World of Wong Kar Wai

[cowboydan]

So would someone care to summarize the ideal releases to pick up to put together one's own WKW collection?

This is so hard to do because most of the releases have some sort of issue, if not being OOP.

As Tears Go By: Megastar BD is an HD scan but it's completely marred with DNR. Edit: Tartan UK DVD retains more of the film's original qualities. The new restoration is probably the best one since the visuals look immaculate and it contains the original mono track. The only downsides are the greenish tint, and in some scenes the blue fluorescent light filter is completely removed.

Days of Being Wild: The Megastar BD is quite good looking in true HD. Downsides are the poorly translated subtitles and the audio tracks are 5.1 and 7.1 remixes. The new restoration is good since it has the original mono track. But the color grading looks way too green and digitally filtered.

Chungking Express: Criterion standalone (OOP) is the only version with the OAR and English subs, but it doesn't contain the original audio track. That probably the best option. The Japanese release is the only other BD in the OAR, and its the only BD to contain the original 2.0 audio track BUT it doesn't have English subs.

Fallen Angels: Kino (OOP) is the best one. It has great PQ, the most extras, but no original mono track (none of the BDs do, only some of the DVDs). Artificial Eye's PQ is SLIGHTLY less than the Kino but probably indistinguishable to most. The 5.1 track is messed up (w/ phaser effect) so only the 2.0 track is good (downmixed from the good 5.1 remix). It only has 1 extra; an interview with Doyle. Korean EOS (OOP) release is same PQ as AE but no extras..

Ashes of Time Mei Ah DVD for theatrical, Artificial Eye or the upcoming Korean Nova Media for the Redux .

Happy Together Kino and EOS editions are good but OOP. They're just missing the original mono track. The Japanese release has the mono in 2.0 but again there's no English subs.

In the Mood For Love Criterion standalone is perfect and in print!

2046 The new version in the boxset. or the US Sony DVD.

My Blueberry Nights Japanese BD for Region A. Studiocanal BD for Region B.

The Grandmaster 3 different cuts. Starz/Anchor Bay for the US Cut (kind of a poor transfer and color grade), HK or Taiwan releases for the Chinese Cut (Hong Kong Cut, same thing) but this has really bad compression, and then the Korean release is the International Cut. The Korean is the BEST transfer. It makes the film look incredible. It's the only International Cut release with English subs. Unfortunately its OOP and extremely difficult to find. I bought it from AsianDB months ago for $50, then they upped the price to $99 http://www.asiandb.com/m/detail.php?num=20522 . Otherwise you're waiting for an ebay listing or digging through google in the Korean language maybe? I've done that with Taiwanese releases before (searching in Chinese instead of English) and have gotten lucky.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Wong and Rayns had a falling out

What happened?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

In his BFI monograph on In the Mood for Love, Rayns says that he and Wong had a blowup about, of all things, the press kit for Ashes of Time Redux. Maybe they've patched things up since, though I noticed that Rayns wasn't involved with the subtitles for The Grandmaster.

Fallen Angels: Kino (OOP) is the best PQ, the most extras, but no original mono track. Artificial Eye's PQ is SLIGHTLY less that Kino but probably indistinguishable to most. AE (technically OOP but some copies available on Amazon via third party seller) contains the original mono track in 2.0, but only has 1 extra; an interview with Doyle.

Is this actually mono and not a stereo fold-down of the surround mix? DVD Compare (which is generally good about distinguishing 2.0 stereo and 2.0 mono) lists it as a stereo track.

[swo17]

Wow cowboydan, thanks for that rundown!

[bainbridgezu]

Such a pathetic release. Their worst since the grave-pissing Children of Paradise. Fuck Wong for forcing audiences to suffer through the dementia-corroded, jerk-off "glory days" fantasias of his formerly great works. And fuck Criterion even more for eagerly spreading their cheeks for his inanity. That hollowed-out ghoul hasn't justified his artistic existence for 20 years, so this should come as no surprise. But still, fuck all this shit.

[ftsoh]

So would someone care to summarize the ideal releases to pick up to put together one's own WKW collection?

In the Mood For Love Criterion standalone is perfect and in print!

Any indication this will stay in print after the boxset? Is yes, then I shall get a copy in the Feb sale.

[Tuppence]

So would someone care to summarize the ideal releases to pick up to put together one's own WKW collection?

In the Mood For Love Criterion standalone is perfect and in print!

Any indication this will stay in print after the boxset? Is yes, then I shall get a copy in the Feb sale.

I think there's every chance it'll go out of print very shortly, if it hasn't already. The previous Blu-ray was licensed from Universal, and the title is now back under the ownership of WKW, with all the control that gives him. If it gets reissued individually again, it's virtually guaranteed to be the same disc as the upcoming boxset. So buy now, while vendors still have stock!

