Correct, it's Akira.
This movie stands out most for me because of it's soundtrack. I already like the movie a lot before the blu-ray came out, but when I heard it on blu-ray I was completely blown away again. Imo the best use of surround sound in a movie.
The Japanese Dolby TrueHD track comes with a remastered 192khz/24 bit encode with completely restored music and sound effects. You can switch between the old english track (also in Dolby TrueHD) and the difference couldn't be greater. The english track sounds flat, dull and has all sounds confined to the front. (apart from the awful english voices) The new japanese track puts you right in the movie, all speakers are active and interacting all the time. Besides the wonderfully enveloping soundtrack Akira also knows when and how to use silence to grab your attention like no other.
There is also the theory of the hypersonic sound effect, although you can't hear above 20khz, the body can still detect and be influenced by higher frequencies in other ways. I can't confirm that, although my speakers are reasonably high end, they are rated upto 22khz frequency responce, 42khz range like 99% of speakers. I can hear a big difference between the lossy dolby digital 5.1 japanese track and the lossless one, unfortunately there is no direct comparison on the disc between 48khz lossless and 192khz lossless. Yet timing between channels and quality of the final analog signal is better served by higher resolution sound, which is already apparent with the 96khz track from Baraka. I wish more movies would use HD sound, for me 2/3rds of the immersion in movies comes from sound.
All the sound in the world can't save a bad movie, luckily Akira is a great movie about rivalry, corruption, dangerous ambition, and continuous escalation that simply won't stop. Great movie, special thanks to Shoji Yamashiro for the musical score.
