Private Best Video Awards 2019
A sentence written at the beginning: This article is written from 2019 to 2020, so the "this year" mentioned in the article should be regarded as 2019.
Another year has ended, and the shrinking market of dvDs has lasted another year. Under the large amount of streaming media, the sales of the video and video market are slowly declining, even if the launch of a new UHD format carrying 4K cannot stop this tide. On the other hand, the gradual niche of dvDs seems to have cultivated a new environment, and more and more disc friends have begun to be picky about configuration, which has also led to the emergence of more and more new independent labels, launching various unexpected niche films with high configurations.
No one can predict the future of the DVD market, so I'll look back! There are quite a few fine CDs released in 2019, and this year I plan to pick out some with two large parts, which I personally think are worth paying attention to.
Author: Fang Tianyu
EDIT: The past is like smoke
In the hearts of each disc friend, there are their own perennial attention to the disc label, and their selection of films and the choice of configuration are different. In this section, I've selected some labels that I personally feel have a good release resume this year, and that deserve discussion and attention. Of course, the selected labels should also be the ones that everyone is familiar with, after all, in the shrinking video and video market, there are only a few independent labels that can guarantee circulation.
1. Standard Collection
The Criterion Collection
As the big brother of an independent dvd label, standard collection CC still contributes a whole year of wonderful releases for fans and disc friends. Although in recent years, the distribution of CC has been questioned by many issues such as the mainstream of film selection, lazy cover design, and suppression of positive film quality, CC has still worked tirelessly to dig up unpopular masterpieces, rescue repairs, and contribute the world's best or even only DVD versions to many works, so that fans around the world can enjoy these masterpieces with the highest standards. So in this year's CC release, I think I can get the first one:
Godzilla: Showa series
Publisher: Standard Collection | Configuration: 8 BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-10-29 | Area Code: Lock Area A
CC has a blockbuster event this year, and disc friends have been gradually discussing since last year, that is, which movie number 1000 will be given. As the expected 1000th announcement of the month approaches, the discussion is more intense. I remember that at the beginning, there was gossip on Twitter, and the Showa series of Godzilla movies held by CC was about to be released in the form of a set, and then the set would enjoy the number 1000. After experiencing various official announcement delays, the suit was revealed in advance by the marketer's booking page, etc., the CC release number 1000 was finally announced, which is the "Godzilla" Showa series set.
I believe that the overall design of CC is still surprising to many people. CC fully understands the special place that this batch of works occupies in the history of film and the hearts of fans, although the original version of 1954 is a very serious work, but most of the works after the Showa series show the fun of close-up films of that era with a very exaggerated, even campy quality. Today, these works are more like cult movies that have become the cult of specific fans, and CC's design fully demonstrates this quality.
In terms of the actual configuration of the DVD, CC did its best to bring in multiple versions of 15 movies, all of which were high-definition transcription sources provided by Toho and equipped with LPCM lossless mono audio tracks in original Japanese. Except for the first "Godzilla" that copied the tidbit configuration of the previous CC release, the other films did not provide much tidbits, but it was reasonable.
In addition to the Japanese version of "King Kong vs Godzilla", a separate tidbit disc also carries an old interview with Honta Inoshiro for nearly an hour, a TV show about the creation of a series of close-up effects, and a lot of old or newly recorded interview tidbits, which can also be regarded as rich in content.
Then the next thing to say about some regrets and deficiencies of this set, first of all, the packaging, the whole set is designed as a large open book, which not only leads to storage difficulties, but also because the open book makes the overall content become very thin, making people feel less comfortable than the smaller and thicker open book. The second is the disc number arrangement, which is also a consistent problem of CC, and the previous "Ten Commandments", unlike Arrow out of this kind of set will ensure the bit rate of the positive film and increase the number of discs, CC seems to have been following the principle of less, low the bit rate so that a disc can put more positive content.
This time, in addition to the first disc copy of the previous 54 editions of Godzilla and the eighth disc as a tidbits disc, it is equivalent to 14 movies in the remaining six discs, each containing two or three films. But fortunately, the suppression of CC this time does not seem to have any major problems, and the scanning quality of the film sources provided by These works Toho itself is not good, so it does not have a great impact on the picture.
Yes, the most fatal flaw of this set is the film source that Toho is willing to provide. First of all, this batch of sources are relatively early scans, which may have been completed ten years or even earlier, and the quality does not seem to be the kind of meticulous repair, but fortunately there is no serious DNR or digital post-processing. However, the first 54 version of Godzilla and "King Kong vs Godzilla" have actually done new and meticulous 4K restorations after Toho.
And these two are also exactly the two more problematic old scanning sources: the 54th edition of "Godzilla" because of the quality of the scanned intermediate film, a large number of scratches, shaking, flickering and other issues have not been solved, and the new 4K repair has more or less improved these problems; "King Kong vs Godzilla" Problem is even greater, when the original scan there was a whole disc of intermediate film negatives were not found, and finally replaced by the material amplification of the standard definition mastering, and the 4K repair is to find the complete negatives for scanning and repair. However, Toho has always been fascinated by the release of these new 4K restorations, and like the 4K restorations of "Seven Samurai", these two newly restored Toho films themselves have not been released in Japan, and have only been broadcast on WOWOW TV.
According to CC's later response, it is clear that Toho is unwilling to license the new repair sources of these two parts to distribute DVDs, and only gives the early batch of high-definition scanning sources. This should be why CC finally put the American version of "King Kong vs Godzilla" provided by Universal as the main feature film on the main film disc, while the Japanese version of the positive film was only carried as a tidbit. At the same time, because of Toho's requirements, CC also had to give up the Inclusion of some movies in English dubbing, it seems that Toho is still very closed to many of its own material licenses.
Although so many problems have led to the release of this supposedly strongest Showa Godzilla set, it is still a rare release that has been able to assemble these films for so many years at a reasonable price and (can achieve) rich configuration to release such a set for the benefit of fans around the world.
*Special Mention:
Until the end of the world
Publisher: Standard Collection | Configuration: 2 BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-12-10 | Area Code: Lock Area A
I remember that in 2015, the news came out that CC won the copyright of Wenders's very special work, and it was also a complete version of the director's clip of 4K restoration, and the CC's official website added an entry for this film that year, but there has been no further movement in the next four years. CC already has a lot of projects that are so confirmed but do not know when to release, and this can be finally released at the end of this year is also a wish for disc friends and fans.
For such a long-awaited work, CC is also unslack in configuration, and the nearly five-hour director's cut version of the film is divided into two segments and placed in two BD50 discs to ensure the high bit rate of the main film. The positive film is derived from a 4K restoration scanned from the original negative, and the picture quality is perfect, presented in a complete original format of 1.66:1, which is more than the previous DVD screen. The audio track presents a 5.1 mix in DTS-HD MA specifications.
In addition to the high-quality transcription of the repair of the positive film, CC is also not stingy about the tidbits, which are new and old distributed in the two discs, and the total length has reached three hours. In addition to the old deleted footage and interviews, the new tidbits include a new introduction and interview with Wenders, a new interview with David Byrne, and the most precious of which should be a one-hour Japanese program that details the filming of digital HD passages in the film. As a pioneer in digital filming, this film is really rare to include in this show.
2. Shadow of the Arrow
Arrow (Arrow Video & Arrow Academy)
In 2019, Arrow Shadow still continues its own growing trend, with its two series Video and Academy going hand in hand, and B-grade literature and art at both ends. As a rising star who made his fortune as a B-grade film, compared with CC, its selection and distribution do not have so many concerns and restrictions, which brings diversification in hair.
At the same time, unlike Kino, the amount is too large or the distribution is muddy, and Arrow Shadow will still do its best in the configuration of the film source and tidbits for each of its own distributions. What I think is the best Arrow Release this year is:
Revenge trilogy
Publisher: Arrow Shadow | Configuration: 4 BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-10-07 | Area code: Lock area B
The birth of Arrow's Revenge Trilogy is really tortuous, so let's start from scratch. In May, Arrow's August release list featured The Old Boys' all-new 4K restored three-disc deluxe edition. According to the configuration announced by the set, the content of the three discs is basically a full transplant of the super massive tidbits of the 2K new restored version released by the Platinum Archive in 2016, while bringing a new 4K repair positive film.
Not long after the news was sent, the Plain Archive issued a statement saying that only Arrow's new documentary "Old Time", some old tidbits and some commentary tracks were licensed, and that the excess massive interview content and film critic comment tracks were not authorized. After months of silence, Arrow finally unveiled the revised configuration, removed the copyright-defiled interview and review track content, recorded a new english film critic's review track, and hired Tony Rayns, a film critic familiar to the disc friends, to record a new video introduction.
