World of Wong Kar Wai

[therewillbeblus]

Change my mind: Criterion not including the original versions of these films is the biggest blunder in the history of the label. I hope sales are impacted enough to send a message about this kind of thing, though I fear the blind label lovers will just buy it regardless

I rarely engage in social media, but I've been reading through comments on various posts about this forthcoming sets for a few weeks, and I have yet to find a single one not blindly enthusiastic for the set, seemingly based off having seen or heard about one of these films before and choosing to blind-buy.

[soundchaser]

Change my mind: Criterion not including the original versions of these films is the biggest blunder in the history of the label. I hope sales are impacted enough to send a message about this kind of thing, though I fear the blind label lovers will just buy it regardless

It’s absolutely a travesty, and in a just world would do huge damage to the company’s reputation in the home video market. From a standpoint of preservation and access, it might be the worst major release all year.

I can’t believe this is the same Criterion that worked so hard to save The Apu Trilogy just a few years ago.

[Boosmahn]

Wait, what tinkering on the other films has been confirmed? I thought it was just Fallen Angels.

Happy Together had some scenes cut. More information can be found in the note from Wong Kar-wai a few pages back.

[swo17]

Wait, what tinkering on the other films has been confirmed? I thought it was just Fallen Angels.

See here

Danm... no Ashes of Time!?

It would only have been the Redux if they'd included it, so who cares

[The Pachyderminator]

Change my mind: Criterion not including the original versions of these films is the biggest blunder in the history of the label. I hope sales are impacted enough to send a message about this kind of thing, though I fear the blind label lovers will just buy it regardless

I hope so too, but on r/criterion, no one seems to see the problem, at least not seriously enough to not buy the set. I'm afraid that's probably more representative of the customer base than this forum.

[ftsoh]

Danm... no Ashes of Time!?

It would only have been the Redux if they'd included it, so who cares
[/quote]

But it complements Fallen Angels Redux and Happy Together Redux.

[dwk]

Change my mind: Criterion not including the original versions of these films is the biggest blunder in the history of the label. I hope sales are impacted enough to send a message about this kind of thing, though I fear the blind label lovers will just buy it regardless

As others have discussed, this is the peril that comes with all the benefits of working as closely with directors as they do; I doubt the company is the main culprit here.

Even more so when the director owns the films, as, even if you wanted to go behind the director's back and include the original cuts, you can't include stuff not approved by the licensor.

[Tuppence]

It also looks like Tony Rayns's commentary on Chungking Express and interview on the making of In The Mood for Love have been removed from this set.

[Boosmahn]

Change my mind: Criterion not including the original versions of these films is the biggest blunder in the history of the label. I hope sales are impacted enough to send a message about this kind of thing, though I fear the blind label lovers will just buy it regardless

I don't think followers of the label will be the only ones to pick this up: what will push people to buy this set (even if they are aware of the changes) is the fact that many of these films are not available separately. Hell, only one of them has an in-print Blu-ray release in the states!

If I had the previous Blu-ray releases of these films, this set would be an easy pass. But as it stands, if I want to watch the "untouched" films on Blu-ray, this is the best way to go.

[EddieLarkin]

Oh well, one can both send Criterion a message and still enjoy some of the positives this set has to offer by purchasing the UHD version from Novamedia instead (and, you know, enjoy the films in even better quality). Hopefully the specs for that release will be published soon.

[artfilmfan]

Simply Irresistible! I change my mind again about buying this set.

Oh, I’d say only including the tinkered versions qualifies this as quite resistible

I can perfectly understand the disappointments that people express regarding their favorite films being tinkered with. I would be, too. But for me, my reasons for buying this set might be different. I only want to have the newly restored version of Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild (here’s hoping that the image is not too dark), In the Mood for Love, and the two shorts. I’d rather buy the individual releases, not the whole set, if available.

[Finch]

As far as we currently know, As Tears Go By and Days Of Being Wild and (hopefully) 2046 have not been fucked with, right?

