88 Films

[Finch]

I usually don't much care for cover art myself but Magnificent Warriors really did make my jaw drop (conversely, The Lady Eve's cover makes me wince hard). I'd gotten the Eureka BDs of Police Story 1 & 2 instead of the Criterions so it made sense for me to go with their 4k set of all three films.

Elegant Dandy, I tend to use Diabolik if I'm not in a rush to get certain titles and don't have Gift Card credit on Amazon.

[therewillbeblus]

I think I mentioned it upon announcement, but Magnificent Warriors’ cover intelligently emulates an Indiana Jones poster, which people are going to discover soon appropriately captures its spirit. Very excited for more people to fall in love with this film, and even more anxious to see if 88 et al. will go for David Chung’s other crowdpleasing masterpieces once these sell well (which they undoubtedly will)

[pistolwink]

I've long felt Tsui is something of an opportunist and careerist; and while he may've become a true believer, I think it's more likely he's just OK with cozying up to the regime if it allows him to secure funding to make what he wants to make. Sadly what he wants to make are long, sentimental blockbusters with a nationalist and xenophobic bent. But of the big HK directors from the golden period, he's the one who's had the most success post-handover, putting out a string of enormous hits. This is probably the most commercially successful he's ever been.

FWIW I agree w/ this; my reference to Xi Jinping Thought was sarcastic.

As you say, Tsui has the biggest budgets and biggest box office of his career now, even if his filmmaking is less distinctive and less likely to make converts of cinephiles.

[colinr0380]

I honestly still find it fascinating to think of the Zhang Yimou shift from the early Gong Li films talking about courtesan in-fighting and the brutally harsh lives of peasants just surviving their circumstances turning towards historical things like the paen to the essential need for stability of heads of state over upstart rebels, no matter how charismatic, Hero and the Beijing Olympics. I suppose they all involve individuals getting crushed by the system but in the earlier films that felt more of an inescapable tragedy rather than a romantic and aspirational ideal in which the selfless individual willingly sacrifices and subsumes themselves into the state to ensure its continuance.

[Mr Sausage]

I honestly still find it fascinating to think of the Zhang Yimou shift from the early Gong Li films talking about courtesan in-fighting and the brutally harsh lives of peasants just surviving their circumstances turning towards historical things like the paen to the essential need for stability of heads of state over upstart rebels, no matter how charismatic, Hero and the Beijing Olympics. I suppose they all involve individuals getting crushed by the system but in the earlier films that felt more of an inescapable tragedy rather than a romantic and aspirational ideal in which the selfless individual willingly sacrifices and subsumes themselves into the state to ensure its continuance.

Hero is a beautiful movie. It's ravishing to look at, and the trajectory of the characters is deeply moving and full of real drama. But there's no avoiding that the movie is also political propaganda for imperialism, authoritarianism, and the one-China policy. It's a sentimental apologia for all that's ugly in politics. The movie's troubling in a way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang's own House of Flying Daggers aren't.

[colinr0380]

Or something like Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster, which I think works better whilst tackling similarly tormented warriors and futile rebellion with a real sense of romantic tragedy and, rather than a particularly political dimension (although there are some aspects in the mix, particularly the events that separate the main character from his wife), like 2046 takes on a much more grand and profound epochal sense of the tragedy of the incessant march of time sweeping generations, and their individually driving but eventually minor in the grander sense of things concerns and battles, away.

I find the idea interesting in Hero (maybe a hang-over from Raise The Red Lantern) that the 'heroes' in the film are all mentally tormented by their elevated status as great warriors. Because in the end they're just people and not the King and have maybe too much status for their own good. They may be beautiful, principled and heroic (even righteous in their goals), but they have no legitimacy and so have to either submit or die. Or do both and act as the moral lesson, and pointing finger, of the masses at the ruler to show that they have upheld their part of the bargain, and their ruler needs to live up to them. And maybe the ruler needs the assumption of the lifeforce of the 'hero' gifted to them to give them the strength, political and cultural, to impose their will and unify the country for the good of all and continuance of the empire, even if it is a defeat for rebellious individualism.