Therefore, the number of discs of "Old Boy" was also one less, but Arrow rushed to bring "I Want Revenge" and "Kind Gold", directly turning the originally planned deluxe version of "Old Boy" into a luxurious set of "Revenge Trilogy".
The changed "Revenge Trilogy" set drawing still retains the design of the separate "Old Boy"
Of course, the changed set retains the most important core content of this wash: the new 4K restored version of The Old Boy scanned from the original negatives. There is a restoration tidbit in the Plain Archive version, which tells that "Old Boys" used different printing techniques in order to achieve special contrast and color when printing, and digital color grading could not achieve this effect, so it chose to use the middle piece for scanning repair.
As a result, three years later, Arrow issued a 4K restoration version of this also supervised and scanned from the original negatives, which can be said to have crushed the intermediate film restoration released by the Previous Platinum Archive in all aspects such as picture detail, color reproduction, film particle fineness, etc. In any case, The Arrow set can be said to be the best picture quality for "Old Boys" at present. (Of course, the German Capelight has just released the 4K UHD of "Old Boy" in these months, using the same original negative 4K repair source, but unfortunately there are more positive film compression problems, and the particles are compressed significantly)
German Capelight edition UHD
Compared to the well-planned Old Boys, the other two parts of the trilogy seem to be made up (and indeed they are). The tidbits of both films only brought the old production specials and commentary soundtracks, and there was no new production, but "Kind Gold" still brought the release version of the color and the faded version of the color double version of the main film. It's just a pity that both films have already had a new 4K restoration made by CJ Entertainment, but this time they are all old HD transcription sources.
Although there is not much of a picture problem itself, the sharpness of this transcription has long been unable to meet the fans. Perhaps Arrow's original plan was to release the new restoration of "Old Boy" first, and after success, he went to talk about the remaining two 4K restoration sources, but when he encountered the loss of the tidbit copyright, he had to take the other two with the old source for release in only a short time. No matter what, the current suit still has regrets.
Finally, like most of Arrow's limited editions, the Old Boy's "Revenge Trilogy" set has been sold out, and if there are disc players who want to buy the set, they can choose the new set version released in December, which is only less booklet content and poster than the previous version.
In December, the new design of the "Revenge Trilogy" set was re-arranged, missing the booklet and poster
Khrushtarev, drive!
Publisher: Arrow Shadow | Configuration: BD50 |
Issue Date: 2019-04-30 | Area Code: District-wide
In 2015, Arrow included Alexei Germain's posthumous work", "God Is Hard", which was released in its own Arrow Academy series, and the Arrow version is still arguably the best version of the film. It was this film that made me interested in German's work, but unfortunately his other works were not released in Blu-ray. No one expected that in the end, Arrow was out of the horse! Arrow was personally responsible for The German's Khrushtarev, Drive! " has a new 2K restoration, and with rich tidbits launched Blu-ray.
Arrow used the film's remake material for 2K scanning and repair, with the usual sophisticated pressing, and the final picture is very beautiful. The 1.37:1 black and white picture in the original frame is full of tension, although not as detailed as the original negative, but enough to allow the small details in the picture to be captured by the audience. The soundtrack has always been accompanied by a lossless original 2.0 mix in LPCM specifications.
For such a complex film in all aspects, Arrow is also full of real material in the tidbits section: first a producer's commentary track that provides some wonderful background information; then a video essay by a filmologist about the Germanic experience; then a tidbit analyzing the film and the historical background; and two interviews/documentary tidbits that the director received before his death, the total length of the tidbits is more than two and a half hours, which is extremely rare.
Of course, with the DVD also has a 56-page booklet, which contains many articles and film reviews, Arrow also made a limited package for this film, which also shows the importance attached to this film. I hope that Arrow will be able to restore and blue more Germanic works in the future.
3. Acetic acid syndrome
Vinegar Syndrome
The company of Acetate Syndrome (hereinafter referred to as VS) has also become more and more courageous in the DVD market in recent years, and its model is somewhat similar to Arrow's bigger. VS started out as a focus on restoring and releasing erotic and adult films of the last century, occasionally making ultra-low-budget or long-forgotten horror films. It is the shrinking of the DVD market that has led to a more amplified impact on the purchasing power of certain types of enthusiasts.
And this kind of adult film, like B-grade films and cult movies, has a loyal fan base. They are basically willing to support the purchase of anything, Arrow is bigger because of B-grade films, vs can be said to be because of adult films. VS grew so big that it even launched its first 4K UHD release at the end of this year , The Ever-Changing Jurassic. The biggest difference between VS and other homes may be that almost all the films produced by VS are repaired by themselves, which is not easy. In recent years, VS films have long been diversified, such as the amount of B-grade horror films has even exceeded that of adult films.
The Ever-Changing Jurassic
Like Arrow, VS has begun to consider fixing and releasing some unpopular art films. In 2015, VS launched a new disc series called Etiquette Pictures, which specializes in releasing art films, experimental films and documentaries. Unfortunately, it is estimated that the sales are not good, and after only four works were released, there was no movement, and the series was cancelled. But VS did not give up, but the release of these genres was directly included in the VS series. Since last year, from time to time, some works that may have been forgotten but are very important will be excavated, restored and then released. And in this year's vs release, the best I chose is this cult classic:
Ten thousand ghosts and horrors
Publisher: Acetic acid syndrome | Configuration: 2 BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-11-29 | Area Code: District-wide
"In the 80s when strange films came out, "Ten Thousand Ghosts" can also be regarded as the most bizarre kind", VS's promotional words for this film can immediately capture all the fans who eat this kind of film. In fact, "Ten Thousand Ghosts" is indeed because of its magical and chaotic filming history, and has developed its own loyal fan group under the accumulation of time. The film began with a horror film called Twisted Souls for the two original directors, but after the film was completed, the producers felt that they wanted something different, so they hired a new director and crew to shoot a completely new content, trying to use the newly shot pictures to stitch together a new movie with the pictures of Twisted Souls. The final result is "Ten Thousand Ghosts", a weird B-grade film.
TWO DIFFERENT COVER VERSIONS THAT VS RELEASED AT BLACK FIVE PROMOTION
Like most VS releases, "Ghost in the Shell" has also received the top treatment of the original negative 4K scan repair, presented in the original 1.85:1 format, with the usual high-code pressing, showing the beauty of the film texture. A large number of night scenes in the film are also completely undisturbed by the compressed color blocks. The soundtrack is equipped with a DTS-HD MA with 96kHz sampling, encapsulating the original 2.0 mix. But of course, these configurations are all commonplace for VS, and if that's all there is to it, I certainly wouldn't have voted this one the best of the year for VS, so the highlight of this disc is still on the tidbits.
Tidbits may be considered the weaker aspect of VS, many times a movie is only equipped with one or two short tidbits, but for "Ten Thousand Ghosts", it actually did a single-film double disc treatment. First of all, in addition to the feature film, the first disc carries some regular bits and pieces, including the introduction and post-screening of the screening event, the old filming location tidbits, deleted clips, trailers and photo albums.
The second disc of solo tidbits is the most important, and it can even be said that it is more informative than the restoration of the main film, because the second disc carries two documentaries that add up to nearly four hours! The first is the 100-minute Twisted Story, which details the chaotic but magical behind-the-scenes production storm of "Ten Thousand Ghosts". It can be seen that many of the participants in the original version were disgusted with the producers who later intervened. At the same time, the documentary is also equipped with its own commentary track and deleted clips. This is followed by a 132-minute documentary, VIPCO: The Untold Story, detailing the rise and fall of VIPCO, a British home-based audiovisual company.
"Ten Thousand Ghosts"
"Ten Thousand Ghosts" is one of the masterpieces produced by VIPCO, and the producer Michael Lee, who decided to remake Twisted Souls into "Twisted Souls" mentioned earlier, and was hated by many original participants, is the director of VIPCO. The tidbits also carry additional Michael Lee interviews. The content contained in these two documentaries can be described as very exciting, even if you find that you have no appetite after watching the positive film, it is recommended to open the tidbits to find out.
Outsmart Tiger Mountain
Publisher: Acetic acid syndrome | Configuration: BD50 + DVD | Issue Date: 2019-07-02 | Area Code: District-wide
As mentioned in the previous introduction, in the past two years, VS has begun to re-excavate some unpopular artistic and experimental works, and restore them to the fans. Both last year's "Good Friends" and this year's "Partney Swopp" are works that deserve to be re-recognized. Among these genres, I would like to single out this more experimental "Outsmarting Tiger Mountain" to talk about.
