Imprint: The Cinema of King Hu

[swo17]

[Lowry_Sam]

THE CINEMA OF KING HU: VOLUME ONE (1965 - 1973)

TEN DISCS:

• Disc One: Sons of Good Earth (1965)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray

• Disc Two: Come Drink with Me (1966)
4K UHD
2160p Ultra high-definition Dolby Vision / HDR10 presentation on 4K UHD, restored from the original camera negative

• Disc Three: Come Drink with Me (1966)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray of the 4K restoration

• Disc Four: Dragon Inn (1967)
4K UHD
2160p Ultra high-definition Dolby Vision / HDR10 presentation on 4K UHD, restored from the original camera negative

• Disc Five: Dragon Inn (1967)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray of the 4K restoration


• Disc Six: Four Moods (1970)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray

• Disc Seven: A Touch of Zen (1971)
4K UHD
2160p Ultra high-definition Dolby Vision / HDR10 presentation on 4K UHD, restored from the original 35mm camera negative

• Disc Eight: A Touch of Zen (1971)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray of the 4K restoration

• Disc Nine: The Fate of Lee Khan (1973)
Blu-ray
1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray

• Disc Ten: Bonus Disc
Blu-ray
Brand NEW bonus content

[brundlefly]

Which would be exciting if there was any chance they were doing color correction. New Tony Rayns contributions, though.

[domino harvey]

Classic Imprint, bury one or two otherwise unavailable films in a giant box filled with stuff I have already (though obv a better deal if you care about UHDs)

[yoloswegmaster]

No idea who owns the rights to Four Moods, but Sons of Good Earth is with Shaw Brothers, which theoretically means that Arrow, VS, or Kani could release it here. They missed adding his first film (The Story of Sue San) to volume 1 though, which should have been available since it's also with Shaw Bros.

I wonder if the 4 hour documentary on King Hu will be added to the second volume. It was on that (very limited) WCL release of A Touch of Zen but I don't think it's been released elsewhere.

[Peacock]

I feel similarly to Domino here, hopefully someone in the West will release the missing titles over here. But I’m also very excited to see what Volume 2 contains beyond the obvious films…

And yes very odd Hu’s debut wasn’t included, maybe it doesn’t have an HD scan?

[Finch]

I'm passing on this. Imprint's asking price is exorbitant as usual and I've been predicting Criterion 4Ks of Zen and Dragon Inn for a while now, on top of already having the 88 UHD of Come Drink With Me and MoC's BD of Khan.

[Maltic]

Extras with a handful of critics/scholars I wasn't familiar with (Luke White, Victor Fan, Camille Zaurin, Tom Conliffe, Wayne Wong). Kudos again to Imprint for thinking outside of the box (the box being Rayns, Djeng and the usual martial arts dudes).

[Zot!]

Can someone briefly educate me on the ho-hum reaction here to the King Hu box? The "Imprint tax" I understand, but I don't own ANY of the existing discs, so is this meant for me, or should I wait for reviews to roll in?

[domino harvey]

I mean, if I didn’t own most of these I’d absolutely buy it (and I don’t care about UHDs, so I’d not even be paying more for discs I could conceivably utilize). I’m one of the biggest advocates for what Imprint does with regards to releasing films with copious extras, but they often use older masters, so the tech crowd is not always as enthusiastic.

[Maltic]

This is another thing I don't "get" about these boxsets. I would've thought people who aren't that familiar with King Hu would want to dip their toes in it at first with a few single releases instead of importing a 10 disc-set from Australia at the outset. OTOH, people who are fans will own a number of the films already and have use for only, like, half of those 10 discs...

[domino harvey]

I always think of that Patton Oswald joke about box sets. “I don’t own anything by the Allman Brothers. Now I own everything by the Allman Brothers.”

[Zot!]

Thanks, I get it now...In terms of older masters, since these are what I believe are some of the first 4k releases of these, I'll roll the dice...though I heard somebody complaining about the grading perhaps not being right, Ill look into it. I am a Hu dilletante, and he's kind of a gap in my otherwise pretty broad survey of world cinema. I feel like since I've watched everything by John Woo, Johnny To, Wong Kar Wai, Tarantino, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Tsai ming-liang, Ang Lee, etc, I owe it to myself to work backwards. I'd been avoiding it up till now because during the time of my most condensed movie watching (pre-kids), a lot of this early stuff from China/Hong Kong/Taiwan was sort of lost to time and hard to see in reasonable quality and undubbed.

