Imprint: Collaborations - The Cinema of Zhang Yimou & Gong Li

[bad future]

A user at the blu-ray.com forum has posted screencaps from the WCL and Imprint discs of Red Sorghum, and the differences seem more substantial than I imagined.

[domino harvey]

They look very different! That last cap, though— hard to imagine the WCL is correct on that one

[cdnchris]

Colour wise, yeah, the Imprint looks better. The trade off is the Imprint is laced with artifacts: jaggies, shimmering, noise. EDIT: forgot to mention the horrendous macroblocking during the final moments of the film.

It looks better than a DVD, but it will come down to what's more important for you in the end. But to be honest, I think the digital problems are probably less in-your-face than those colours.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Very strange. The Imprint is pretty obviously not the newer 4K master, which to judge from the trailer is closer to the WCL in terms of color and brightness. The red cast on the WCL is largely absent (or at least significantly dialed back) on the Imprint, resulting in a less naturalistic look (the fourth image shows this well, with the blue sky on the Imprint coming out as pink on the WCL). I've never seen this on 35mm, but I actually suspect the stylized look of the WCL is more in line with the original intent—the film went through a long and painstaking post-production to achieve the desired color scheme, and per this short memoir by a lab worker who participated in the timing process, Zhang specifically requested that the "warm colors" (red, orange, yellow) be boosted, and the lab did so repeatedly until he was finally satisfied. (Another article on the same worker—who still works at the Xi'an Film Studio and now heads up their post-production division—states that it was difficult to fulfill Zhang's requests because the original negative had captured "clear blue skies with white clouds," implying that isn't how it's supposed to look; it describes the final product as "a nostalgic red.") I'm not sure, but this lab worker might also be the color timer referred to in this restoration featurette who was brought in to assist with the 4K remaster.

[cdnchris]

The Imprint is definitely from an OLD master, I'm sure one made for DVD. It's clearly not from the 4K restoration.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Thing is that the 2K master used for the WCL is fairly old too—it was done in 2012 even though it wasn't released on Blu-ray until 2018. I'm surprised there's apparently three different HD-or-better masters out there, one of which (the Imprint) looks to have been done well before 2012. I wish they'd provided more info on the provenance of these masters other than "2K masters from the original negatives," which is obviously wrong in the case of one movie (Coming Home was shot digitally). I'm also curious what the Korean release of Red Sorghum looks like; I'd assumed it was the WCL master, but now I'm not sure. Maybe there's something keeping international labels from using those restorations, which would be really unfortunate since the Chinese releases are expensive and not that easy to come by.

[brundlefly]

Arrived packed in newspaper. Functional, quaint. Am adjusting expectations thusly.

[beamish14]

I've never seen this on 35mm, but I actually suspect the stylized look of the WCL is more in line with the original intent—the film went through a long and painstaking post-production to achieve the desired color scheme, and per this short memoir by a lab worker who participated in the timing process, Zhang specifically requested that the "warm colors" (red, orange, yellow) be boosted, and the lab did so repeatedly until he was finally satisfied.

This is the only one of these films that I did see in celluloid, and it indeed utilizes very crimson, almost dried blood reds throughout the film, and the sun's glare is continually seeping through as well. Like Yellow Earth, which is punctuated with muted, sandy, yellow hues, Zhang Yimou literally used the titles to guide his color palette!

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I have to take back what I said about the 4K looking identical to the WCL on the basis of the trailer⁠—the trailer is for the 30th anniversary re-release in 2018, which I thought was the 4K version but was actually just 2K. I would assume that this is the same restoration used for the WCL, but I don't know how to square that with the 2018 restoration featurette that implies it was new. Maybe they actually recorded all that footage back in 2012, or maybe they just asked the personnel depicted to pretend they were working on the restoration for the benefit of the cameras. When the re-release happened in 2018 it was said to have come from the original negative, and there's a film canister shown in the featurette that I believe is labeled 画原底 "original picture negative." I'll check the booklet that came with the WCL to see if it mentions anything about the source materials used.

As far as I can tell there's no footage out there from the 4K restoration, but I did find this interesting review of the WCL release that compares it to an HDTV broadcast, the French and Japanese DVDs, and a WEB-DL of unknown origin. The HDTV copy is almost certainly from the WCL master, and while none of the scenes used for this comparison correspond to those used on the Blu-ray.com post, the only edition that has the sort of naturalistic look displayed by the Imprint is the R2F. This is most obvious in the last comparison, where the R2F is the odd one out with its "realistic" blue sky. So perhaps the Imprint comes from the R2F master, which would be pretty old given that the DVD was released all the way back in 2008.