Tiger Mountain also has an extremely magical behind-the-scenes story, and originally director Kent Smith used the remaining black-and-white film on the set of "Lenny's Story" to shoot a feature film, but the film was not completed and the project was abandoned.
All of the filming was sold to another director, Tom Huckabee. Tom Huckabee was trying to make a very ambitious widescreen 35mm film, and was even lucky enough to get William Huckabee. S. Burroughs licensed the adaptation (for only $100, Burroughs gave Huckabee the right to adapt his novel Blade Runner, the novel that Ridley Scott later bought the title of the book to use as the title of Blade Runner), so he used the film of the discarded project, found someone who could read lips to make up the lines according to the picture (because the sound material of the previous project was completely lost), and added his newly produced paragraphs. This is the result of this weird and magical underground experimental work.
"Outsmarting Tiger Mountain"
Like many underground films, the film has not been officially released in the decades after its completion, and the copies that can be seen are extremely difficult to find, and only a very poor quality pirated video tape can be found. Finally, 35 years later, VS rediscovered this peculiar work and carried out a 4K restoration, making it appear to the audience for the first time in its original posture.
VS uses the usual BD50+ DVD dual format configuration, the positive film is presented to the audience in the original 2.39:1 widescreen format high code, 4K scanning brings incredible detail to this previously videotape version of the work, of course, because of the film's own creative process, many scratches and shakes of the negative film are not perfectly repaired, but it does not affect the viewing too much. Soundingly, dtS-HD MA original 1.0 mono tracks are consistently recorded at 96kHz.
In terms of tidbit configuration, the first dvd carries a new version of the 2019 production of the film. This version is only 75 minutes long and is a new version of director Tom Huckabee in 2019, with modern visual effects and sound effects. Both the original version and this new version come with the director's introductory tidbits. It also features two nearly 50-minute Huckabee interviews, one focused on behind-the-scenes shooting and the other on the production of the new version in 2019. VS also carries a short film by Kent Smith, Interviews with Welshmen.
4. Indicator series
Indicator Series (Powerhouse Films)
The development of independent dvd labels in the United Kingdom in recent years is very interesting, such as one of the former big guys, Eureka, after experiencing a recession, seems to have "revived" with a series of Hong Kong film releases, while various rookies have gradually risen, providing disc friends with a variety of styles of film choices. The indicator line under Powerhous is arguably the most striking of the new rise, a franchise created by employees who quit other big labels, and since late 2016, it has gradually occupied its own market and distribution strategy. The indicator series went from the big Hollywood manufacturers to find licensing, and specially distributed those big manufacturers who did not care about releasing DVDs, but they were valuable works. This distribution strategy coincides with the North American Twilight Times series, but the indicator series does not take the high-price limited route like TT, and TT often does not have any tidbits configuration, but the indicator series is very attentive to the tidbits and will record new content.
Poster of Miss Shanghai
From the early days such as "Miss Shanghai" and "Pink Killing Night", the best DVD version on the market was directly launched with the high-quality restoration carried out by the studio with a large number of tidbits. Although after the release of more films, from time to time limited by the old film sources provided by the studio, the picture quality is not able to carry out their own new restoration like CC or Arrow, but the wide range of one-sidedness is indeed a blessing for more fans and disc friends.
Not to mention two blockbuster suits from this year's indicator series, Norman S. J. Warren's horror set "Bloody Terror: The Shocking Cinema of Norman J Warren, 1976-1987", and Marlene Dietrich and Joseph von Sternberg's six-piece set at Paramount, competed with the CC set.
In the case of six identical films presented with the same restoration source, the indicator with more luxurious packaging, better positive film pressing, and different but also the same large number of tidbits configuration, it can be said that not only does not lose CC, but even in many disc friends psychology is better. Of course, if you want to choose the most recommended of these releases this year, you still have to choose this set:
The last movie
Publisher: Powerhouse Films | Configuration: BD50 |
Release Date:2019-01-21 | Area Code: District-wide
Dennis Hopper's "The Last Film" has always been remembered as a catastrophe in the history of cinema, with chaotic shooting, inexplicable filming, bad reviews, and finally disappearing before the public eye, and even a complete version can not be found. Dennis Hopper still considers the film to be one of his best works and has tried his best to get it re-released. Finally, eight years after Hopper's death, arbelos, a new restoration distributor, completed the restoration of the original 4K scan negative, giving the film a chance to be re-evaluated by fans.
A Blu-ray version released by Arbelos in North America
But Arbelos' Blu-ray release has always had a fatal problem, and its family's positive film suppression has been criticized, and even the problem of large areas of serious color blocks in the Blu-ray of "Rose's Funeral". Although the pressure disc of "The Last Movie" is not so serious, it still makes disc friends hesitate, and the result is that the indicator series directly came out and represented the British version of Blu-ray distribution. With a series of consistent high-quality pressing to present the film particle state of 4K repair, and equipped with a luxurious configuration of a hard box and thick booklet, equipped with a wealth of tidbits, it can be said that it has directly made the best version in the world.
The British blu-ray of the indicator series also comes with an 80-page booklet and a poster
The British version of Blu-ray presents a 4K restored version of the original film with high-code compression, which is more complete and natural than the particles of the American version of film, the overall picture fineness is satisfactory, and the audio track carries a lossless original mono with LPCM. The tidbits are rich, starting with old archival content, including introductions recorded by Hopper during his lifetime, audio interviews, production of promotional videos, and television programs. Among the newly configured tidbits, in addition to a piece of restoration comparison, the first is the half-hour-long documentary "Postcard from Peru", which was filmed at the location of the year and interviewed many people involved in the production.
Of course, the most important is the documentary "Lost Shots" by Alex Cox, the director of "The Seeker" and "Sid and Nancy", which is 48 minutes long and interviews with a large number of people involved in the production of the film (some of whom are now dead), trying to restore the story behind the chaotic shooting of that year, which is worth watching.
The North American version of The American Dreamer blu-ray released by Etiquette Pictures
Finally, as an aside, the post-editing moments of "The Last Movie" were recorded by a documentary called "American Dreamer", which was also due to various copyright reasons, and has not been allowed to be officially released after filming, and even once suspected of being permanently lost. In 2015, a new 2K version was restored by the aforementioned Etiquette Pictures, a new 2K version was restored from the few copies that had been badly faded, and Blu-ray was released. It is highly recommended that this film be viewed in conjunction with "The Last Movie", and the story in front of and behind the scenes is equally wonderful.
In addition to the distribution of those key distributors, the diversification of independent DVD distributors has also brought more selectivity, whether it is the taste of the distribution work, or the choice of configuration, the next part I will select some of the 2019 worthy of attention through the film or the configuration itself.
1. Old Chinese films
Old Chinese films have shown a gradual explosion in the disc market in recent years. Since several works repaired by Starry Sky and Bologna have detonated the disc market, many companies have come forward to seize the licensing of Hong Kong films. For mainland films, the gradually growing disc media has also tried to open up a new way in the desert market of the mainland, bringing many precious Blu-ray distributions to fans and disc friends. Old Chinese films, on the two huge issues of material and copyright, have many strange problems that everyone can imagine and that everyone may not think of, resulting in a passable audio and video distribution is extremely rare. But this year there are still many wonderful and rare Blu-ray releases, and among them, I have selected the most memorable ones:
Horse thieves
Publisher: Disc Media | Configuration: BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-02-22 | Area Code: District-wide
Disc Media announced five classic films that would be released early last year, but for various reasons, only one "Red Sorghum" was released last year. But "Red Sorghum" can be described as a hit, which also makes the disc more experienced and confident in the release of the next few films, and finally released the remaining four Blu-ray in turn within this year, and also made a batch of simple editions for disc friends who have not bought a limited edition.
Among them, the release of "Horse Thief" is the most precious. In my opinion, "Horse Thief" belongs to a purely audiovisual-led work, and in the mainland films of the 1980s, it is really rare and rare to be able to create such a sentimentally dominated work. But because of this, "Horse Thief" was coldly received when it was released that year.
For this reason, I think that the picture and sound of "Horse Thief" are extremely important, but for many years, only the quality of dvd circulation was too poor to watch, coupled with poor temporary Chinese dubbing, making "Horse Thief" once again misunderstood by many viewers. Therefore, the high-definition Blu-ray release of "Horse Thief" is also the first batch of five blue-washed blues of Western Film, which I am most looking forward to. And if I had to choose the annual release of the four films this year, I would definitely choose "Horse Thief" as well.
Disc Shadow uses a 2K restoration version of the film source provided by The Western Film Studio, as we all know, the archive carried out a new 4K restoration of "Horse Thief" last year, and since I have seen both versions of the restoration, then let's talk about the excellent difference between the two versions. The repair of the Western Film Studio belongs to the earlier batch, using the old batch of scanners for scanning, so the sharpness of the details is obviously not as good as the effect of the new scan, and there are still many dirty scratches in the whole film that have not been repaired.