I'll admit it's a bit ridiculous to dive in to the deep end, and I will cheat and watch the two Criterions before I commit to a two-parter box set party. At the same time, my collecting has moved from "building a cohesive media library" to "eclectic picks that are otherwise not easy to come by", so this kind of fits that remit. Like I love Sunset Boulevard, but I've seen it so many times I don't feel like I don't need to own it anymore. Yet I have two Mizoguchi box sets. I think part of what's driving this is moving closer to a reparatory cinema, and therefor downsizing what I watch at home.

[Zot!]

Sorry, last question...when I look at pre-ordering a box-set directly from Imprint in Oz, it's like 20 USD more expensive (before shipping) than if I pre-order the same through Orbit in US. Is this an anomaly, or typical?

[Lowry_Sam]

They order a single title in bulk so they probably get a discount over the label's own list price.

[Zot!]

They order a single title in bulk so they probably get a discount over the label's own list price.

Great thanks. I've never seen a discount for using an importer before, but that's great by me.

[Guido]

I'm just finishing a rewatch of King Hu's 60s-70s output and was literally just fantasizing about a potential Criterion UHD box set. I have no Imprint discs in my collection, but I'll be watching their upcoming box set closely.

[Yakushima]

King Hu set is up on OrbitDVD.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

No idea who owns the rights to Four Moods, but Sons of Good Earth is with Shaw Brothers, which theoretically means that Arrow, VS, or Kani could release it here. They missed adding his first film (The Story of Sue San) to volume 1 though, which should have been available since it's also with Shaw Bros.

Four Moods is with the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute, who released an English-subtitled Blu-ray in Taiwan. Eureka has probably licensed more titles from the TFAI than any other label in the Anglophone world, and given their track record with Hu I would expect them to be the likeliest source of another English-friendly edition. The Story of Sue San hasn't been released on Blu anywhere and it's possible that no HD master exists (the version streaming for free on the Shaw Brothers YouTube channel is 720p, but I strongly suspect an upscale).

[domino harvey]

Any reviews of the King Hu set yet?

[Zot!]

Any reviews of the King Hu set yet?

Nothing I have seen yet from an "legitimate" reviewer, but users report it is the same Criterion transfers that people find issue with concerning DNR and grading. Apparently the Carlotta set had some adjustments made, and might be preferable for those that don't need English. The rest of the titles are a mixed bag of masters in "best available" quality. To be honest this was pretty much what I had expected. Some BD caps

[Yakushima]

Any reviews of the King Hu set yet?

Nothing I have seen yet from an "legitimate" reviewer, but users report it is the same Criterion transfers that people find issue with concerning DNR and grading. Apparently the Carlotta set had some adjustments made, and might be preferable for those that don't need English. The rest of the titles are a mixed bag of masters in "best available" quality. To be honest this was pretty much what I had expected. Some BD caps

Very disappointing and a missed opportunity, but very on brand for Imprint. I am still buying the set for the more obscure films and the extras, but no more Imprint pre-orders for me going forward, no matter how sexy their announcements look!

[domino harvey]

I’m more interested in the extras (as is often the case for Imprint) and am debating whether to splurge on this, so I would love a report back on those when you receive your copy!

[Zot!]

Very disappointing and a missed opportunity, but very on brand for Imprint. I am still buying the set for the more obscure films and the extras, but no more Imprint pre-orders for me going forward, no matter how sexy their announcements look!

Not negating your complaints, but what was hoped for in this case? I'm not sure if we can really expect Imprint to better relatively recent Criterion and Eureka releases in terms of transfers. It's interesting that Carlotta made a special effort to adjust their two titles, and I have to admit it looks more natural, but I have no expertise on the topic of the grading of these films, other than internet outrage and my eyeballs preferring the tamed magenta cast.

[Yakushima]

I’m more interested in the extras (as is often the case for Imprint) and am debating whether to splurge on this, so I would love a report back on those when you receive your copy!

Absolutely, will do.