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Okay, I have been checking this thread sporadically for months and would be grateful for some advice about what would be the best options for home video ownership of WKW’s films in lieu of the Criterion box set. Currently, I own the Criterion blu-rays of Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love, and the Kino Lorber blu-ray of Happy Together. What versions of the other films in the Criterion box set are currently available in good home video editions? Region doesn’t matter, but North America would be preferred. Thank you!

Isn't there a UHD set forthcoming from a non-North American distributor coming soon-ish? That might be a nice in-lieu-of option if you're set up for 4K.

Isn’t it probably safe to assume the UHD set (from Nova Media, iirc?) has the exact same Wong-approved restorations as the Criterion set?

It's indeed from Nova and the masters are likely to be exactly the same. If Criterion couldn't undo these changes or include the original versions, it doesn't seem likely for Nova to be able to either.

Thanks for your responses. So what are the best editions of As Tears Go By, Fallen Angels, and Days of Being Wild out there? I’m not as interested in 2046...although Gong Li...

Nova recently said that they are no longer releasing UHDs or a box set, only individual Steelbook BDs, and cowboydan detailed options for other releases a while back.

Watched the new Fallen Angels last night. Certainly the most delightful film of 2021, at least so far. Less rough-and-tumble than the 1995 movie with the same title, to be sure, but also often even more dynamic and somehow more character centered. Anyone who's even remotely a Wong Kar-Wai fan should love it. Perhaps his best work!

I'm not sure what's real anymore.

senseabove wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 4:28 pm cowboydan detailed options for other releases a while back.

Note that I've prominently linked to cowboydan's recommendations in the first post of this thread

Happy Together is frustrating. The two-disc Japanese edition that's OOP may be the ONLY one that gets the look right (and not even on the main feature, it's the "bonus" version of the film), but there's no English subtitles.

senseabove wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 4:28 pm Nova recently said that they are no longer releasing UHDs or a box set, only individual Steelbook BDs.

Well, crap. I won't be able to resist buying the new Criterion set in that case. I have almost all of the best versions cowboydan listed, too. I just can't resist. It's an illness.

swo17 wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:48 pm

senseabove wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 4:28 pm cowboydan detailed options for other releases a while back.

Note that I've prominently linked to cowboydan's recommendations in the first post of this thread

Thanks for this information. It really helps.

One further question: When WKW’s films were on the Criterion Channel sometime in the past year, were those versions of the films unaltered? If they were untouched, then I think it would be a good idea for Criterion to put them back up in the near future. I don’t mind WKW’s urge to tinker with his films and would buy the box set if I could also easily access something close to the theatrical releases of the films.

Caps-a-holic has caps for Fallen Angels from this set, and like In the Mood for Love it looks like DNR has been applied. Blech. Every title in this reissue campaign may be a hard pass.

hearthesilence wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 5:33 pm Caps-a-holic has caps for Fallen Angels from this set, and like In the Mood for Love it looks like DNR has been applied. Blech. Every title in this reissue campaign may be a hard pass.

Just had a look and holy shit... what happened to Fallen Angels? When a 2010 Blu-ray easily beats your "4K restoration" in sharpness and grain reproduction...

Whilst Fallen Angels and In the Mood for Love are just ridiculous, Chungking Express at least looks vastly superior to the old disc.

I haven't gotten that far into the set yet and I'm not looking at their grabs for the time being, but in regards to grain could it be because the previous releases weren't scanned from the negative? I can't speak for Kino's Fallen Angels but I know the two previous Criterion titles didn't come from the negatives, meaning grain would look different (and they're older masters so they have some dated issues now) and the negatives' grain may be finer.

With As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild (the only two I've watched so far) grain looks very fine but there, rendered decently enough, and despite other issues I wouldn't say noise reduction is one of them, at least an excessive level. Despite everything else wrong with the set I have a hard time believing he'd go excessive on noise reduction on some titles but not others.

If you could see the screengrabs for Fallen Angels, there is just no visible grain. The entire picture looks soft, without definition. Chungking Express does have a tighter grain structure than on the previous Criterion release. Of course, in that case, the film is marred by the Fincher-style new color grading and, I presume, the gunshots behind the title sequence that cowboydan reported from the World of Wong Kar Wai screenings.

