This is better seen on the film with close-up shots of faces, for instance in the scene between Hung Kam-bo and the niece of Master Ko (the only shot on the trailer has characters ontop so I didn't use it here), where her face looks too much oval. But the film doesn't look right all through out.
There's not much distortion, that's a fact. But I can't figure a reason why this has happened.
To see clearly the compression of the image, save a pair of screen grabs and watch them on an image viewer like AcdSee, one after the other, continuously. You'll see the image compressing (film) and decompressing (trailer).
Note: the image from the trailer is presented above the image taken from the film.
The images where not altered in any way, being on the same scale in which they where grabbed (using PowerDVD).
normal image from the trailer
distorted image from the film
simulated image obtained by stretching the image horizontaly filling the unused space ("windowboxing"). Note that while this image looks more natural, by comparing it with the first one, there's still some distortion noticeable, mainly on the top and right parts which results in some cropping.
Image from the Fox R1 DVD, captured by Vanian of Love and Bullets. The distortion seems to have been corrected. There's just very minor cropping on the sides.
