World of Wong Kar Wai

[mhofmann]

I made that point already over on the Blu-ray.com forum (1, 2, 3), but I’m highly concerned about severe posterization/banding on many of the DVDBeaver screencaps (particularly visible on many of the Patreon screencaps) for the various movies in the set reviewed so far.
It looks terrible in still frames, and it will look terrible in motion if these screencaps are correct.

[feihong]

I made that point already over on the Blu-ray.com forum (1, 2, 3), but I’m highly concerned about severe posterization/banding on many of the DVDBeaver screencaps (particularly visible on many of the Patreon screencaps) for the various movies in the set reviewed so far.
It looks terrible in still frames, and it will look terrible in motion if these screencaps are correct.

What could that be the result of? Is the image being digitally sharpened or something?

[tenia]

It can come from a crappy encode or be introduced by Beaver's crappy screencapturing method.
More rarely, it can originate from the digital restoration itself, espcially if the picture has been degrained (which happen regularly with Asian rightholders).

[dwk]

Happy Beaver

[Murdoch]

That one actually looks nice. If 2046 turns out looking good then I'll likely grab this. Those two are all I'm missing at this point anyway.

[hearthesilence]

Happy Beaver

WOW. Big improvement.

Tougher to tell in the B&W shots (which appear to be degraded from whatever process or stock used), but check out the color shots, particularly the one where they dance in the kitchen. The old BD looks like video - NO texture, just look at the wall tiles. The new 4K restoration looks like actual film, rich with finely textured grain.

Too bad about the lost audio, but I was thinking, if the subtitles cover the lost bits of narration (which I doubt), I would probably pick the new restoration without hesitation.

[swo17]

That one actually looks nice.

Yeah but remember that even if the color here looks right, this is the one where WKW cut out some of the picture and dialogue that was supposedly lost "during a fire accident"

[yoshimori]

Beaver caps look nice enough - and I'm very much looking forward to these "new" films, since I own reasonable discs of older versions - but my sense is that the degree of overexposure in those caps is appreciably less than that that I remember from theatrical screenings (and certainly, as the Beaver comparisons show, less than in previous video releases).

[cowboydan]

Happy Beaver

WOW. Big improvement.

Tougher to tell in the B&W shots (which appear to be degraded from whatever process or stock used), but check out the color shots, particularly the one where they dance in the kitchen. The old BD looks like video - NO texture, just look at the wall tiles. The new 4K restoration looks like actual film, rich with finely textured grain.

It's very inconsistent. The first shot made me excited. It has a fine coloring, and is rich with grain and detail. Same for the shot of them dancing in the kitchen. Most of the other shots look bad in my opinion. The one of Tony sitting alone in the room could be debated.

The black and white shots definitely look worse and degrained. The color shot of Leslie smoking on the bed looks awfully blurry. It's missing all of the grain that the Kino had on that same frame. You can also see banding / posterization on the wall to the right side.

If all of these films' restorations retained the grain and detail that the first shot (Tony sitting at the outdoor restaurant), and the kitchen dancing scene, then it would make up for inaccurate colors. But alas, somewhere along the chain, the grain has been purged on much of the footage.

[_shadow_]

Has anyone reported exactly what dialogue was cut from "Happy Together"? I know this was pointed out upthread, but the explanation for cutting it is patently absurd: "During a fire accident in 2019, we lost some of the original negative of Happy Together. In the ensuing months, we tried to restore the negative as much as we could, but a portion of it had been permanently damaged. We lost not only some of the picture, but also the sound in those reels.As a result, I had to shorten some of Tony’s monologues, but with the amazing work of L’Immagine Ritrovata, we managed to restore most of the scenes to better quality."

[swo17]

The only people who go to the trouble of making sure you know the fire was an accident are arsonists

[hearthesilence]

Has anyone reported exactly what dialogue was cut from "Happy Together"? I know this was pointed out upthread, but the explanation for cutting it is patently absurd: "During a fire accident in 2019, we lost some of the original negative of Happy Together. In the ensuing months, we tried to restore the negative as much as we could, but a portion of it had been permanently damaged. We lost not only some of the picture, but also the sound in those reels.As a result, I had to shorten some of Tony’s monologues, but with the amazing work of L’Immagine Ritrovata, we managed to restore most of the scenes to better quality."

I guess we'll find out...I hope it's minor enough that it's no big loss.

