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Ribs wrote: Thu Mar 10, 2022 11:41 pm Janus is distributing Johnny To’s The Heroic Trio

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 5:25 am Saw the Heroic Trio restoration tonight. There's a card at the end stating that the restoration was done by Ritrovata with color grading by One Cool Production. I didn't see any evidence of the classic Ritrovata color signature and it looked pretty natural color-wise (well, as natural as a movie like this should look). I was a bit worried in the first scene that they'd gone too heavy on the grain management, but then that first scene is mostly set outdoors in broad daylight, so it occurred to me that there's no particular reason it should be grainy. As the movie transitions to more indoor scenes, it became obvious there's still plenty of grain, just very, very fine. And there's more obvious grain where it should be, e.g. slow-motion or optical effects shots, so I doubt there was much in the way of degraining done. To's movies aren't generally grainy anyway. The amount of detail is very impressive, maybe even excessive—like a lot of HK movies of the era, this wasn't terribly concerned with making sure all the fancy wirework was invisible to the camera, but I suspect there's some here that wasn't evident on 35mm, and it's also evident that at least a couple of stunt doubles are guys in drag.

The biggest letdown was the subtitles, which I'm pretty sure are just a slightly cleaned-up version of the original English subs, with awkward turns of phrase like "Is my face still looking good?" and "Let me get my stuffs first," plus an inconsistent approach to onscreen text (Chinese newspaper headlines with some bearing on the plot are left unsubtitled, but subtitles are provided for computer displays that are in English to begin with). If Criterion does release this I hope they take another pass at the subs, or redo them from scratch.

Finch wrote: Thu Apr 14, 2022 10:42 pm Do we know if Farewell My Concubine has had a restoration lately? (I couldn't find anything online) The film turns 30 next year so that would be good timing for Janus to tour a new print in the second quarter of 2023, followed by a Blu-Ray (which the US has not had this far).

beamish14 wrote:

Finch wrote: Thu Apr 14, 2022 10:42 pm Do we know if Farewell My Concubine has had a restoration lately? (I couldn't find anything online) The film turns 30 next year so that would be good timing for Janus to tour a new print in the second quarter of 2023, followed by a Blu-Ray (which the US has not had this far).

I'd love to finally have some of Kaige's films on Blu in North America. I don't know if it had a full-scale restoration, but I did see a new 35mm print of Yellow Earth some years back, and I keep hoping they can give that masterpiece the attention it deserves

Buttery Jeb wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 8:06 pm Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but according to Film Forum's website Janus Films now has Mai Zetterling's Loving Couples, Night Games, The Girls and Amorosa.

yoloswegmaster wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 4:44 pm Janus will be distributing the new 4K restoration of Jean Eustache's 'Le Mamain et la putain' later this year.

therewillbeblus wrote: Tue May 10, 2022 2:50 pm In case anyone who makes these decisions is listening, a pitch: This selling well + the raves for Yeoh’s latest film = some prioritized releases of Yeoh’s 80s work

FrauBlucher wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:36 pm Janus picked up a bunch of Mike Leighs'...

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Life is Sweet
Topsy-Turvy