Compared with the scan of the archive, it is obviously better in details such as sharpness and brightness, but the library's 4K repair, in addition to the wordless 48fps software reframe, has two fatal problems on the screen. First, some of the picture was heavily DNR processed, the native film particles were erased very badly, and even the picture looked like it was pasted together, and the advantages of 4K scanning were completely destroyed.
However, at the same time, many lens particles are retained very intact, and the overall texture is particularly comfortable, which can only be suspected that different people have different ideas about different lens processing. The second is the color grading of the picture, and the two versions have to be compared to each other. First of all, let's talk about a scene calibrated by the archive, and there is a scene near the end that should be a night play according to the script and the script. At that time, the shooting was day and night, shooting during the day and then preparing to make a night effect when it was post-printed. However, when the Western Film Studio was repairing, it should not have proofread the stage book one by one, and directly repaired the scene to the color of the day according to the appearance of the negative.
When the museum was restored, it found this problem and then adjusted the color back to the effect of the night scene. However, the overall color tendency repaired by the archive is very strange, the color is very uncomfortable as if it is deliberately dimmed, and the brightness of the whole film is also adjusted to be eerily dark, and I wonder if it is tuned out with reference to the quality of the film copy color.
In contrast, although the color tone of the Western Film Studio is excessively gorgeous, there are also excessive lenses with contrast pulling, but if it is compared with the color of the archive, I am personally more able to accept the restoration of the Western Film Studio. Then for the picture quality in the DVD, it is still the Hong Kong Jiayao Company with rich experience in disc making that suppresses this Blu-ray for the disc, and the high-quality pressing plus the high bit rate presentation ensure the most perfect presentation of the material provided by Western Film. Although this repair is still far from perfect, it can be said that it is the best quality "Horse Thief" that can be seen now.
For the soundtrack, "Horse Thief" was filmed in Tibetan that year, and the post-dubbing was also carefully matched with a Tibetan version. However, because of the requirements of the film distribution policy in that year, the film distribution needed to be presented in Mandarin, and finally had to be dubbed in a relatively bad Mandarin within a very hurried time. That Mandarin dubbing has also become the only version that everyone has seen over the years. However, when the film was sold overseas, there were copies of the Tibetan version sold, and it was precisely because of this that the Tibetan version survived. Last year, France donated a copy of the Tibetan version of "Horse Thief" to the China Film Archive, which also restored the sound, with the previous 4K picture restoration, and made a Tibetan version of the 4K restoration DCP.
However, this Tibetan language repair of the library has a big problem, because "Horse Thief" is processed by the original immature mix and preservation reasons, the undiscored background noise must be very large, and this film has a large number of paragraphs without dialogue and not too many sound effects, according to the library's consistent forced noise reduction method, which will definitely lead to a large amount of time basically becoming muted. I suspect that in order to cover up this problem, the archive has made a new remix of the whole film.
But this mix is extremely bad, first of all, a lot of new modern sound effects have been added, including many outdoor shots with new bird background sounds, river shots with new water flow sounds, new horseshoe sounds, etc., which can be immediately recognized as a newly recorded sound, which is completely incompatible with the recording of that year, very dramatic.
And the original mono sound plus effect is mixed into different channels on the left and right to simulate stereo sound, but it is very rough, such as the previous scene retains the middle mono sound to the next shot cuts into a mixed left and right channel, and there is no transition processing in the middle, but hard cut. Because the sound between the original audio tracks is a superimposed transition, the current mix processing feels that the sound suddenly jumps from the middle to the left and right, and there is even a scene where the left and right channel time of the separation plus effect is staggered by a few seconds.
The most obvious thing in the whole film is the scene of receiving water in the temple, the whole scene adds a layer of bird calling background sound, and then the soundtrack of the movie only cuts out a few frames of sound that drips down each drop of water, but the dripping sound itself carries the film bottom noise, and the result becomes a bottom noise without bottom noise effect. Compared with the unaccustomed color tendencies on the screen, this kind of mix has a greater impact on the viewing of the film.
Fortunately, the blu-ray of the disc shadow was otherwise included in a Tibetan audio track, although the background noise is obvious, but this track has not been processed to change the original appearance, and the noise floor and instability caused by various reasons will not be uncomfortable at all. This Tibetan audio track, which was also re-obtained many years later, includes the original mono in LPCM's lossless format. At the same time, there is also a Chinese audio track repaired by Xiying itself, which is also recorded in LPCM mono, but Xiying's own repair is relatively bad, and the forced noise reduction leads to the loss of details, and even the dialogue has been eliminated by noise reduction.
For the tidbits, the disc is still looking for an old friend of Asian movies, Tony Lane. The first is to carry an old tidbit, a three-minute introduction made by Tony before the screening of the British television station "Horse Thief" in 1988, including the picture of Tian Zhuangzhuang that Tony interviewed that year. Secondly, Tony made a new talk about this set of DVDs, and in the 41-minute film "Film for the Next Century", he told the background, production and the film itself about "Horse Thieves".
In the limited edition of the disc release, with postcards and reproductions of the film completed the stage book, there is also a booklet containing the "Horse Thief" debate conducted that year, and various experts and Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Rui (the screenwriter of the film) had a very wonderful discussion.
Under the current circumstances, it is extremely rare that the Blu-ray of "Horse Thief" can be launched in such a configuration as it is now, and it feels like watching a new film with a newly restored picture with the original Tibetan audio track. If you are interested in this Blu-ray, the lite version of the disc shadow later should still be in stock, and you can consider starting one.
Crazy robbery
Distributor: Hong Kong Film Archive | Configuration: BD25 |
Release Date: 2019-02 | Area Code: District-wide
Hui Anhua's directorial debut "Crazy Robbery", as one of the important works of the Hong Kong New Wave, has only been seen for many years with very poor quality deleted copies. The new 2K restored full version launched by the Hong Kong Film Archive has also gone through many difficulties to achieve.
Hu Shuru, the producer of "Crazy Robbery", and his son Hu Xi donated an 80-minute cut version of the SD Betacam master tape to the Hong Kong Film Archive in 2011 in the name of the Hong Kong Film Company. The following year, Houthy donated to the archive a batch of 9 color 35mm films without sound tracks, which added up to a total length of about 88 minutes, except for a slight missing beginning and end, and the overall quality was ideal. After receiving a license from the Hong Kong Film Company in 2015, the restoration of "Crazy Robbery" officially began.
The main image comes from 35mm film, and the sound is based on a complete VHS video tape donated by Liu Lan in 2010 as the main source for restoration. The missing beginning and end of the film are filled with Betacam and VHS content. In the end, all the scanning and extraction processes were completed by the Hong Kong Film Archive, and all the materials were commissioned to a Hungarian film studio for restoration work. It wasn't until 2017 that the restoration was completed and premiered.
In early 2019, the Hong Kong Film Archive released this restoration on Blu-ray. The single BD25 carries a fully restored version of the original, presented in the original 1.85:1 format. Although the bit rate is as high as 28 Mbps, the not-so-good compression still brings some traces of compression and color blocks. The film itself used in the restoration of "Crazy Robbery" is a copy after being reprinted more than once, and it is also washed and printed with embedded Chinese and English subtitles, so the softness of the picture details itself is also limited by the quality of the film.
Later color grading has been criticized by some people, and the tone tendency of dark blue and blue is somewhat controversial. The Cantonese audio tracks repaired from the videotape present the original mono in LPCM's lossless format, and the quality is better than expected. In addition to the positive film, there is only one tidbit about the restoration process on the disc. The disc comes with a 64-page booklet containing articles on the restoration process and three film criticism articles in both Chinese and English.
Although there are some shortcomings, this release is still important. It not only allows "Crazy Robbery" to meet more audiences in its complete form again, but it is also the first Blu-ray release of the Hong Kong Film Archive! The restoration discs of "Confucius" and "Color Youth" that his family had previously made were only made dvDs, while the Blu-ray of "Crazy Robbery" represented a signal: perhaps there could be more restoration works from the Hong Kong Film Archive, which could make the HD version meet the public in the form of Blu-ray.
2. Japanese animation
Japanese animation can be described as a variety of situations in the release of Blu-ray, and whether a work can have a good version can only be released. On the screen, both new and old Japanese anime releases often have their own problems. For the new digital animation, the industry's post-production standards have not reached 1080p, and a large number of Japanese animations are still made of 720p or other weird resolution standards.
