DANGEROUS ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIRST KIND (1980, dir. Tsui Hark) 4K restoration, theatrical cut w/ retimed and improved English subtitles I OCR'd from the French 'HK Video' DVD:
A few options for viewing HARD BOILED (1992, dir. John Woo):
- the Hong Kong Rescue edition (with extras)
- the recent German Blu-Ray release
- the Taiwan Extended edition
Yesterday Once More (2004, dir. Johnnie To) 1080p w/ proper aspect ratio and English subs:
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, JOURNEY TO ITALY and OCEAN'S ELEVEN get channeled in one of the master's great and underseen Sammi Cheung and Andy Lau rom-coms.
BLUE MOON (1997, dir. Ko I-Chen):
A largely unknown experimental Taiwanese New Wave puzzle film, composed of 5 discrete sections playable in any order that produce 120 instances of the work.
Broken into parts, w/ hardcoded English subs.
Crisis Negotiators (2024, dir. Herman Yau)
An HK remake of F. Gary Gray's THE NEGOTIATOR (1998), with Lau Ching-wan and Francis Ng bringing classical heartfelt performances to an action joint that Yau commands well in the compact spaces the premise sets.
Wasn't aware of this Al-Jazeera documentary film until last night. It is one of the essential works of not only the year, but the century. Released on 21st June and with less 200,000 views, it is simply critical that it must be seen.
Coming up on four years since I completed my English subtitling/translation project for this King Hu rarity, ALL THE KING'S MEN (1983). The subs aren't perfect, but as there's no word of any sort of official release of this they'll have to do.
KAGEMUSHA (1980, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
Kurosawa's creation and presentation of an emergent cross class empathy between two shadows to the daimyō. Two cuts and you have it. Stunning.
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (1937, dir. Michael Powell)
The command this early work shows in its near ethnographic and impressionistic approach to the psychological and physical drama of a people and land's life at its terminus is stunning. Not to be missed.
The new Eureka 4K of THE VALIANT ONES (1975, dir. King Hu) is genuinely stunning!
Amazing that this masterpiece can be watched in this way after years of having only a measly DVD copy available. See this movie and take it beyond 1.1k logs on LB!
Having a look over the new 2024 Kino Lorber Roadshow Edition of Welles' MACBETH compared to the 2016 Olive Films Blu-Ray.
For one thing, the KL is certainly not as dark, but the cropping leaves a bit to be desired.
It was a rather shocking thing to bring that news to the public when I'd assumed it was only unknown to me. At any rate, ATTL&ATTD was an appropriate film to meditate on that news with. A film of beginnings and endings and the cycles of life. HHH will never die.
Saw this last year in the cinema with an intro from Tony Rayns that indicated Hou's retirement due to health reasons. I tweeted about that and soon ignited a press search for info that ended a couple of days later with Hou's family confirming that he had dementia.
@pocky_wagon
You are correct. It's the theatrical cut, so the censored version that played in HK cinemas. The DC is out there too, but will require effort to get viewable by more than just the French. lol
@strohltopia
@DanielGorman20
@HydraulicLord
I posted that. It's the HK censored theatrical cut (the Spectrum Blu calls it the "international version" for some reason). A frame rate change accounts for the difference in timing. The director's cut runs 1h 39m on their release and will feature 4K restored VHS footage.
@surgical_goofs
Turns out that 4K was not right, it's actually 2K. My bad. Haha
Looking into it. Need to remux the BR, re-encode the file and then figure out the subs when that's done. It'll take time.
@strohltopia
@DanielGorman20
@HydraulicLord
Here's a pic of the reverse of their packaging. They also misprinted their stock. The TC is on the DC disc and vice versa, in addition to the odd naming conventions. It's a strange release. lol
@realdealnumber1
Dunno, very few complaints like this and if I download again it plays fine. Maybe install or update K-Lite media pack to cover audio bases.