[cowboydan]

Even more confusing is that according to DVDbeaver, this is cut is not any shorter. It's actually 27 seconds longer. I don't know how to explain that. Criterion/Janus logos are probably roughly the same as the Kino International logo. The end credits might be longer now if they're new ones, but how much longer? (As Tears, Chungking, & In the Mood have new credits. Days of Being Wild has the same old credits). Is it possible that he added some footage back in to the cut? More (longer duration) footage than was cut out / left out due to the "fire damage" ?? Based on the making-of documentary, Buenos Aires Zero Degree, we know that there is loads of unused footage, including a subplot with pop star Shirley Kwan.

[hearthesilence]

I don't think any picture was lost, I was under the impression Wong meant only the soundtrack - I thought they were going back to the raw elements/work parts, so sound and picture would still have been separated out.

[cowboydan]

"We lost not only some of the picture, but also the sound in those reels."

[feihong]

The fire was in another, unrelated part of the building; they lost part of the reel when Wong snipped it off with a pair of scissors and tossed it in the trash.

[FrauBlucher]

As Tears Go By...bluray.com

[cowboydan]

As Tears Go By...bluray.com

During the brawl at the end the images are intentionally distorted -- the grain is flattened and there is actually gradual crushing. I specifically took screencaptures #32, 33, and 34 to demonstrate it. The same effects are present on the old release as well, only there the weaker master hides the majority of them

Is this part serious? Does anyone agree with him on this? I don't quite buy it. "It supposed to look bad"

[domino harvey]

Anyone defending this release in any way is the film world equivalent of QAnon

[Shrew]

As Tears Go By...bluray.com

During the brawl at the end the images are intentionally distorted -- the grain is flattened and there is actually gradual crushing. I specifically took screencaptures #32, 33, and 34 to demonstrate it. The same effects are present on the old release as well, only there the weaker master hides the majority of them

Is this part serious? Does anyone agree with him on this? I don't quite buy it. "It supposed to look bad"

I don't think the review is arguing that it's supposed to look like that, but that whatever issue is affecting the scene wasn't introduced in the Criterion release.

[cowboydan]

As Tears Go By...bluray.com

During the brawl at the end the images are intentionally distorted -- the grain is flattened and there is actually gradual crushing. I specifically took screencaptures #32, 33, and 34 to demonstrate it. The same effects are present on the old release as well, only there the weaker master hides the majority of them

Is this part serious? Does anyone agree with him on this? I don't quite buy it. "It supposed to look bad"

I don't think the review is arguing that it's supposed to look like that, but that whatever issue is affecting the scene wasn't introduced in the Criterion release.

Read it again. He's definitely saying that he believes there is intentional distortion in the scene on both releases. He's claiming it's more hidden on the older "weaker" master, but is less hidden on the new master.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Even more confusing is that according to DVDbeaver, this is cut is not any shorter. It's actually 27 seconds longer. I don't know how to explain that. Criterion/Janus logos are probably roughly the same as the Kino International logo. The end credits might be longer now if they're new ones, but how much longer? (As Tears, Chungking, & In the Mood have new credits. Days of Being Wild has the same old credits). Is it possible that he added some footage back in to the cut? More (longer duration) footage than was cut out / left out due to the "fire damage" ?? Based on the making-of documentary, Buenos Aires Zero Degree, we know that there is loads of unused footage, including a subplot with pop star Shirley Kwan.

I wonder if Wong is just confused here and the missing footage corresponds to the stuff that he already cut out of the film back in the '90s (as discussed earlier in the thread, there's a longer version that was used for some early releases, but was soon supplanted by a shorter cut and has since resurfaced only as an extra on the Japanese Blu-ray). Wouldn't be the first time Wong has been unaware of variant cuts—around the time of Ashes of Time Redux he expressed surprise that the Chinatown prints they dug up were a longer version of the movie (unfortunately I never saw any clarification if it was a unique cut or just the standard longer cut with the additional action sequences).

[hearthesilence]

Anyone defending this release in any way is the film world equivalent of QAnon

Spoken like a true pedophile! We're watching YOU! [hashtag]WWG1WGA[/hashtag]

[domino harvey]

*When We Go Wong We Go Kar Wai

[nostaljhia]

So what's the point of bringing up the quote about the lost footage/audio in the review if you're not going to bother to clarify what was cut short (if anything)? Isn't that the point of a site like DVDBeaver?