The transition brought about by The japanese sub-volume sale of dramas is even useless and high-code, and overseas distribution is often completely opposite to the excessive number of episodes crammed into a disc, resulting in frequent suppression problems (the most notorious recent is the American version of "Life in Another World from Scratch" released by Funimation, and the picture suppression even appears almost full-screen compression blocks, and the quality is actually inferior to streaming media).
The old celluloid animation is another situation, such as some works of Toei, even if there is a stock of film negatives, it is not used, and the previously transcribed standard definition master tape is enlarged into Blu-ray (such as "Sailor Moon" episodes, "Slam Dunk Master" episodes, "The Adventure of the Sun Prince Halls", etc.). Even if you are lucky and get a brand new fix, it is not necessarily a good thing. First of all, it is not clear why, many Japanese animation restorations do not directly use the original negatives, but use the original negatives or intermediate films to re-print to make a new copy of the intermediate films, and then digitally scan the new intermediate films for repair. Not to mention how much damage will be done to the previous copy by re-printing, the process itself will lose a level of picture quality.
Ghost in the Shell
At the same time, many Japanese animation repairs will DNR processing of the picture, the name is to remove film particles, digital sharpening to create a clearer picture, but in the end only to destroy the original appearance, the whole picture is like a layer of wax can not be viewed (bad enough to "Galaxy Railway 999 Theater Edition", Discotek Media had to do the US version of the release of the messy picture source provided by the Japanese side, destroyed by DNR, re-added a layer of fake analog film particle rendering, Use this further damage to restore the damage at the time of repair, so that the picture can at least be seen).
The japanese animation restoration in the ordinary Blu-ray era may not be so transitional in DNR processing, but in the past two years, the new 4K restoration projects have almost inevitably been destroyed by DNR, including "Ghost in the Shell", "Copra Theater Edition", "Tomorrow's Akira Theater Edition 2", "Lupin III: Cario Stros City", "Millennium Actress", etc., as well as the new 4K restoration version of "Akira" and "Tokyo Godfather" that have not yet been released, and the possibility of being tragically DNR is also extremely large.
In addition, there are almost zero tidbits, pricing beyond the affordable range (many good versions are limited to Japanese editions, and the price of Japanese discs is notoriously expensive), and other messy aspects, which make a satisfactory Japanese animation release seem more precious. But even in the face of such a chaotic situation, there are still surprising releases this year, such as:
Cat's Eye Female Gunner - Explosive Deluxe Edition
Publisher: AnimEigo | Configuration: BD50 |
Release Date:2019-09-23 | Area Code: District-wide
Cat's Eye Gunner is arguably one of my favorite OVA titles during the Golden Age of Japanese Animation OVA, almost transplanting the crime gunfight films of the 1980s onto a Japanese anime template. But just like a large number of OVA works, even if it may not be popular in a small circle, there is no new restoration or Blu-ray release, and I was watching a standard definition source of a DVD. But unexpectedly, in March 2018, AnimEigo, which specializes in crowdfunding to produce high-quality Japanese animation Blu-ray discs, announced its next crowdfunding project: "Cat's Eye Female Gunner" Blu-ray!
AnimEigo launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, which eventually raised 350,000 knives
AnimEigo has previously made a number of high-quality collector's DVDs by relying on this crowdfunding method, including "Bubblegum Crisis", "Riding Challenge" (OVA adapted from Kenichi Sonoda's original work as "Cat's Eye Gunner"), "OTAKU's VideoTape" (because of the high-code configuration, even better than the Blu-ray quality of the Japanese version), and "Infinite Zone 23", which is being crowdfunded later.
For the Blu-ray release of "Cat's Eye Female Gunner", AnimEigo is carried out in the highest configuration according to the convention, but the special release of this release is that the high-definition restorative version of the film included this time is the first time in the world! Like previous releases, this Blu-ray version also launched the normal version and the deluxe version. In addition to the hard-shell packaging and the thick booklet accompanying the disc, the deluxe edition also includes a "small thin book" fanzine, which contains a short manga newly drawn by Kenichi Sonoda and a new drawing drawn by a specially invited artist. After the crowdfunding achieved several final goals, it was accompanied by three newly recorded comment tracks.
The final release of the DVD in the form of a single disc carries all the contents of the three episodes of the OVA, the quality of the positive HD scan is good, the detail particles are retained, but unfortunately the suppression is slightly a little problematic, some dark scenes appear compression marks, but fortunately the naked eye will not pay special attention to it when playing. The audio track is a collection of the original 2.0 lossless Japanese track in LPCM specifications, with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 format English dubbing track. The first highlight of the disc is the newly recorded three commentary tracks, namely the original manga, the animation director (in this article with the director is Hiroki Sato of GAINAX), and the English voice actor (the first episode of the English dubbing commentary track is carried on the previous DVD, and the back is newly recorded).
At the same time, he also carried some behind-the-scenes documentaries on previous DVDs (nearly 40 minutes, Blu-ray including the original version and the version of the clip replaced with a high-definition positive film), a newly recorded Kenichi Sonoda painting video in the past half an hour, a regular NCOP, and a photo collection. The generous booklet that comes with the disc contains an exhaustive set of settings (all translated in English) and some fan pictures, as well as posters, stickers, postcards, and a fandom mentioned earlier.
Having such a set of Blue Light is a dream come true, although it took more than a year to finally arrive, and the price is not particularly cheap, but it is still very satisfied. The wish of "Cat's Eye Female Gunner" has come true, and now the next dream is whether there is an American publisher who can represent the Blu-ray of "Galaxy Police Flower"...
Production I.G Short Film Collection - Collector's Edition
Publisher: Anime Ltd | Configuration: BD50 + DVD |
Release Date: 2019-02-25 | Area code: Lock area B
Momotaro: Soldier of the Sea, which I chose in my top 10 DVDs last year, is also a limited edition dvd released by Anime Ltd. Anime Ltd has released a number of boutiques in recent years, and has a tendency to move towards the first position of Japanese animation and video distributors. In the case of the general lack of tidbits in Japanese animation, the focus is on the booklets, including complete translations of the setting set, storyboard, atlas, interviews and other highly collectible content. At the same time, in addition to releasing new animations, there will be some unpopular doors, which may not be ignored by other agents, but the release of extremely valuable works.
For example, the previous two sets of "Carnival of Genius" (the world's first HIGH-definition Blu-ray + 114-page set interview production set are fully translated and included), and "Momotaro: Soldier of the Sea" (Japan's first animated feature film, specifically looking for someone to write a whole book of 127 pages on the history of this film).
Although some limited-edition gift box editions are sometimes released at ridiculously expensive prices (such as the 299-pound Star Cowboy set, and the deluxe edition of "Unma's House" that has been criticized for non-new restorations and shrinkage of tidbits, it is also set at a price of 99 pounds), but Anime Ltd's choice and configuration is indeed a rare label in the Japanese animation video distribution industry, and this year's most worthwhile is this set of Production I.G's short films.
The main packaging and set name of this Production I.G short film set have chosen the main "Flower Braid Little God" of Banjin Kuangkan. In addition to this one, the set also includes Masaaki Yuasa's Romeo and Juliet of Wrestling, Toshihisa Kaitani's Don't Forget Spider, Kazuya Huang's Cabinet Boy, and Hiroyuki Imaishi's OVAL × OVER.
Like the previous "Carnival of Genius", many of the short films in this time are the first time to release Blu-ray in HD format. Of course, because each short film was produced in different years, backgrounds and specifications, the picture quality is also different, but the general can be accepted. The audio track carries the original 2.0 track losslessly in LPCM format.
Like most Japanese anime, there are no tidbits on the disc, but the two volumes on the collector's edition are more informative. The first is a complete storyboard for "The Little God with Pigtails", which is 156 pages thick. The second book is a production collection that contains 140 pages of 140 pages of the production process and interviews of the several short films on the disc.
3. Silent Tablets Are Reborn
To this day, I still think that the silent film era is the most creative era of the film's image language. Every time I watch silent film, I feel the surprise of "Oh my God, I shot this shot at that time", which can also be seen as one of the purest types of imagery in film history.
