On April 18, the 14th Beijing International Film Festival opened, and the new 4K version of "Plan A" and "Deed of Sale" premiered in the "Tribute to Restoration" unit. The 4K version of this screening is supported by the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" jointly initiated by the China Film Archive, Douyin, and Volcano Engine.
4K version of "Plan A" and "Deed of Sale" movie poster
"Plan A" and "Deed of Sale" were released in 1983 and 1978 respectively, more than 40 years ago. After completing 4K scanning in Hong Kong, the original negatives of the two films have undergone digital restoration at the China Film Archive, restoration by Volcano Engine's AIGC visual model technology, and art restoration by the two parties, finally achieving 4K effects in terms of clarity, smoothness, and color, bringing fans a different visual experience from the past.
Old movie "4K Refurbishment"
See the martial arts moves of more than 40 years ago
At the beginning of April this year, Jackie Chan just passed his 70th birthday. "Plan A" is directed by Jackie Chan and is Jackie Chan's first work nominated for the Golden Statue and Golden Horse Best Actor, and it is also his important masterpiece.
In the pre-screening event of "Plan A", Sun Rong, a veteran filmmaker who was the vice president of Jackie Chan China, shared with fans that Jackie Chan spent seven days filming the "famous scene" of jumping from the bell tower above 15 meters in "Plan A". The action scenes of this film combine elements of authenticity, juggling, and danger, and lay the foundation for Jackie Chan's classic style of comedy action films since then.
Sun Rong, founder of Dinosaur Pictures, former vice president of Jackie Chan China and vice president of Sparkle Roll Film and Television, shared before the screening
The well-designed martial arts movements of the family class are smoother and smoother with the blessing of intelligent frame insertion technology. There is a fight scene in "Plan A", Di Wei, who has fallen to the ground, faces Sammo Hung who is holding a big knife, and kicks the knife off and turns defeat into victory - this is actually not logical, how did Di Wei stand up and kick off the big knife in an instant? The volcano engine uses intelligent frame insertion technology to insert the middle value of the action predicted by AI between the two martial arts actions, which solves the mystery. Devie landed on the ground with both hands, ready to do a handstand, and then exerted force at the waist and twisted Sammo Hung's hands with his feet, Sammo Hung lost his strength and the big knife fell.
There are more scenes and prop details that the audience did not notice in their childhood, and they can finally be seen clearly on the big screen after 40 years. Jackie Chan plays "Ma Rulong" on the lifebuoy at home, with the words "Hong Kong Marine Police", and some street scenes in the film are filmed in Macau.
After the movie ended, a female viewer born in 1982 said that the first time she watched this movie of about the same age as herself, it was to watch the videotape rented by her father after school, and the picture quality ripped in her memory was not clear. ”
Jiao Xiongping, a film scholar, veteran film producer and screenwriter of "Yuen Lingyu", believes that the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" preserves these precious images, which is a meaningful work for cultural inheritance. "Maybe if you watch it again, you may wonder why you were so stupid when you were a child, why you liked such clips, or why you didn't see it back then, this movie is so good. "Watching an old movie is like having a conversation with her childhood, the past, and the present, and she says she welcomes any restoration.
The main creator walked into the restoration laboratory
"Secondary creation" also has artistic value
"Deed of Sale" is another masterpiece of the world premiere of the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" at the Beijing Film Festival. The film was the box office champion of Hong Kong films in 1978, and its director Hui Guanwen was the undisputed "king of comedy" in the Hong Kong film industry before the rise of Stephen Chow.
Hui Guanwen is good at understanding social psychology, and he uses the form of comedy to criticize society and reflect on human nature, giving Hong Kong comedy a new look. According to Su Tao, associate professor of the School of Liberal Arts of Chinese University, Xu Guanwen and Bruce Lee are the two superstars of Hong Kong film in the 70s of the 20th century, and their creations have influenced the face of Hong Kong films in the following decades.
The digitization and restoration of the film for "Deed of Sale" will be completed in 2024. The original footage was scanned in Hong Kong in 4K using an ARRISCAN scanner, and the sound restoration was derived from the preserved footage's 35mm hybrid soundtrack.
The traditional 4K restoration process of a movie is generally divided into three steps: physical restoration, digital restoration, and artistic restoration. The restoration team of the China Film Archive first physically restored the film itself, and then used a high-precision film scanner to convert the film into a 4K resolution data image file, and removed the traces left by time on the picture frame by frame to complete the digital restoration. Finally, the art restoration is carried out.
In order to ensure the "authenticity" of the film, the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" project team follows the restoration principle of "repairing the old as the old and respecting the original". In the digital restoration process, engineers used AI identification technology to reduce the restorer's repetitive work, optimize the clarity, smoothness, and color of the film, and remove imperfections.
The art restoration link, in order to "reproduce" the aesthetic style of Hong Kong films. The China Film Archive invited directors such as Chen Jiashang, Guan Jinpeng and Gao Zhisen to enter the restoration laboratory and complete the artistic restoration of films such as "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier", "Underground Love" and "Rich and Powerful" under the guidance of the main creators of that year.
Director Chen Jiashang (second from right) directs the restoration at the China Film Archive
Sun Rong mentioned that Jackie Chan thought that the light in the tunnel in "Flying Eagle Project" was not bright enough, and the team of "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" adjusted according to the opinions to make up for Jackie Chan's regrets in that year. Therefore, the "refurbished" 4K version not only has the value of technical preservation, but also has the artistic value of "secondary creation".
Engineer linkage fans
Explore the criteria for evaluating the quality of restored images
In addition to the restoration opinions of the film's creators, the subjective feelings of modern audiences are also an important part of the restoration plan. Chen Jiashang, director of "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier", once said that he hopes to make the film more modern and more acceptable to young people through the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project".
In January of this year, the Volcano Engine Multimedia Lab selected and recruited more than 50 professional movie fans, invited them to evaluate the 4K restored version of "Happy Ghost" online with different technical solutions, and explored more acceptable restoration image quality standards based on fan feedback.
With the deepening of the restoration work, the actual restoration problems have also contributed to the academic research of the Volcano Engine Multimedia Laboratory.
At CVPR 2024, the Volcano Engine Multimedia Lab team won the NTIRE (New Trends in Image Restoration and Enhancement) track. The main problem solved by this winning plan is how to repair the common problem of low quality in old films and other materials.
In addition, by introducing adaptive feature weighting modules, combining unsupervised learning and supervised learning, text semantic priors and other training methods, the Volcano Engine Multimedia Laboratory further optimizes the visual large model, and has achieved good results in several aspects such as extremely low image quality portrait reconstruction, color adjustment of faded film and generation of missing text strokes.
In the past, the film restoration process was complicated and tedious, and it took 1 month for an experienced restorer to complete the restoration of a film. In recent years, the rapid development of AI technologies such as deep learning has greatly improved the quality and efficiency of old film restoration.
With the wide application of AIGC visual large-scale model technology in more film and television scenes, Ma Kede, assistant professor of the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong, believes that this technology trend may become the mainstream of 4K film restoration in the future. ”