Wong Kar-wai

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I took a look at the opening and closing credits for Blossoms and Wong is dubbed "producer-director" (监制/导演), but with three others listed as "joint" or "co-directors" (联合导演): Li Shuang (a former AD for Zhang Yimou and Wang Xiaoshuai), Cheng Liang (a director/producer/writer of short films and TV series mostly set in Shanghai), and Ronald Zee (an obscure Hongkonger whose only previous credits are on other recent Jet Tone productions, e.g. editor of One-Tenth of a Millimeter Apart). A similar crediting scheme was used a couple of years ago on a rather dreadful six-minute short commissioned by Mercedes-Benz, in which each of the three directed a different segment. My skepticism that Wong actually did much of the directorial legwork himself is reinforced by the fact that William Chang doesn't seem to be credited in any capacity.

The reception of the first four episodes is actually better than I'd expected, the complaints largely centered on the supposedly unwieldy blend of the typical feel and look of a Chinese TV drama with that of Wong Kar-wai (or ersatz Wong Kar-wai). I might give this a shot if English subtitles appear—thirty episodes of TV without them is beyond my patience—but I'm mainly waiting to see what happens with the movie version.

One interesting side note is that the series exists in two versions, one in Shanghainese (which was the primary language of shooting) and the other dubbed into Mandarin by the original cast. Only the latter is being broadcast, but both are streaming online.

[Stefan Andersson]

Ashes of Time Redux, French re-release in restored version according to The Jokers´ FB 6 days ago:
https://www.thejokersfilms.com/les-cendres-du-temps
https://www.facebook.com/thejokersfilms

[pistolwink]

"Restored" to what? 720p?

[tenia]

Of course there is not a single technical detail about it.

[senseabove]

Surprise: WKW has discovered AI upscaling!

[domino harvey]

WKW announces new breakthrough in disc encoding. Insertion of Blu-ray will now automatically override and turn on your TV's motion smoothing settings

[tenia]

TV filters will actually be randomly applied because no man walks across the same TV settings twice.

[pistolwink]

The best joke would be if the 'restoration' of Redux was actually one of the original 1995 versions of the film.

[feihong]

The negative of the Redux was damaged and they had to revert to the original, which had been hidden in Wong's closet, perfectly preserved, all along.

[therewillbeblus]

WKW has 100% stepped in the same river twice

[togg]

I rewatched Chungking Express and In the mood for love recently. I like the new restauration, it makes sense. And for Chungking it's mandatory, past skin tone was so off.

Chungking is great. Standard characters that explodes into fireworks when she starts breaking in into his appartement.
In the mood for love it's a comedy with two characters so stucked up they learn love thanks to the other relationships of their spouses. It's fun but final years over years acceleration is useless.

[Captain Paranoia]

There's a Japanese DVD release of the theatrical cut of Ashes of Time floating around on Ebay, in case anyone is interested.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/374603788632?s ... Track=true

[nicolas]

There's a Japanese DVD release of the theatrical cut of Ashes of Time floating around on Ebay, in case anyone is interested.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/374603788632?s ... Track=true

This could be a bootleg listing. The seller offers multiple copies of that DVD and there’s barely any description such as RARE OOP etc. which (I think) anyone would add if they’re selling such a rare and special item.

[Captain Paranoia]

It does appear to resemble the Japanese DVD release artwork, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bootleg (albeit the type that's a disc rip). Does anyone think I should I cancel my order?

[yoloswegmaster]

How many rivers is he stepping into?

[tenia]

OK, so it seems a bit more understandable than that, according to the Wiki page of the show :
"In an interview with the Department of Cinematography of Beijing Film Academy, visual director Peter Pau revealed that all color grading LUTs in the show were created by him.

During the post-production period, the team was tasked to edit thirty episodes in thirty days, and the entire project was outsourced to Thailand. Since Pau was attached to another movie, he was unable to dedicate full attention to post-production color correction. Pau expressed disappointment with the color grading at the first run of the series, which he believed does not capture the optimal tone. He believes the international version of the series will have better color grading and correction."

[yoloswegmaster]

That makes more sense. The comment about only being given 30 days to edit 30 episodes does interest me. Is it normal for 30 episodes that are each almost an hour long to only be given a month for editing?

[nicolas]

This feels especially strange for the project of one of the most meticulous directors out there. Wong takes all the time in the world and then some to get his stuff out. His 4K restorations apparently took him five years. I’ve asked his production company for an update on the series in 2021 and was told that he was currently editing. After this, I just can’t believe that Wong wasn’t involved in every little aspect of its creation. I have more a feeling that Pau isn’t happy with how the series was deliberately graded by Wong and his colorist (if I were the DP, I wouldn’t either). He often treats the international versions as separate projects anyway, so Pau likely saw a chance to get “his” vision across this time.

[dwk]

Criterion Channel is going to stream Blossoms later this year.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Not sure how many here can take advantage, but Spanish streamer Filmin has already made it available with an option for English subtitles. The first fifteen episodes will be released in batches of five each Tuesday through July 1st, and the remaining fifteen will drop sometime this winter.

Edit: Ditto Filmin's Portuguese service

[Stefan Andersson]

tenia on a French release of Chungking Express:
https://testsbluray.com/2025/06/15/test ... g-express/

In the Mood for Love 2001 now in theaters (sorry if this has been posted earlier)
https://www.janusfilms.com/films/2274
New York showing:
https://www.filmlinc.org/films/in-the-m ... love-2001/

[Zot!]

tenia on a French release of Chungking Express:
https://testsbluray.com/2025/06/15/test ... g-express/

So it's just the new Crit 4k, right?

But if you cleverly play DJ with the audio, you can get the opening credits without the gunshots (on the French audio track), and switch over to the Chinese for the rest of the movie.

[tenia]

Yes, it's simply the French release of the new 4K resto.

[Stefan Andersson]

Céline Pozzi, a manager at L’Immagine Ritrovata, on restoring Wong´s films: “Wong Kar-wai /../ had this special neon look on his films, and he wanted to change it and get away from that cold light,” /.../. “He said, ‘I’m not the person I was at the time. I’ve changed. I have the right to change the film.’ ”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025 ... estoration

[domino harvey]

No