Although according to incomplete statistics, the existing silent films are only half or less of the current year's production, there are still many distributors or archives that can dig out the treasures of early film history and present the best quality restorations for fans, such as Flicker Alley, which mainly distributes silent films, and this year there is "Smiley Man" (1928 film, a new 4K scan repair by Universal Pictures from the stock of reprinted feature films), "Money" (1928 film, Lobster Films). , a new 4K restoration from the original negative scanned jointly by the French CNC and SACEM), Fragments of the Empire (1929 film, a 1929 film by Russia's Gosfilmofond, the San Francisco Silent Film Film Festival, the Swiss Film Archive, and the Amsterdam Eye Filmmuseum, using multiple film copies to restore the current 110-minute version in 2018), and the Charles Bowles Silent Film Short Collection (all newly restored in 2K). But to choose from this year, I think the best silent film Blu-ray release is:
Gray Car Gang
Issued by: Mexico Archives | Configuration: BD50 + DVD |
Release Date: 2019-11-20 | Area Code: District-wide
This kind of release is exactly what I want to see, a silent film work that I have never heard of before, rediscovered and restored, and displayed in front of fans. "Gray Car" can be described as an important work in the history of Mexican silent film, initially presented in the form of a series of theater screenings, and the content of the twelve episodes adds up to six hours.
But like most silent films, in the long river of time, a lot of content is lost or shortened, before the launch of the new restoration, everyone can find only a 111-minute deleted version, not only the length is shortened, the picture quality is also very poor, and the dyeing of the year is gone. Just this year, the Mexican Archive spent a lot of money to repair this film in high definition, not only restoring the duration to 223 minutes, but also restoring the film dyeing color of that year, and even more rare is the release of Blue Light!
As the first Blu-ray work issued by the Mexican Archive, the packaging was a more noble packaging method of tray and shell cover. Open the tray, in addition to a Blu-ray positive film plus a DVD tidbit, with a booklet and a replica of the promotional poster of the year.
The stunning restoration of the original staining is presented at the original 18fps frame rate, and the soundtrack is created by José María Serralde, who is known as the "Brother of the Silent Film Score of South America". The 223-minute film is stuffed with Blu-ray light, and the tidbits are stored in a separate DVD of the second album, except for a tidbit of the restoration process, which includes the soundtrack José, the Rosas Priego brothers (film copy donors), the restorer Paolo Tosini, and so on.
This set of Blu-ray is an impeccable and rare product from the film itself, the restoration process, the sound and picture quality, the tidbits and the packaging, but unfortunately, only the sales channel of this disc is the store of the Mexican Archive, and its store seems to have no network but only offline. (Thanks to Douban Lycidas for providing physical photos of the dvd)
witch
Publisher: Standard Collection | Configuration: BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-10-15 | Area Code: Lock Area A
"The Witch" is a magical film, originally meant to be a popular science work, but because of various whimsical performance methods, it has become a cult masterpiece in silent films. CC released this DVD as early as 2001 and is the work of CC's highest number. In the first two years, the Swedish film agency directly transmitted the restored whole film to Youtube, which made this film one of the key films that many disc friends look forward to washing blue. Finally, in october 2019, CC launched the long-awaited Blu-ray version of the film, which became CC's Halloween gift to disc friends.
The newly designed cover packaging is extremely cool, and I think it is second only to Godzilla's suit in this year's CC new cover design, which is complementary to the temperament of the film. Compared with the previous DVD, it can be seen that the newly carried out restoration has adjusted the dyeing of many scenes, and it seems that the color of the previous version is not the original intention, and this new restoration can be regarded as a restoration of the original appearance.
The blue light of CC is also impeccable for the presentation of new restorations, with sharp details, natural particles, and extremely bright colors. For the soundtrack, CC carried the original Danish premiere soundtrack of 5.0 channels in the dts-HD MA format. The score was re-restored by film score specialist Gillian Anderson and recorded by the Czech Film Symphony Orchestra in 2001.
The rest, except for a piece of film scholars analyzing the historical content involved in the filming, are basically copied from the configuration of the previous DVD. Includes an introduction to the director's film recorded in 1941, unused test shots of the director's film from the cinematographer's collection, and a commentary track by a film scholar. Of course, the most important one is still carrying the 1968 North American version of "Witchcraft Through the Ages", CC this time in hd to include another version of this 77-minute version of the film. This version of the narration was still narrated by William W. Bush. Explained by S. Burroughs!
4. TV episodes
This year's TV series release also has a lot of blockbuster sets, such as "Twin Peaks: From Z to A", which is a complete collection of past releases, plus new tidbits and a new set launched with two separate episodes of 4K UHD discs. For the unpopular ones, such as the high-scoring documentary of the "Seven Years of Life" series, the complete nine collections were released by Network for the first time in HD Blu-ray. But I didn't pick the best of the year, so let's look at something different:
The Flying Circus of The Monty Python: Norwegian Blu-ray Gift Box Edition
Publisher: Network | Configuration: 7 BD50 |
Release Date: 2019-11-04 | Area Code: District-wide
The Monty Python Theatre Company, which began in 1969, pioneered a new genre of pure nonsense style comedy with its "Flying Circus" episodes, providing countless inspirations for future generations of comedians and comedy works. The Monty Python Troupe later contributed "The Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Magic Star of the World", which can be among the best in the history of comedy films.
(Yes, "Seven Parts of Life" is not very good) At the same time, the members of the Monty Python Troupe have also been successful in their respective fields after coming out, the most famous of which may be Terry Gilliam, and then made "Fantastic Ideas", which can be re-named in film history. So back to the beginning of everything, the content and laughs of "Flying Circus" are still not outdated fifty years later, but this picture quality shows the traces of time, and various picture problems have appeared one after another, and they have not improved after many DVDs.
Even if it was the previous Monty Python's London O2 curtain call performance, using this batch of old and poor standard definition master tape transcription sources, just when fans believe that the original material can not be retrieved and there is no way to repair, Network Company announced in the special year of Monty Python's 50th anniversary: "Flying Circus" New HD repair is completed, and Blu-ray discs will be released!
Four seasons of "Flying Circus", complete and undecorded and even made up some of the deleted paragraphs of the year, through the original material HD restoration, in tray packaging plus thick book configuration stuffed in the simple paper shell outer packaging, this is the Norwegian Blu-ray gift box version! (Of course, this name does not refer to the Blu-ray released by Norway, Norway refers to the famous parrot strip)
When it comes to the restoration of The Flying Circus, it has to go back to the medium in which it was originally filmed. At the beginning, most of the whole play was filmed on the video tape of the studio, and the original material was the content of the standard definition. The animation and location parts of the play are filmed. However, these passages were also converted into videotapes and edited with other parts, and finally made into a broadcast version. The previous DVD version was directly transcribed the video tape source used for playback, and it was also the tape that had been converted several times (the original British projection tape that had been transcribed several times after editing itself, the transcription to North American playback format was damaged again, and the DVD used North American playback that year, which did not know how many times the tape was turned in the middle), so various picture enlargement, shaking, noise, and color cast problems emerged endlessly. This also makes it possible to greatly improve the image quality even if the original tape material is standard definition, but if you can use these tape repairs that do not cause problems without transcription.
However, the content found by Network, which has been secretly carried out for many years, has surprised fans, not only the studio content has been retrieved from the original shooting tape for transcription repair, but also the animation part of the film is basically completely recovered, and even the location shooting paragraph has part of the 16mm film re-excavated, so that some paragraphs can be repaired from the film material back to the high-definition state. At the same time, some of the various paragraphs that have been deleted due to censorship or length issues have also been rediscovered by the search for the original shooting tape. This is the first time that Flying Circus is presented to fans in such a clear (relative nature, after all, a lot of SD tapes are enlarged) and so complete.
Network uses 1080/50i encoding, maintaining the original broadcast frame rate to present this new restoration (because North American players can not play this encoding, so the North American release encoding frame rate has changed, so the English version is more worth buying), the four seasons content is placed in seven discs, the picture quality is stable and gratifying. As mentioned earlier, even those SD amplified content is much better than what was previously seen. For the audio track, the original mono mix is encapsulated losslessly in LPCM 2.0 format.
In terms of tidbits, first of all, the Deluxe Gift Box Edition comes with a thick book every season, which contains many introductions and articles worth reading. Most of the tidbits on the disc are from previously discussed, newly found deletions, as well as some different cuts or mixed versions, and even some content that is thought to be lost forever. Other features include interviews, a short student video of Vic Jamison and Members of Monty Python, and a tidbit of watching the restoration with Terry Gilliam.
This set is really a dream come true for all fans, it is a priceless gift for Monty Python's fiftieth anniversary, and according to Network's hints, there may be more Python restoration content (including that German TV special edition), but this set does have a problem, that is, packaging. The packaging of the shell is basically a paper shell that is not very strong, as can be seen in the above picture, the overall design is that the tray is inserted into the groove, but the groove in the actual finished product is actually a horizontal partition made of several strips of paper. During the transportation process, the tray shakes slightly, and the paper strips of those partitions will be damaged and broken, which also causes a lot of damage to the set, which is complained about by many buyers. Fortunately, Network's response was more timely, giving buyers the option of a new shell or a partial refund. All in all, this is a rare set of releases, and fans must receive discs!