I find that troubling but fascinating, and a very interesting insight into the turn that filmmakers seemingly had to make around the turn of the century as culture and politics changed around them. Especially the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers who in a number of cases had their international status defined by having their films banned, or at least frowned upon, in their home country and their subversive elements amplified and celebrated in the West, making these later turns into propaganda even more whiplashing (it would be as if we suddenly started getting Iran regime praising films from Jafar Panahi all of a sudden).

Perhaps we will never know how much these kind of turns that filmmakers had to make were something that was forced or a submission, or were there all along waiting for full expression (and of course how much is just what was more appealing to international arthouse festivals and audiences, which underplayed or highlighted specific aspects for their particular cultural target audiences), but whatever the case the later works of someone like Zhang Yimou kind of force a re-appraisal of the whole filmography through a new lens.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I've long felt Tsui is something of an opportunist and careerist; and while he may've become a true believer, I think it's more likely he's just OK with cozying up to the regime if it allows him to secure funding to make what he wants to make. Sadly what he wants to make are long, sentimental blockbusters with a nationalist and xenophobic bent. But of the big HK directors from the golden period, he's the one who's had the most success post-handover, putting out a string of enormous hits. This is probably the most commercially successful he's ever been.

I can't find it at the moment, but Tony Rayns had a piece in Sight & Sound (or maybe Cinema Scope?) reminiscing about a panel he attended in the early '80s featuring a bunch of HK New Wave luminaries and an older Taiwanese director (I think it was Li Han-hsiang) who had spent most of his recent career churning out softcore hackwork. The older director said something to the effect that nothing matters except box office, which brought protestations from all of the younger directors in attendance except Tsui Hark, who ruminated silently on Li's words.

But then Rayns also wrote that Tsui turned down offers of more big-budget military spectacles after The Taking of Tiger Mountain, and indeed Lake Changjin is the only thing he's done since that could be described as overt propaganda; I'm also not sure it's a coincidence that he took the job after the failure of the last Detective Dee movie, accompanied by lots of hand-wringing coverage about whether Tsui had lost his touch. That's a major contrast with Dante Lam, whose filmography from 2016 on has been nothing but paeans to heroic servants of the party-state and whose interviews for Lake Changjin were filled with sloganeering about the great sacrifices of "our" ancestors and how he wants to make the Chinese audience proud. Tsui, on the other hand, talked endlessly about the technical challenges and only managed a couple of pro forma statements about the "importance" of the story.

[pistolwink]

In re. the "5th generation" filmmakeers, although they sometimes got in genuine trouble w/ authorities (most notably Tian Zhuangzhuang), many of the qualities of their earlier films —the ones highly praised and successful in Europe, the U.S., etc. — were congruent with, and encouraged by, an official Deng-era policy of revisiting the Mao era, especially the Cultural Revolution, through a critical and, in artistic works at least, a "humanist" lens. It's only when that criticism seemed to encompass the revolutionary project itself—and consequently the moral authority of the CCP—that hackles were raised. (And/or when the filmmakers did an end run around PRC officialdom.) That's a thin line to walk.

Should this discussion be moved over to a Chinese cinema thread?

[Finch]

Shogun Supreme has posted comparisons between the Vinegar Syndrome and 88 Films editions of Righting Wrongs. Can feihong or anyone else confirm which one (or neither?) of those is more accurate? The UK release feels more right to me personally.

VS top 88 bottom

[dwk]

I have no idea which is correct, but VS does have a history of favoring warm/red transfers.

[therewillbeblus]

88's looks so green. I think I'm switching teams on this release

[Maltic]

Can I have a mix?

[tenia]

88's looks so green. I think I'm switching teams on this release

No idea how it's supposed to look but this indeed looks very green. On the 2nd set of caps, it might be on purpose, but it looks strange on the first one.

[yoloswegmaster]

Not sure why this wasn't posted but the same user also posted screencaps from the old DVD that has a similar grade to the 88 release:





I'm not sure if 88 is simply just using the master that was sent to them from Fortune Star but VS did confirm in their booklet that they had regraded the film.