[feihong]

As far as I recall, Rayns says on the commentary for Chungking Express that he thinks the spontaneous nature of that film coming together radiates out into the subject matter of the movie, and that confluence makes it the best of Wong's films. He says also that he feels that Wong has become an increasing perfectionist afterwards, trying to recapture that magic and, to his mind, failing to do it. The clear implication in his tone is that he doesn't see the other movies as being as good. I wonder if that got back to Wong, prompting the excise of that commentary?

As far as Domino's supposition about this being a huge mistake without including original versions of the films, I wish that were to be the case, but...I think the set is mostly aimed at people who have heard of Wong Kar-Wai's movies but have never seen them. There's a whole generation of international film fans who were children when these movies were coming out, who will probably give the movies a try now that Criterion is collecting them all together in a box for them. They won't know the difference between these movies and their original cuts, but I suspect most viewers won't really be thrilled with Fallen Angels, and will probably embrace the other movies on the set with more vigorous interest, regarding it as an odd experiment. I think Fallen Angels will fade into the kind of obscurity that Ashes of Time now enjoys, and AOT will just about drop off the face of the earth after this boxset wins awards and gets crowned the "definitive statement" on Wong's career, pre-My Blueberry Nights.

[cowboydan]

Wow cowboydan, thanks for that rundown!

You're welcome! I've spent way too much time buying and researching the releases of this guy's films haha.

I posted the Pros and Cons of this boxset on another forum and would like to post them here too. But I'll put them in a spoiler because a lot of these points have already been discussed thoroughly here. I hope having it all in one spot can be beneficial to somebody!

Spoiler

Finally. I've been waiting for this.

Pros:

- Beautiful new scans for As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, 2046, The Hand (Extended Cut) and Chungking Express, which I'm hoping will retain colors similar enough to their original versions. Very grateful for the inclusion of 2046.

- Alternate edit of Days of Being Wild is a pleasant surprise. I had previously heard a rumor of its existence from a theatrical release in Asia somewhere, or a broadcast.

- Lots of new extras in addition to legacy ones. Particularly excited for deleted scenes and alternate endings. I've only ever watched the deleted scenes for In the Mood For Love. I'm sure many of these extras won't be in the Nova Media 4K set.

- Aside from Fallen Angels, it seems that every other film will be in its original aspect ratio.

- Most of all, I'm glad that these films will be widely available to the masses.

Cons

- Fallen Angels changes, which I have expanded on already.
viewtopic.php?p=717071#p717071
The fact that they included an alternate cut of Days of Being Wild but not Fallen Angels in it's original aspect ratio and unwarped, is a slap to the face of audiences. Either from Criterion, Wong, or both.

- It seems that many of these films won't contain their original audio track as an option. Chungking Express' 5.1 track has added reverb during many of the "California Dreamin" scenes that wasn't there on the original mix. Fallen Angels' 5.1 mix adds drastically different modern gunshot sounds compared to it's original mono mix. Happy Together also seems to be missing its original mono mix.

- The color grading is know to be different on In the Mood for Love. https://twitter.com/zizz_0/status/1307404772966912005
It has a new sickly green/yellow filter that makes whites appear greenish (similar to The Matrix BD editions). This filter also appears on portions of Fallen Angels that it didn't before. I haven't had the opportunity to watch the other restored films yet, so I don't know if or how much the other films' color timing has changed or not. I think most of us are really praying that the greenish yellow tint is not present on all of those films. It would be a real shame. In my opinion, this is potentially the worst downside of the boxset (aside from the Fallen Angels situation)

- As noted in Wong's disclaimer for the retrospective, Happy Together has some scenes that were cut short; specifically monologues from Tony Leung's character. Wong stated that it was because the negative was damaged in a fire. Most of us know that he is probably using this as an excuse. There is likely multiple duplicate negatives that would be easy to track down to supplement those damaged scenes. Mixing and matching different film elements is a solution that has been used for countless film restorations out of necessity. Wong's excuse is not valid for editing this film down. He could have easily maintained the original cut if he wanted to do. He probably didn't want to.

- Many will be saddened by the exclusion of The Grandmaster, My Blueberry Nights, and Ashes of Time (Original or Redux). It's unfortunate, but I already had a feeling that these might be left out. I do wish that Criterion was able to include his other short films such as The Follow, There Is Only One Sun, and especially the elusive wkw/tk/1996@7’55’’hk.net.

