Video:

Umm... this section depends. The main problem with this transfer is that it's oringally a 16:9 widescreen movie, but it's presented on this DVD as a 4:3 full screen transfer. Thus, you get a stretched picture where all characters have long faces, etc. Except for that problem, the transfer was fine and good looking. This isn't even a problem if you have a 4:3 TV you can chance to 16:9 mode (like I did) or have a widescreen TV. Video quality on the Extra DVD was as perfect as a HK DVD can be. Perfect DVD rip with some minor compression. Barely noticable though.

Audio:

Awesome. I watched this on a Dolby Surround 5.1 system, and it was absolutely wonderfull. The music, the car sounds, everything comes through beautifully. There is a 5.1 channel track and a stereo track, but I only checked the 5.1 track.

Subtitle:

Great subtitles. As perfect as a HK DVD can get, except for the fact they one time exchanged Itsuki's name with "Natsuki", but you'll understand it. It's also perfectly punctuated, and there are no missing words if I recall correctly. The subtitles for the Extra DVD are good, but not as good as the movie. They were HK originals, but you can understand everything. The Extra DVD was really worth it. It has a "Making Off" feature which lasted about 50 minutes, a small teaser trailer, and a longer trailer WHICH YOU SHOULDN'T WATCH BEFORE THE MOVIE, SINCE IT HAS SOME BIG SPOILERS!!!

Comment:

This movie is great. The 2nd stage was a small dissapointement to me after the awesome 1st Stage, but this movie rocks. It has a few good races, some good character developement, and interesting story developement. The CG also looks awesome in this movie. Also the extra DVD is very interesting. WELL RECOMMENDED! Man, I hope they make a 4th stage!

Video:

This is a perfect R2 DVD rip, the graphic are simply stunning. My only complaint is that near 2-3 minutes of the ending, the lack of brightness in the color were making the character's image looked bad.

Audio:

Simply awseome, 2.0 and 5.1 Digital Dolby Sound on my surround speaker made me think that I were the one in the passenger seat of a car.

Subtitle:

1rst DVD: Near perfect translation, I found three mispelled word and that's it. No mispelled name and the sub timing was never off 2nd DVD 4/5: A couple of mispelled name (Mako=Matzo), few mispelled word but the sub was very good

Comment:

The 2nd DVD contains 50 minutes of the making of Initial D the movie. It included the introduction cast dubbing of every character of the movie, the making of 2D and 3D graphic, a footage of a real Akina 86 on a racing track (the voice of Itsuki takes a ride in it and he's scares to death, really funny) and the theatrical released of the movie in Japan (in 2001). There are also commercial and trailer of the movie. I liked the movie very much, it's runtime is 1h 40m. The action never slows down until the first hour. It was great seeing Takumi having a rematch with Kyoishi at the beginning and Ryosuke at the end. The race scene between the two of them were awseome. I must say that the Irohazaka track was plain boring (it's the Emperor team home turf) because it was a one lane only and you couldn't pass the other driver until a specific area. The ending was as I expected, the relationship between Mogi and Takumi finally reached a climating point. It was great seeing the entire cast back (we didn't see much of Mako and Sayuki) and yes, Itsuki is still very annoying. But overall, the action is almost non-stop and Takumi has plenty of challenge to accept which makes it difficult to know the outcome of the race until the end. Highly recommanded