[EddieLarkin]

Not the first time 88 has slapped a pretty unfinished yellowy/green looking scan on disc, whilst a US competitor has presented a properly graded version. See Zombie Holocaust, Absurd and Beyond the Darkness.

[therewillbeblus]

I really wanted to get the 88 for a variety of reasons (encoding, ending randomizer) but I think the image is too strikingly different and I'm back to VS. That randomizer did sound cool though

[feihong]

I don't have any inside information on the how it's supposed to look, but I like the look of the Vinegar Syndrome disc a lot better. I like seeing, for instance, the colors and detail of Cynthia Rothrock's makeup in the last capture especially (the one where she's standing in a two-shot with Cory Yuen). On the 88 Films version, all that extra color gets blown away by the green. It's really invasive. Then again, I said that about Memories of Murder and turned out to be wrong, so....

[Finch]

Thank you, feihong.

I don't love the film that much to spend another $30 on the Vinegar Syndrome though since the UK disc is in the mail to me already and I imagine will be fine viewed on its own. Have VS gone on record to say that the regrading was done in consultation with the filmmakers?

By the way, yoloswegmaster: I didn't share the DVD captures because they were easy to find in the shared link and my question only pertained to the Blu-Rays.

[yoloswegmaster]

Screenshots for the HK cut that all are varying in terms of the color timing.

Screenshots of the International cut that also varies a bit, though most of the sources show a predominantly green color timing.

Screenshots of the Singapore cut, which is also green.

[Finch]

You have to be a Blu-ray member to be able to see the attachments but thank you for confirming that the green tint appears on most of the historical releases. Does the HK cut resemble the 88 or the VS more? Would be helpful if we could get it on good authority if that's how the filmmakers wanted it to look or if the Vinegar Syndrome is the first disc to get it right. When I first saw the caps from both BDs my reaction was that the US disc was regraded since US releases tend towards warmer skin tones.

EDIT: ShogunSupreme says the audio on the 88 is cleaned up but not on the VS.

[Finch]

88 UK have confirmed God of Gamblers (1989) for a March Blu-Ray release.

Also, THE WHIP AND THE BODY on March 27th, new transfer according to 88!

EDIT: And...

House on the Edge of the Park (4K UHD + BD) - Jan 23rd
Hell of the Living Dead (4K UHD + BD) - Jan 23rd
Pete Walker: Heritage Collection (BD) - Feb 20th (second volume with the horrorfilms coming later)
Ark of the Sun God (4K UHD + BD) - Mar 6th
Tentacles (BD) - Mar 27th

[black&huge]

I am freaking out. Mostly about the Bava which is one of his absolute best. Actually just only about the Bava.

[Peacock]

Ooh The Whip and the Body badly needed a good release somewhere. Great news.

And Hell of the Living Dead will never fail to gobsmack me with its extensive use of mondo stock footage of starving African masses fleeing war zones and famine… and the narration telling us they are flesh-eating zombies. Can’t wait to see this shamelessly trashy film again!

[Finch]

User Beatnik over at BR watched the 88 disc of Righting Wrongs:

The screenshots in this thread seem really exaggerated to me now in hindsight and I'm worried they'll scare people off from checking this bluray out, because in my experience the only time I noticed a green tint was in specific interiors with florescent lighting. You can see the juxtaposition in the first act when Yuen Biao climbs up into an office building. The corridor lights have the green tint, but the office room has warm yellow light from the lampshades. Outside scenes didn't have the green tint either.

I'll report back once I get my copy and watched it in full.

[feihong]

I went and got the Vinegar Syndrome version, and I'm watching it right now. The color looks spectacular, well-balanced, awesome. Couldn't ask for more. I don't see any red bias; the colors look true-to-life. There's a wide range of color, especially on the skin tones, which looks good to me. I don't know how it is supposed to look, but this one looks fine to my eyes, and was $2 cheaper for me––and this isn't a favorite film of any kind, so I don't think I'll be moved to get another version. But I'm very interested to hear your verdict on the 88 Films disc.