5.3D blue light
3D cinema is a magical product, not only the two booms of the last century, but also a new rebirth in the digital age, which is produced as a technological innovation, but gradually fades away each time because of technological changes. The digital 3D boom brought up by "Avatar" has gradually faded in recent years, more and more theaters have begun to reduce 3D scheduling, or even completely abandoned (mostly in North America), 3D TVs and 3D Blu-ray that have appeared in the home market for several years, and also tried to completely kill under the development of the entire industry: the new 4K TVs, even the sony and LG that most support 3D development have directly removed 3D functions, although they are not incompatible.
The distribution of 3D DVDs has also been gradually marginalized in the six major Hollywood distributions, although there is still a considerable number of buyers to support: Paramount has completely stopped releasing 3D Blu-ray (until "Twin Killers" made an exception to release the first 3D Blu-ray in recent years, suspected to be set by Ang Lee when it was first filmed), and other companies have more or less reduced the release of 3D films and regions. It's like when everything was 3D, and now the industry wants to throw it away completely.
But fortunately, there is still a group of fans who support the purchase, and there are also famous 3D Archive companies dedicated to restoring and presenting those old 3D films of the last century. Among this year's releases, there are new films such as The Last Night on Earth that require strict 3D presentation (half 2D and half 3D make the 2D part need to be ghostless and the brightness needs to be readjusted), as well as the B-grade film Parasitic Demon Seed restored by the 3D Archive and released by Kino, and the soft film Adam and Six Eve, which belong to the special genre products of the 3D boom at that time. So in this year's release, the most rare oneS I chose is:
prototype
Distributor: Grasshopper Pictures | Configuration: BD25 |
Issue Date: 2019-08-13 (Crowdfunded Shipment) | Area Code: Full District
Dedicated to the release of some unusual genre films, Grasshopper Film began its Blu-ray disc release in 2017 with "Roadside Picnic" and "This Time is Right Then Wrong", but until the end of this year, its family has only released 11 Blu-ray films, but it has some works on its hands that I would desperately like to have. Among them is Blake Williams' 3D experimental film Prototype.
I have always believed that at the current stage of film development, it is basically impossible to completely innovate a new film language, no matter how novel an idea emerges, there is a good chance that someone has tried it. So 3D for me instead offers new possibilities for the creation of a new cinematic language, a new dimensional space with infinite possibilities.
And the 3D experimental films that have emerged now confirm this inadequacy: famous such as Godard's "Goodbye Language" (multi-edition 3D Blu-ray release) contributes 3D superimposed moments with different pictures of the eyes; the production is as large as Ken Jacobs, who has been creating 3D experimental films since the beginning of the new millennium (who has released his own three 3D experimental films called "3×3D Blu-ray Disc" at his own expense) contributes a variety of amazing effects of playing with and transforming stereoscopic space.
There are also many other filmmakers who have also dabbled in this, presenting works beyond imagination. But because of the limitations of 3D, these works rarely have the opportunity to release 3D Blu-ray and let more audiences see it, and these works are also different from Hollywood commercial 3D films, and they will lose their meaning without the 3D context. As a lover of 3D experimentation, Blake Williams (who has not only shot many 3D experimental films, but also written many articles for such works) decided to use a special method to release his 3D experimental films into 3D Blu-ray - crowdfunding.
Prototype's 3D Blu-ray crowdfunding on Indiegogo
Relying on the loyalty of the fans of the 3D purchase group, this experimental film, which will obviously not be accepted by the general public, successfully broke through the crowdfunding requirements and successfully allowed Grasshopper Pictures to release 3D Blu-ray. The final Blu-ray is presented as a single-disc BD25, but unfortunately did not carry any booklets. The main film is presented to the audience in 3D format in MVC encoding, with a lot of dark scenes and (deliberate) rough textures in the film, and the soundtrack carries a original mix of DTS-HD MA 2.0, expressiveness and immersion even without losing many 5.1 tracks.
Blake Williams in the film with 3D to show a lot of amazing effects, the various stereoscopic pictures projected on a strange display, not only the three-dimensional space itself is distorted (including the curved effect of the display itself, but also a few close-ups of the sense of distance that is further stretched in the later stage), but also let the noise particles of the digital camera itself in the dark environment, as well as the strobe generated by the development screen, are in the 3D stereoscopic space, because the misalignment of these elements in the binocular picture has produced a wonderful feeling that has never been felt before.
Although the tidbits on the DVD are only another 3D experimental short film work of the director, "Something Horizontal", it is not to be missed. This short film uses quick editing to disrupt the formation of 3D space in consciousness. After disturbing the brain's perception of space, these shots are displayed together in the next paragraphs in 3D, and the effect is extremely unique.
Although this 3D Blu-ray is not perfect, and many 3D Blu-ray fans who participated in the crowdfunding said that they could not accept such films at all after watching it, I still hope that more 3D experimental films can be released in the form of 3D Blu-ray. (I'd love to see Ken Jacobs' In Search of the Monkey King!) ）
6. 4K UHD
After three years of training, UHD as a new generation of audio-visual carrier medium can also be said to be maturing. Although the debate about HDR and the format may not be able to stop for the time being, the various compatibility, suppression, and color issues in the early days are now difficult to see again. Although regrets still exist, such as fox was acquired by Disney, the audio and video distribution of old films was stopped; for example, DNR is like a ghost, from time to time in UHD distribution, erasing particles to make the picture become unacceptable, but the overall distribution environment is still gradually improving. For example, among the six major manufacturers in Hollywood, the UHD distribution of old films is becoming more and more common.
Warner has "The Wizard of Oz" this year, Paramount has "How Beautiful Life" this year, Universal has "Scarface" this year, Sony has "Runaway Knight", and the original 4K repair is perfect in the presentation of UHD.
Of course, what is more encouraging to disc friends this year is that a number of independent labels have also begun to test the waters of UHD: Kino released "Hannibal" (although Kino recently announced the cancellation of the UHD of the Dart Trilogy, but confirmed that there are still new UHD projects waiting to be released); VS released "Jurassic"; Synapses Pictures released its own restored version of "Stormy Wind"; Flicker Alley released "Mediterranean Holiday"; even Discotek Media. Companies in North America that are not very large in the Japanese animation distribution market have released their first UHD "Copra Theater Edition" (of course, it can only be done with the Japanese DNR to death garbage source), and this series of releases is basically to CC and Arrow asking: When are you going to enter UHD? Of course, I'm going to choose the best UHD release of the year, and I'm definitely going to encourage the works of these small labels:
Overcast wind gusts
Distributor: Synapson Pictures | Configuration: BD100 + BD25 |
Release Date: 2019-11-19 | Area Code: District-wide
Aquido's famous work "Stormy Wind" caused a lot of turmoil in last year's disc market, because two different new 4K restorations were released on DVD, and fans and fans were also in a dispute over whether the two restorations were better or worse. In simple terms, the two brand new 4K restorations were done by Germany's TLEFilms FRPS and the other by Synapse Films itself.
Both versions scanned and repaired the original negatives of the film (synaptic 4K repair plans were carried out for a long time, and TLE used the original 4K negative scan files made during synaptic restoration for further restoration), and both have a color monitoring basis (TLE is calibrated according to the director's original notes, and the synapse version is monitored by the camera supervisor to monitor the grading), but the results are very different.
Overall, the synaptic version has more picture content, sharper screenshot contrast details, and extremely strong color tone contrasts; while the TLE version of the color tends to the effect of film printing and copying, the contrast adjustment is a bit gray (but there is no Bologna's criticized low contrast), and the overall color also has a tendency to color cast. Which is more correct? No one may be able to convince each other, but at least different versions are presented to disc friends, and they can buy according to their own preferences.
However, disc friends who like synapsic repairs have not been happy: TLE's repair has also launched a UHD version at the same time as the release of Blu-ray, showing the 4K resolution under its repair to the audience in its entirety, but Synapses has only released a Blu-ray version of its own repair. This regret was finally resolved this year, and Synapson Pictures decided to respond to the fans' call to make a splash: in November this year, Synapsic Pictures released its own "Wind Storm" 4K restoration and release UHD DVD.
In order to save their own costs and the cost of repeated purchases by fans, this "Dark Wind" UHD of Synapses Pictures did not have an ordinary Blu-ray disc with a positive film, but was launched with a UHD positive disc with a Blu-ray tidbit disc. (Discotek Media's "Copra Theater Edition" this year is also launched with this distribution strategy) UHD's positive film is carried in BD100 specifications, with an average image quality bitrate of 80.14 Mbps, which shows that Synapses is determined to present the best DVD version. The UHD sharpness of the synapse is extremely high, it can be said that I have never seen such a clear "Yin Wind Gust", in this regard, from the screenshot still frame comparison, the TLE restored version of uhd can be described as a defeat. In terms of color, the purpose of TLE restoration is that HDR will destroy the presentation effect of the original film color, so it only comes with an SDR version when it repairs UHD.