[domino harvey]

Unless I misunderstand the director’s statement, all of the films have new credit sequences

[Tuppence]

I suspect, given Criterion's past form, that their hands were severely tied once they entered into the licensing agreement, and didn't expect WKW to end up revising the films during the remastering process as extensively as he did. But this appears to be his baby, or at least have his total contractual approval - hence the otherwise inexplicable removal of Tony Rayns' valuable contributions to the two previous releases.

He's entered his George Lucas/William Friedkin phase - pointlessly reworking past glories as a "creative outlet" in lieu of new and exciting work.

[beamish14]

Wait, what tinkering on the other films has been confirmed? I thought it was just Fallen Angels.

See here

Danm... no Ashes of Time!?

It would only have been the Redux if they'd included it, so who cares

Don't worry, the Hong Kong Rescue Society will eventually give us the Ashes of Time we deserve

I take it Christopher Doyle had no involvement whatsoever with this box, correct?

[Finch]

Unless I misunderstand the director’s statement, all of the films have new credit sequences

Thanks, dom.

[Drucker]

If a ton of people hock their AE Blu-rays on Ebay after upgrading to this new set I'll be happy.

[MichaelB]

Even more so when the director owns the films, as, even if you wanted to go behind the director's back and include the original cuts, you can't include stuff not approved by the licensor.

Put it like this: there’s a reason why Arrow chose not to involve Michael Mann with their release of Thief, and why Vittorio Storaro wasn’t allowed anywhere near their restoration of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Although in both those cases neither man actually owned the film, so it was perfectly feasible to effectively go behind their backs.

[swo17]

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

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Unless I misunderstand the director’s statement, all of the films have new credit sequences

At least a couple of them (Chungking Express and Happy Together) already got new credit sequences for previous releases—at some point the Chungking credits were changed to replace the original black-on-white credits with more conventional white-on-black, and also to credit a bunch of personnel who weren't previously mentioned (the original credits were extremely abbreviated and only listed the top-line cast and crew). Happy Together similarly got a color change for the tenth-anniversary release, this time from white-on-red to white-on-black. Curious if he's gone back and redone these again, ideally putting back the original color scheme for Happy Together.

The lineup of extras on this is, besides being a massive letdown, kind of weird to boot. Wong and Rayns had a falling out so that might account for the elimination of his contributions to the earlier CC editions, but I'm less clear on why Wong was fine with including alternate cut for Days of Being Wild but not for anything else, or why Buenos Aires Zero Degree has been dropped despite appearing on most previous releases of Happy Together, including the DVD put out by Block 2 themselves.

[yoloswegmaster]

Buenos Aires Zero Degree has been dropped despite appearing on most previous releases of Happy Together, including the DVD put out by Block 2 themselves.

I'm pretty sure it's listed on the site as this:

Three making-of documentaries, featuring interviews with Wong; actors Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Chang Chen, Faye Wong, and Ziyi Zhang; and others

[hadyn]

Kudos to whoever called it here when they said 2046 would be included.

Curious what the “music videos” included are. Trying not to get my hopes up for a remastered DJ Shadow “Six Days”, sounds more like something involved with the films included.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Buenos Aires Zero Degree has been dropped despite appearing on most previous releases of Happy Together, including the DVD put out by Block 2 themselves.

I'm pretty sure it's listed on the site as this:

Three making-of documentaries, featuring interviews with Wong; actors Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Chang Chen, Faye Wong, and Ziyi Zhang; and others

You're probably right. I'm guessing one of the others is @In the Mood for Love and the third is the 2046 making-of from the Sony DVD.

I also just remembered that the 2012 feature on the In the Mood for Love soundtrack was done by Tony Rayns, so the puzzle of why his other contributions were removed remains unsolved.

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

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.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Curious what the “music videos” included are. Trying not to get my hopes up for a remastered DJ Shadow “Six Days”, sounds more like something involved with the films included.

One of them will almost certainly be this, which was included on some editions of In the Mood for Love but not, I believe, on the previous Criterion releases. There was another video to tie in with 2046 that I'm sure will be included as well.