[Titus]

I’m curious to see reactions to this set from people better equipped to evaluate the presentation than I am. I’ve briefly sampled Raise the Red Lantern and The Story of Qui Ju, and I’m unfortunately a bit disappointed. Black levels look pretty washed out to me, with macroblocking visible in darker scenes and title cards. The image in both films is quite soft, as well, particularly in long shots. Close-ups look quite a bit better, but still are not particularly detailed. I’ve only ever seen the movies via DVD, however, and so have no idea to what extent these shortcomings are due to the source elements.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

That roughly corresponds with my impressions of the Japanese Blu-rays; To Live also looked quite soft. Ju Dou was the best-looking of that group but still appears undersaturated IMO. My guess is Imprint used the same masters.

[Elizabeth Corday]

I like the colors in RS. The shots of her in the sedan aren't dark like in those caps. (I noticed something. Her teeth look different. Did she have them altered later in life?)

I'm curious if anyone had read the novel? I know the film is narrated by a man even though the protagonist is Gong Li. She is even on the cover of the book. My understanding is she is one of several protagonists because the film is based on two of the five stories that make the book?

Its definitely not a mess like WKW's choices in remastering process.

[feihong]

I have read Red Sorghum. It is narrated by Gong Li's character's son. The book has notably different sections which are clearly demarcated and stylistically a little bit different from one another, but it's a straightforward novel, with a group of characters you follow all the way through. The narrator covers the early life of his mother, and covers the appearances of his father within that story, but the emphasis on the mother figure in the movie is something not really noticeably present in the text, because all the events are mediated by this narrator figure.

It seems to have been Yimou's decision to base the film around the Gong Li character, and to make her story feel much more immediate by removing the narration. The novel is about the son recalling the story of his parents from a remove of many years. The theme of the book––stated very directly in the text––is that the son feels his generation has los something of the grit and sort of magical-realist determination and passion of his parents' generation. I don't know how to put it exactly, but things work out in weird, uncanny ways for the parents throughout the novel. Their actions are made to seem sometimes somewhat arbitrary (driven by passions we don't get a clear sense of in the text), but the sense of the characters is that they are straightforward, simple, forceful. Whereas the narrator feels his generation and he himself to be twisty, overly-subtle, and severly compromised. Later Mo Yan books are a little more sophisticated in terms of their outlook, though the ones I have read are never super-deep. What Mo Yan excels at is vivid physical description, and the novel begins with a brilliant passage of the narrator's father pulling him by the hand through the fields of sorghum stalks. The sensual description of this is very immediate and striking, and that energy is there in the prose throughout the book. Comparing the book and the film, it's clear that Zhang Yimou has taken particular elements from the book––which is itself much, much more action-packed than the film––and reworked them to fit the resources he had available; i.e., a great actress, some sorghum fields, a tripod and some camera filters. Passages in the book sound like they demand huge tracking shots, intense handheld camera, and other more in-your-face camera moves, and probably faster editing––if capturing the feel of the sections of the book is a priority. Zhang Yimou doesn't do any of that, and I doubt he had the resources to do so. The book presents a larger swath of event, as well––the mother for a time becomes the kept woman of a local gang kingpin, for instance, and the father wins her back by getting knocked down by one of the gangster's punches. A lot of earthy rural incident like that is not in the film. The section with the Japanese is teased out a bit longer as well, as far as I can remember. So a lot of adaptation has gone into the making of the movie.

DVDbeaver posted caps of To Live today, and they look so incredibly soft. I have the Korean set, and I plan to take a look at the transfers there. I recall my copy of To Live there being pretty dark, but kind of gritty and grainy. I'll have to see if that's really the case.

[bad future]

DVDbeaver posted caps of To Live today, and they look so incredibly soft. I have the Korean set, and I plan to take a look at the transfers there. I recall my copy of To Live there being pretty dark, but kind of gritty and grainy. I'll have to see if that's really the case.

I'll be really interested to see what you observe about the Korean release, compared to Imprint's! If you would be interested in comparing other discs from the Korean set, the previously-posted Red Sorghum screencaps (WCL and Imprint) can be found here, and Raise the Red Lantern is here (Imprint and the French blu-ray from D'Vision, on caps-a-holic.)

Raise the Red Lantern also looking soft to me...

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

DVDbeaver posted caps of To Live today, and they look so incredibly soft. I have the Korean set, and I plan to take a look at the transfers there. I recall my copy of To Live there being pretty dark, but kind of gritty and grainy. I'll have to see if that's really the case.

I'll be really interested to see what you observe about the Korean release, compared to Imprint's! If you would be interested in comparing other discs from the Korean set, the previously-posted Red Sorghum screencaps (WCL and Imprint) can be found here, and Raise the Red Lantern is here (Imprint and the French blu-ray from D'Vision, on caps-a-holic.)

Raise the Red Lantern also looking soft to me...