The synapse is to make HDR shine, and the various exaggerated colors and lighting designs in "Wind Gusts" seem to be born for HDR demonstrations. The color of the synapse version is brilliant and stingy under the blessing of HDR, but it does not feel overdone or uncomfortable, and HDR also makes many exaggerated color scenes have more space for detail, and there will no longer be a feeling of details together.
Again, Synapses and TLE take a very different route in this regard, and it is impossible to argue which is right, and choosing your favorite purchase is king. In terms of sound, Synapses can be said to have whatever they want, starting with the original four-channel English mix that was released that year, reborn under the DTS-HD MA specifications transcribed at 96kHz, and was heard by the audience for the first time after the release in 1977. This is followed by a new remix of the Dolby Atmos soundtrack in English to satisfy audiences who prefer a more immersive mix. There is also a DTS-HD MA 5.1 Italian dubbing soundtrack.
The Australian version of Blu-ray, using the TLE restoration version, but with a lot of old tidbits
The tidbits part is a copy of the previous Blu-ray version of Synapson Pictures. This is arguably the only regret of this edition, although it comes with two commentary tracks and a new one-and-a-half-hour-long tidbits (including tidbits about the film's influence, video essays analyzing the film, historical tidbits of Munich where the story is set, and interviews with actress Barbara Maniolfi), none of them are too in-depth, and the precious old tidbits are not brought with them at all. This problem existed last year when the Blu-ray release of "Stormy" came to the conclusion that you had to buy different versions for the sake of tidbits.
The Australian version of Blu-ray brings a lot of old tidbits: including two documentaries about Aquido's influence, a documentary analyzing "The Winds of the Clouds", and a documentary about the 25th anniversary of "Storms of the Clouds", produced by Blue Underground that year and interviewed many film participants, plus two Aquido interviews, an old interview from 2004 and a newly recorded interview in 2017, totaling four hours long.
The British version of the crowdfunded 4K iron box version, which is also a TLE restoration, in addition to the tidbits in the main disc, also brought a third separate tidbits disc
If you want to pursue a more comprehensive tidbit, you can first choose the ordinary Blu-ray released by cult films in the United Kingdom, and there is a 57-minute restoration tidbit in the single disc! This tidbit details the restoration process of the TLE version, recalls that in order to make the film's color more stable, Aquido used a long-lost Special Arts color dyeing and printing method to make the first film copies screened that year, and the adjustments made by TLE Restoration to try to restore the film color of that year.
This is a very exciting and extremely technical tidbit, and it is worth seeing. At the same time, Cult Epics also produced a separate tidbit disc for the crowdfunded version of UHD Iron Box, which contained interviews with a number of participants in the film that year, with a total length of two and a half hours. It also includes a pre-screening introduction and post-screening dialogue of the 4K restored version during the UK screening, with a total length of more than 40 minutes. It is equivalent to bringing an extra Blu-ray full of more than three hours of tidbits, but unfortunately this crowdfunded version is now out of print, and the second-hand price is not cheap.
* Special mention:
Venetian Mystery - Classic Collection Limited Edition
Distributor: Ying Ou Jia Na | Configuration: BD100 + BD50 + BD25 + CD | Release Date: 2019-07-29 | Area Code: Full District (UHD) / Lock Zone B (BD)
I have mentioned the positive film suppression in many DVD introductions before, after all, Blu-ray production is also about the huge source file to be encoded in secondary compression and then put into the disc, and the quality of this process will also largely determine the picture quality in the final disc.
As far as the compression problems (including compression traces, color blocks, unnatural film particle states, etc.) revealed in many CC releases, just giving a high bit rate cannot completely solve all the problems, but it depends on the person responsible for suppression, using various software and techniques to ensure that the bit rate and the picture reach a balanced relationship. Among the disc friends, it is recognized that there is a god who is specifically responsible for suppression, named David Mackenzie, and the DVD that he has passed through can ensure that the bit rate is sufficient to present the most perfect picture without the naked eye visible compression marks.
David M has been responsible for the suppression of Arrow and Eureka's DVDs for many years, and disc friends also know how good the quality of the discs is, take Arrow's "Robocop" released this year: although it is the same repair base as Fox's own 4K repair a few years ago, Arrow has only done some further processing on that, but after the suppression of the picture sharpness, Arrow is much more refined.
Arrow's Deluxe Edition of Robocop released this year is unfortunately not the first UHD release of Arrow in the rumor
Then back to the distributor Ying Ou Jiana (that is, the familiar canal company Studio Canal, Ying Ou Jia Na is the official Chinese name, hereinafter referred to as SC), familiar disc friends must know the bad deeds of suppressing the destruction of the film when it comes out of Blu-ray. Sc's home has been doing a good job of repairing quality, but often out of the Blu-ray when the suppression problem is huge, a variety of color blocks, compression traces out of the film, and more annoying is that the destruction is often the only disc release of this new repair. Slightly, such as the 4K restoration version of "Alien Visitor", the compression marks of the film particles are unnatural; serious ones such as the 4K restoration version of "Daytime Beauty", which directly presents a large number of large color blocks, resulting in almost impossible to watch.
But from time to time, sc suppression seems perfect, so every time scone is issued like a roulette wheel, I really don't know what will happen before I get it. However, it was sc' release that produced a magical operation in 2017: they actually hired the suppression god David M to make the Blu-ray suppression of Mulholland Road!
The same CC was used to repair the source of 4K, but because the CC version had serious compression problems, the film particles were very unnatural, and the SC that David M was responsible for pressing did not have this problem at all, and the final blue light quality was breathtakingly beautiful. I thought that SC would cooperate with David M for a long time, and the problem of suppression would become a thing of the past, who thought that it would take another two years to cooperate again, which is the UHD limited edition of "Venice Mystery" released this year.
Sc's limited-edition editions belong to the Vintage Classics series and are dedicated to releasing its most iconic films with new restorations or the best configurations and packaging. For this film, SC contributed a new 4K fix and configured it with a four-disc configuration of UHD plus two Blu-ray plus CDs, along with posters, postcards, and booklets. For this new 4K fix, compared with the previous 4K fix made by CC when it released Blu-ray in 2015, there are two important improvements.
First, although both 4K fixes were scanned from the original negatives, SC's scans in 2019 used more advanced scanning specifications to 4K scan the original negatives at a depth of 16 bits, while a new color grading version of THE HDR was made separately in the HDR environment during the post-color correction process. Secondly, the BLU-ray released by CC in 2015 belongs to the kind of disc that has a bit of a problem with the compression, and the impact of compression traces on the display of film particles is more obvious, and many places can obviously find the phenomenon of slight compression and agglomeration by looking at the screenshots, and this situation does not exist at all in this version of SC (including UHD and Blu-ray).
The final effect comparison, it can be found that the SC version of the picture range is larger, the picture content is more, the sharpness looks better than CC (not only the comparison under 4K, the Blu-ray ratio of SC and CC Blu-ray ratio is the same), the overall color grading tendency is not particularly different, but the HDR bonus in UHD makes it a higher level. The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD MA 2.0 format, with a commentary track on the Blu-ray disc and three new tidbits: a tidbit of restoration, a review of the film, and a tidbit of the effects (which also features brad Bird and Danny Ball interviews) and a tidbit of the use of color in the film (Cronenberg also came to show his face), totaling about an hour.
The second disc is a separate tidbit of the old, including old production specials and a series of interviews, as well as a photo gallery with a total duration of nearly two hours. With a very characteristic soundtrack CD and a 64-page booklet, it can basically be said that the SC set has no problem washing off the BLU of CC. (Of course, CC also has a few of its own exclusive tidbits, and perfectionists definitely have to take them all.) ）
In the whole year of DVD release, I can only pick out a dozen sets. For example, I also wanted to add a category of packaging parties, choosing WCL's "2001: A Space Odyssey" UHD Deluxe Edition and Shochiku's "Injiro's Story" set, but one was forced to postpone the release this year, and the other was postponed to next year for various reasons, and finally considered and cancelled. This article is just a more personal and casual recommendation, if you can make disc friends notice the dvd that you usually don't pay attention to, or let the readers who don't usually buy a disc can also have some interest in the dvd, it is enough.
Finally, I hope that in the new year, more films can be perfectly repaired, more films that have not been washed blue can be released on Blu-ray, and more dvd distribution can reach a perfect level!
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