One newer issue I will leave unspoilered is this:

- I'm weary of the packaging design. The way the discs are (seemingly) crudely held in place by those slits in the paper (card stock? cardboard?) looks risky. If you were to hold it upside down, would all the discs immediately fall out? Also, I've read on another forum that certain storage methods such as binder books can have an odd affect on blu-rays. Specifically, over a period of time, if weight or pressure is put on a disc in a certain way, the protective layer that is slightly viscous can retain patterns or "pits" that render the disc unplayable. The user was able fix some of his discs by heating them up very carefully with a hair dyer. He speculated that if you put the disc in a proper case, it may slowly revert back to normal over an extended period of time but I don't think he tested that out.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=128389
and someone on reddit mentioned that some of their discs in the Godzilla boxset being damaged from the glue in the packaging, which looks similar to this WKW box.

Overall

Of course, this boxset is better than having no boxset at all. But the issues here are not insignificant. There is both good and bad here. I think claiming otherwise would be disingenuous.

[beamish14]

"The negatives burned in a fire" is nice. I needed a laugh. Beyond Cassavetes and Satyajit Ray in the 90's, I don't think that has impacted
a huge number of major filmmakers' works of late.

Even putting aside that incredibly dubious claim and your mention of dupe negatives, you can easily create a fresh replacement negative
from an interpositive, which is what Universal had to do when the negative for What Dreams May Come was discovered to have been
destroyed in their 2008 vault fire. You can even use a release print, although that is obviously rare (see John Ford's Stagecoach and The Passion of Joan of Arc.

[hearthesilence]

See here

Ugh. I hate when I hear the "We didn't have these tools available at the time, BUT NOW WE DO!" type thing.

I'm now picturing them running the dialogue tracks through auto-tune.

[feihong]

Such a pathetic release. Their worst since the grave-pissing Children of Paradise. Fuck Wong for forcing audiences to suffer through the dementia-corroded, jerk-off "glory days" fantasias of his formerly great works. And fuck Criterion even more for eagerly spreading their cheeks for his inanity. That hollowed-out ghoul hasn't justified his artistic existence for 20 years, so this should come as no surprise. But still, fuck all this shit.

You're my hero, there, saying all the things I wanted to say and didn't.

I wanted to see 2046 on blu ray, but I can't justify giving Criterion money for this grossly manipulated stuff. I just cannot reward them for this. So I'm going to abstain. These were movies that really made me excited about film when I was in my early 20s, but I think I'm going to have to live with my memories of the films and the old media I have that still represents them. I suppose I'll get this set on ebay one day, provided there aren't terrible changes to 2046 we haven't heard about yet. One way or another, Criterion's making a big mistake with this. They may not feel it in the pocketbook, but they're letting the WKW brand value diminish by making these altered versions the primary way to see these movies in the foreseeable future. People loved these movies as they were, and keeping those versions from them means fewer ambassadors amongst viewers, who get their friends into these movies by screening them for each other. How can I show a friend Fallen Angels from this set? What do I do when the friend says "that looked weird," and I've been talking about what a cool movie it is for years already? I can't put my cachet amongst friends as a film aficianado on the line for a version of the movie I didn't see, where shots are randomly re-colored, stretched and scenes are re-edited. So I'm not going to recommend it to anybody. That's the behavior Criterion is setting in motion here. I don't think they're thinking of that at all, because they will probably profit off newer viewers and people into the Criterion brand, but in the long run, the people pushing other people to give these movies a chance will be fewer and further between.

[R0lf]

I stored my GODZILLA boxset sideways in the blu ray cabinet and all the discs slid back into the glue. I thought they were badly scratched when I took them out but it was just glue that had dried in a circular pattern. More importantly, it all cleaned off and the discs are fine. With the protective coating on blu rays I’ve actually *never* had a scratched disc.

I’m really excited for this. I still have the Kino FALLEN ANGELS and Criterion ITMFL so the changes to those don’t seem so bad. The main pull for me here is having good restorations of ATGB, DOBW, and finally 2046 in HD.

Hopefully we’ll also get the pre bird flu sci fi shoot for 2046 as part of the deleted scenes! There is so much of that sci fi themed deleted footage from early trailers and promo photographs it’s been a holy grail to get to see it ever since the movie was released!

[tenia]

Most people have already complained about everything I wanted to, so I'll just add I discovered we French have a special way of folding books. Had no idea.

As far as Domino's supposition about this being a huge mistake without including original versions of the films, I wish that were to be the case, but...I think the set is mostly aimed at people who have heard of Wong Kar-Wai's movies but have never seen them. There's a whole generation of international film fans who were children when these movies were coming out, who will probably give the movies a try now that Criterion is collecting them all together in a box for them. They won't know the difference between these movies and their original cuts

I don't think this is any excuse though, especially not from a company like Criterion who almost has a "moral mission". I understand your point in how it's likely the sales won't be massively impacted, but isn't precisely Criterion's goal to ensure those movies are presented as they should be preserved instead of altered that heavily ? And while I don't like slippery slope arguments, if they accept this, where does it stop ? Who'll be the next director or DP still alive and from whom they'll accept BS like these and release the movies altered with no original version alongside ?