While I agree that Raise the Red Lantern obviously looks too soft (and is obviously from the same -- older? -- transfer as the French BD), I disagree that To Live does. Judging from the screenshots, to me it looks just right and natural. Red Sorghum, on the other hand... what a digitally enhanced mess. Loads of digital blocking in those screenshots, and yes, it looks like edge enhancement has been applied. Such as shame as the colours look much more accurate than on the WCL.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Found an interesting comparison of various editions of Red Sorghum here. The versions compared are the WCL, the R2F DVD, an HDTV rip, the R2J DVD, and a WEB-DL of unknown provenance. The HDTV rip is obviously the WCL master so it can be ignored, but the others are more interesting. The R2J—which was released in 2004 and predates all of the other releases—has a broadly similar look to the WCL, but with stronger yellows that shift it more towards orange. The R2F is the only one that looks completely naturalistic and is probably the closest to the Imprint, but none of the caps used here correspond to those in the comparison previously posted, so I can't say for sure until I have the opportunity to take a look for myself. The WEB-DL is strange: at first blush it doesn't seem to have had the extensive retiming of the WCL and R2J versions, but the red and pink skies on the WCL and R2J that appear as a realistic blue on the R2F come out variously in the WEB-DL as a very light blue, a blinding white, and a color that Benjamin Moore dubs "Jicama." The WEB-DL is also much brighter in general and this reveals additional detail in some caps, but others have clipped highlights, and two shots that are nighttime scenes in every other version look more like... well, not daytime exactly, but more of an in-between state. The author also says that the WEB-DL has weak black levels in general.

[Adam X]

Don’t know what ordering from them internationally is like for people right now, but JB Hi-Fi has a 20% off sale this weekend, with this set going for AUS$150.

[landow]

Don’t know what ordering from them internationally is like for people right now, but JB Hi-Fi has a 20% off sale this weekend, with this set going for AUS$150.

My last order from them to the States took 3 months to arrive. I can’t imagine it always takes that long, so I may go for this deal.

[Adam X]

For what it’s worth, it’s been no better in the other direction during the current pandemic.

[kekid]

Don’t know what ordering from them internationally is like for people right now, but JB Hi-Fi has a 20% off sale this weekend, with this set going for AUS$150.

My last order from them to the States took 3 months to arrive. I can’t imagine it always takes that long, so I may go for this deal.

Ordering directly from Imprint (to theUSA) was a definite mistake. Had I ordered this item from DeepDiscount, I would have saved money and got it soone.

[Habit Rouge]

Blowitoutahere has been selling this for under $150 on their eBay store. It's currently out of stock, but they've been adding more copies a few days after selling out each time, so keep checking back.

[Yohei72]

Just found out about this set a couple hours ago from someone on another forum. Having Red Sorghum and Ju Dou on English-friendly BD has been pretty much tops on my wish list for many years - I'm a huge fan of Zhang's early work and those are my two favorites, hands down. So of course I went down the rabbit hole trying to find out more about it and decide whether I should fork out the cash... especially given that earlier this very evening I finally pulled the trigger on the Nova Media Korean blu of Ju Dou! This is how I know there is no God.

Disappointed at the caveats expressed in this thread, but on the other hand I find Criterion Forum mavens tend to have higher standards about these things than I, and for what it's worth, DVD Beaver chose it as their boxset of the year - though they've posted individual reviews of only two of the discs, To Live and Ju Dou.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/2021_blu-ray_4 ... e_year.htm

(beating head against laptop) What to do what to do?

[newanimals]

Just found out about this set a couple hours ago from someone on another forum. Having Red Sorghum and Ju Dou on English-friendly BD has been pretty much tops on my wish list for many years - I'm a huge fan of Zhang's early work and those are my two favorites, hands down. So of course I went down the rabbit hole trying to find out more about it and decide whether I should fork out the cash... especially given that earlier this very evening I finally pulled the trigger on the Nova Media Korean blu of Ju Dou! This is how I know there is no God.

Disappointed at the caveats expressed in this thread, but on the other hand I find Criterion Forum mavens tend to have higher standards about these things than I, and for what it's worth, DVD Beaver chose it as their boxset of the year - though they've posted individual reviews of only two of the discs, To Live and Ju Dou.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/2021_blu-ray_4 ... e_year.htm

(beating head against laptop) What to do what to do?

I've just had a chance to watch the first three films in the Imprint set, but I would say it's worth the investment. Red Sorghum looked the roughest (at spots), but it was by no means unwatchable. Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern were both incredible to these untrained eyes.

[Yohei72]

I've just had a chance to watch the first three films in the Imprint set, but I would say it's worth the investment. Red Sorghum looked the roughest (at spots), but it was by no means unwatchable. Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern were both incredible to these untrained eyes.

Thanks for the comment - yeah, I'm leaning that way myself.

Now I just have to figure out if I can get my money back from Nova Media before they ship.

[ikms]

Just found out about this set a couple hours ago from someone on another forum.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/2021_blu-ray_4 ... e_year.htm

You think that is embarrassing, I'm hearing about it for the first time, and I not only voted, but was quoted multiple times justifying winners all over that page! (Of course for sets #1 pick was All the Haunts, and it didn't even make the cut... some authority here )

Even limited to 2000 copies, I can get the Imprint release for about even money at Japamazon, but reading replies here (and the hope of other locales) has me questioning the logic of it.