I was going to avoid this set on principle, in spite of the fact that I'd love blu-ray versions of The Hand and 2046, and I expected to feel bad about not actually having the set, like I was missing out. I didn't imagine there'd be these quality issues on top of the new creative decisions I hated. Now I really don't regret abstaining here. Many of these discs, it seems, are just not an improvement of any kind.

cdnchris wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:39 pm
With As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild (the only two I've watched so far) grain looks very fine but there, rendered decently enough, and despite other issues I wouldn't say noise reduction is one of them, at least an excessive level. Despite everything else wrong with the set I have a hard time believing he'd go excessive on noise reduction on some titles but not others.

Chris, do the transfer notes for first 2 films have WKW listed as a supervisor? I find it odd that they are the only 2 films not listed as "Director-approved" on the website.

Just to say about grain : it's common practice for Asian rightholders currently to request a DNRed picture. Labs are currently trying to educate the market but it's not easy. That's why some (many ?) recent remasters or restorations are clearly digitally fudged with, like the 4 Bruce Lees.

While the comparisons with older HD masters (made from intermediate sources on top of that) will make newer restorations look smoother because their grain field were thicker than they should be, it seems to me at least some of the new WKW restorations are indeed degrained. Especially if sourced from OCNs, they should display more high frequencies content, which doesn't look to be there anymore.

tenia wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:11 pm Just to say about grain : it's common practice for Asian rightholders currently to request a DNRed picture. Labs are currently trying to educate the market but it's not easy. That's why some (many ?) recent remasters or restorations are clearly digitally fudged with, like the 4 Bruce Lees.

While the comparisons with older HD masters (made from intermediate sources on top of that) will make newer restorations look smoother because their grain field were thicker than they should be, it seems to me at least some of the new WKW restorations are indeed degrained. Especially if sourced from OCNs, they should display more high frequencies content, which doesn't look to be there anymore.

The Film Formally podcast a while back interviewed a guy who does mastering for Shout and others, and he sort of scoffed at re-graining and mentioned the [highly acclaimed] Indiana Jones BDs as examples of bad jobs. I was a bit surprised, though he didn't go into details.

mhofmann wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:11 pm

hearthesilence wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 5:33 pm Caps-a-holic has caps for Fallen Angels from this set, and like In the Mood for Love it looks like DNR has been applied. Blech. Every title in this reissue campaign may be a hard pass.

Just had a look and holy shit... what happened to Fallen Angels? When a 2010 Blu-ray easily beats your "4K restoration" in sharpness and grain reproduction...

And check out the curvature on the left side of the image... is this a result of the new AR or some similar digital fuckery? I kinda like that distortion -- for this film.

yoloswegmaster wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:41 pm

cdnchris wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:39 pm
With As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild (the only two I've watched so far) grain looks very fine but there, rendered decently enough, and despite other issues I wouldn't say noise reduction is one of them, at least an excessive level. Despite everything else wrong with the set I have a hard time believing he'd go excessive on noise reduction on some titles but not others.

Chris, do the transfer notes for first 2 films have WKW listed as a supervisor? I find it odd that they are the only 2 films not listed as "Director-approved" on the website.

The booklet (after dealing with the absurdity of it and finally locating the restoration notes near the end) says Wong supervised all but the first two films. I find that interesting since it sounds like they were all done within the same project. I'm curious why he didn't overlook those two.

I do need to correct what I said earlier about As Tears Go By, though, as I did go back and find I had written a note along the lines of "filtered(?)" with more notes around banding, and revisiting a couple of scenes it's clear the image has been filtered/processed a bit, which might be what's leading to some of the banding in the shadows. Days of Being Wild is still pretty grainy and has the better, photographic look of the two. It's just really, really green, outside of two or three sequences (and on that note, I feel like pointing out that the alternate cut on here, scanned from a theatrical print, does show a slight green tint, it's just heavier in the new restoration).

cdnchris wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 1:26 am

The booklet (after dealing with the absurdity of it and finally locating the restoration notes near the end) says Wong supervised all but the first two films. I find that interesting since it sounds like they were all done within the same project. I'm curious why he didn't overlook those two.

Considering the fact that these 2 films are owned by Media Asia and not Wong himself, I wonder if Criterion just decided to not include him for the restorations for them after learning what he was doing to the films that he did own.

Given all the unfavorable comments on this set, can someone tell us why anyone should consider buying this set?

kekid wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 4:15 am Given all the unfavorable comments on this set, can someone tell us why anyone should consider buying this set?

This is the only in-print disc available for a lot of these films, so if you just want something you can walk in a shop and buy for a (semi) reasonable price and don’t care about the changes, I could see it being convenient. That said, I think most people posting here are probably willing to put in the work to find other releases should they so choose.

Other than that? Criterion fanboy completionism.