[feihong]

You're talking about a french fold? It's like the champagne of bookbinding.

I agree completely about Criterion's mission and how they're chucking it in this case. I mean, I think the situation sucks all 'round.

But also, it's not very like Criterion to release unremastered or unrestored versions of films. They're not like the more cult film labels that will do that. And they're dealing directly with Wong, who basically owns the films. So I think Wong has them in checkmate here, and they have no choice but to swallow their mission and put this thing out. Unfortunately, they'll be helping Wong in rewriting his own history as a filmmaker in the process.

[Orlac]

In his BFI monograph on In the Mood for Love, Rayns says that he and Wong had a blowup about, of all things, the press kit for Ashes of Time Redux. Maybe they've patched things up since, though I noticed that Rayns wasn't involved with the subtitles for The Grandmaster.

Fallen Angels: Kino (OOP) is the best PQ, the most extras, but no original mono track. Artificial Eye's PQ is SLIGHTLY less that Kino but probably indistinguishable to most. AE (technically OOP but some copies available on Amazon via third party seller) contains the original mono track in 2.0, but only has 1 extra; an interview with Doyle.

Is this actually mono and not a stereo fold-down of the surround mix? DVD Compare (which is generally good about distinguishing 2.0 stereo and 2.0 mono) lists it as a stereo track.

FALLEN ANGELS - the 2.0 track on the AE BD has dinstinctly different sounding gunshots to the 5.1 mix - 2.0 sound like gunshots, 5.1 sounds like a strange electronic effect.

For some reason, the copyright date on the print is 1999 so I'm not sure if there's any revision on it compared to the 1995 prints.

[feihong]

Do you think Wong saw some of the Johnnie To movies and then developed some feeling of inadequacy about the mid-90s HK gunshot sound effects he had in his movies?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Just realized that, based on the description ("featuring different edits of the film’s prologue and final scenes"), the alternate cut of Days of Being Wild is almost certainly this one described in detail by David Bordwell. Maybe now we'll finally get an explanation of where it came from, since the info out there is contradictory. My theory on why Wong acceded to an alternate cut in this case is that he actually prefers this version (I have no proof that this is the case, it's just a hunch), but the licensing deal obliged Criterion to use Media Asia's master as-is, so Wong's preferred cut got relegated to the extras. This would be in keeping with what we've heard about licensing deals with other Hong Kong labels. If this is in fact the case, it would mean that Media Asia is doing a better job preserving the more familiar versions of Wong's oeuvre than Wong himself.

[wattsup32]

My Blueberry Nights Japanese BD

Is the Studio Canal BD bad or just not as good as the Japanese BD?

Thanks for putting together this list. For the first time ever in a situation like this, I find myself in possession of almost all of the versions you listed.

[Finch]

When was the last time Criterion released a box set that wasn't compromised in one way or another? Maybe the Bergman set (colors on Cries & Whispers aside)?

[bdsweeney]

What do you think are the chances of some of these getting standalone releases down the line? I know it's all speculation but I think I'm correct that Bergman films have been released post-boxset.

[Calvin]

The Grandmaster 3 different cuts. Starz/Anchor Bay for the US Cut (kind of a poor transfer and color grade), HK or Taiwan releases for the Chinese Cut (Hong Kong Cut, same thing) but this has really bad compression, and then the Korean release is the International Cut. The Korean is the BEST transfer. It makes the film look incredible. It's the only International Cut release with English subs. Unfortunately its OOP and extremely difficult to find. I bought it from AsianDB months ago for $50, then they upped the price to $99 http://www.asiandb.com/m/detail.php?num=20522 . Otherwise you're waiting for an ebay listing or digging through google in the Korean language maybe? I've done that with Taiwanese releases before (searching in Chinese instead of English) and have gotten luckily.

One wonders/hopes that Novamedia will bring it back into print in Korea, seeing as they're handling the 4K UHD release of these new restorations and also a new BD release of Ashes of Time.

[soundchaser]

When was the last time Criterion released a box set that wasn't compromised in one way or another? Maybe the Bergman set (colors on Cries & Whispers aside)?

Depends on how you define "compromised." The Bergman set is far and away the cleanest of the bunch, but I don't think the Fellini is all that bad given Criterion's previous insistence on not using English dubbing tracks. (And of course there are things like the World Cinema Project that are great, but you probably mean the mega sets.)

[Boosmahn]

Was the 4K set said to include regular Blu-rays?

[Finch]

God, the sycophants on Facebook defending WKW are fucking depressing. They don't get concerns over the originals not being included for posterity.