Dragon Lord Blu-ray Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

There's a sense Dragon Lord suffered slight filtering during the mastering process. An occasional waxy face, a muddy wide shot, and messier grain all draw suspicion. In overall terms though, Shout's presentation is a passable winner, crisp, clean, and detailed at its best, but then waxy, oily, and digital at its worst. The print avoids any harsh damage, cleared of scratches and dirt almost entirely.

Well defined color draws out the costumes, including a wide array of blues, greens, and yellows. Scenery provides lush landscapes, flushed with primaries and earth tones galore.

Black levels suffer and fade through the years, well off from pure black. Contrast does the heavy lifting instead, remaining bright to preserve the depth.

Audio

In DTS-HD, there's Cantonese mono, an alternate Cantonese, and an English dub. A dud 5.1 dubbed mix is best skipped. Neither of the Cantonese tracks sound great, with blown out, puffy dialog. The score screeches unpleasantly, equally harsh and overly loud at any normal volume. if there's a positive, the lack of defects - static and/or popping - help a bit.