Film Movement

[ryannichols7]

Justin LaLiberty co-produced the Lee release by the way. It’s baffling to me that he’s fine with these encodes yet is one of the loudest champions for physical media on X/Twitter. The latter is of course nice to have but he’s giving the few people that buy niche partner label releases like that one too many reasons not to.

I always wait to see if there's a UK release or even Australia, personally. paid off for My Heart is That Eternal Rose, but then again I'm still waiting on a Vive L'Amour disc from the region that doesn't cost $30 and/or isn't basically featureless

like I find it hard to believe any of the UK labels aren't gonna be chomping at the bit to license Ju Dou for example. we get lucky with most of Film Movement's stuff. Kani is a better label for value but also more obscure generally, so I do often pick up their titles

[MichaelB]

Film Movement have the rights to Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou

Excellent news - I haven't seen a decent copy of that since I last watched it in 35mm over three decades ago. And a film whose creative use of colour recalls Vittorio Storaro really needs a decent copy.

[hearthesilence]

Just watched Hana-bi which generally looks good but a lot of artifacts in some shots, particularly those filled with big, clear, blue skies. After the pessimistic talk about how long the physical media business will last, I can't say I feel the urge to part with this copy in anticipation of an upgrade. (tbf, Film Movement's Blu-ray is supposed to have a better encode than Third Window's OOP edition.)

[brundlefly]

Trailer for the (2021) restoration of Noboru Tanaka's Maruhi: Shikijo Mesu Ichiba (The Oldest Profession, aka Confidential Report: Sex Market), coming to theaters later this month, digital streaming and disc in April.

[feihong]

Trailer for the (2021) restoration of Noboru Tanaka's Maruhi: Shikijo Mesu Ichiba (The Oldest Profession, aka Confidential Report: Sex Market), coming to theaters later this month, digital streaming and disc in April.

I thought this was a great movie, really striking.

[Murdoch]

I received a couple of Film Movement titles through VS today, including the Lee Chang-dong set and the Jessica Hausner film Hotel. Sadly I have to report that these films received very disappointing encodes (the Lee set is credited to three people at VoxPod NYC) where an organic grain structure is essentially not present and grain only pulsates across the entire frame. It looks like mosquito noise. This is really quite severe and shouldn’t just be visible for pixel peepers. It’s a real shame as the new restorations of Peppermint Candy and Oasis look very good. I compared Poetry between the Kino Lorber BD and prefer the older BD again for slightly superior encoding even though the KL isn’t good either but crucially, the first 2K master doesn’t appear to have any DNR whereas the 4K upscale is definitely DNR’d in select scenes. qw0aszx mentioned that he believes the new master has improved color grading, which I can confirm but after a comparison it’s still not worth the tradeoff in my opinion. Otherwise, it’s a good edition with subtitled making-of’s but the main attractions leave a lot to be desired. Oasis is also framed in 1.90:1 for unknown reasons.

Same applies to Hausner’s Hotel, which was newly restored (likely 4K) in Germany, but the encode also doesn’t hold up. I haven’t put the disc into my computer but they used a BD-50 for this 75-minute film without any video extras and it doesn’t look much better than a crappy stream either.

Justin LaLiberty co-produced the Lee release by the way. It’s baffling to me that he’s fine with these encodes yet is one of the loudest champions for physical media on X/Twitter. The latter is of course nice to have but he’s giving the few people that buy niche partner label releases like that one too many reasons not to.

Nicolas did you (or anyone else for that matter) notice an issue with the subtitling on your Peppermint Candy disc? On mine, the subtitles remain after the actor is done speaking, so that if there's several minutes of no dialogue, the subtitle for the last line spoken is still there.

Also, anyone get the umbrella release?

[nicolas]

Nicolas did you (or anyone else for that matter) notice an issue with the subtitling on your Peppermint Candy disc? On mine, the subtitles remain after the actor is done speaking, so that if there's several minutes of no dialogue, the subtitle for the last line spoken is still there.

Also, anyone get the umbrella release?

I couldn’t yet convince myself to watch the four films via Film Movement’s disc due to the encodes. I did however take another extended look at various random sections of Peppermint Candy just now and didn’t see anything wrong with the subtitles. They come and go normally for me. My player is a Panasonic UB-824.

