.  Then there's the trailer and some TV spots.

Scream Factory also, briefly, had one other extra: a vintage half-hour documentary called The Making Of..... Lifeforce.  I say "briefly" because, apparently Shout Factory assumed they had the rights to this along with the film itself, but apparently they didn't and got in trouble for it, so they had to re-issue the disc with this removed.  Only people who pre-ordered or scored very early copies have the version with this doc on it, which is a shame, because it's excellent.  Unlike every other extra for this film, including on future releases, this is full of behind-the-scenes footage.  It has quick interviews with the cast and crew on location, including some not otherwise interviewed on any Lifeforce release, but more important is all the impressive footage of the amazing giant sets, explosions and scores of extras running around in "walking shriveled" make-up.  I'd be even more bothered by the loss of this doc, however, if it hadn't already been released on laserdisc, not as an extra for the film, but as its own release.  It's The Making Of..... Lifeforce on one side, and The Making Of..... Invaders From Mars (the Hooper remake, natch) on the other.  It's a shame neither Scream nor Arrow could make a deal to include this on any of their releases, but at least it's out there.

So, anyway, that wraps it up for Scream Factory's extras.  It also came with reversible artwork, a slipcover, and a poster if you pre-ordered directly from Shout.  But Arrow had more.  First off, they've got a third commentary with effects artist Douglas Smith, who did more of the outer space visuals.  This one's a little dry (the moderator is full of "CGI just doesn't feel as real as physical effects" observations that plagued every commentary from that time), but Smith has some good memories fans will enjoy hearing.  And they've got an original feature-length retrospective documentary.  It's often redundant if you've watched the other extras, but there's also some candid talk (i.e. about drug use on set) that nobody got into in other features, and some cast and crew members nobody else got to talk to them, so it's definitely worth your time.  Arrow also has an isolated music and effects track (in LPCM stereo) nobody else included.  Their release also included a 28-page booklet by Bill Warrens and a slipcover, though as I already mentioned, their alternate steelbook release looks much better for using the iconic original artwork.

That's been the whole story for extras until now.   Arrow's and Scream Factory's respective 2017 and 2018 remastered editions didn't include any new extras, nor does Scream's 2022 UHD.  But now in 2025, yes, Arrow has included some new stuff.  First of all, there's over 45-minutes of never before released interviews with Hooper and several other crew members shot for the 2014 Cannon Films documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films.  Hooper in particular repeats a lot of anecdotes we've heard already, but there's new stuff here, too, particularly (as you'd expect) involving their working relationship with Golan and Globus.  And there's a new, roughly fifteen minute comparison between the theatrical and television versions of Lifeforce[above], which uses several alternate shots and other edits to make it broadcast safe.  They've also thrown in the original credits sequence without the text covering it.  This release includes a new, completely different 24-page booklet by Frank Collins, an art-card for Bastard Swordsman from their recent 'Shawscope Volume 3' boxed set, reversible artwork and a slipcover... though disappointingly, they've ditched the original artwork again.

That all adds up to Arrow's 2-disc UHD set easily being the definitive edition.  I hope you held out and didn't get suckered in my Scream's edition.  And I hope fans support this superior release, and it in turn helps nudge Scream into putting all of their films' versions onto UHD, not just the theatrical cuts.  Let's reverse this depressing trend.  More sales of a higher quality product ought to win out over cutting corners to save a few bucks.