I’ll take a look at the subtitle file on my computer tomorrow in case I missed anything. I imagine we’d have heard anything form other buyers had there been that big of an issue with the disc. On the other hand, QC issues with VS partner labels are sadly not unprecedented.

I thought about exchanging the FM set for the Umbrella but with their own characteristically poor encoding, I imagine the difference isn’t as big. I’m hopeful though that the four films will be released in the UK by one of the good labels at some point.

[Murdoch]

Ah gotcha, appreciate you looking through that. It may be a player issue, I have a pretty cheap region free player from Seiki, but I've never run into the issue with any other disc I've played so who knows. I'm glad to have a way to watch the films but agree it's an overall disappointing presentation.

[andyli]

I’m hopeful though that the four films will be released in the UK by one of the good labels at some point.

If Arrow Academy were still around this would have been right up their alley but now who knows. There must be some interest in Lee Chang-dong in the UK, and France for that matter. Maybe Radiance or Carlotta could come to the rescue.

[nicolas]

Ah gotcha, appreciate you looking through that. It may be a player issue, I have a pretty cheap region free player from Seiki, but I've never run into the issue with any other disc I've played so who knows. I'm glad to have a way to watch the films but agree it's an overall disappointing presentation.

Just imported the disc and looked at the file. I didn't see anything wrong with the timings themselves but the way they made these subtitles is puzzling. A spoken line doesn't just have one corresponding subtitle but several individual ones put together to make the impression of one continuous subtitle. For example, what should be one subtitled line is broken into three, four or many more identical subtitles that follow each other without delay, hence us technically not noticing anything wrong when playing the disc via our players. This very unusual way of subtitling may have given your player a headache due to the rapid progression of each individual subtitle. I assume its memory capacity is rather limited and hence it struggled to keep up with the frenetic pace of the subs. Even my computer had some trouble processing this file. Someone good at their job wouldn't have worked that way and luckily this is not the norm.

Also, while having looked at the data, I noticed the key reason for why FM's BDs look so terrible: They're using constant bitrates instead of variable ones. Someone literally just set the film to be encoded at 25 MB/s and left it at that. ](*,)

[nicolas]

I’m hopeful though that the four films will be released in the UK by one of the good labels at some point.

If Arrow Academy were still around this would have been right up their alley but now who knows. There must be some interest in Lee Chang-dong in the UK, and France for that matter. Maybe Radiance or Carlotta could come to the rescue.

Here's hoping. Being equipped for adding my own subs, I wouldn't mind either but it'd be nice to have at least one solid release of these restorations with English subtitles so that more people can enjoy them properly.

[MichaelB]

If Arrow Academy were still around this would have been right up their alley but now who knows.

Arrow Academy is still around, only they call themselves Radiance these days.

[Murdoch]

Thanks for the deep dive, nicolas! That does explain my issue. It's a shame, Lee is such a brilliant director and his films deserve to be given proper treatment. Thankfully his profile is fairly esteemed in international cinema that it's possible another company takes a crack at these films.

[DeprongMori]

Nicolas did you (or anyone else for that matter) notice an issue with the subtitling on your Peppermint Candy disc? On mine, the subtitles remain after the actor is done speaking, so that if there's several minutes of no dialogue, the subtitle for the last line spoken is still there.

Also, anyone get the umbrella release?

Do you have a Panasonic UB820 player perchance? Because I just ran into the exact same problem on an Edition Filmmuseum DVD of White Rose documentaries this week. The problem is exactly as you describe, and is not present when played on any of my other players — LG Blu, LG UHD, external UHD drive playing on VLCplayer, etc.

[DeprongMori]

Nicolas did you (or anyone else for that matter) notice an issue with the subtitling on your Peppermint Candy disc? On mine, the subtitles remain after the actor is done speaking, so that if there's several minutes of no dialogue, the subtitle for the last line spoken is still there.

Also, anyone get the umbrella release?

I couldn’t yet convince myself to watch the four films via Film Movement’s disc due to the encodes. I did however take another extended look at various random sections of Peppermint Candy just now and didn’t see anything wrong with the subtitles. They come and go normally for me. My player is a Panasonic UB-824.

I’ll take a look at the subtitle file on my computer tomorrow in case I missed anything. I imagine we’d have heard anything form other buyers had there been that big of an issue with the disc. On the other hand, QC issues with VS partner labels are sadly not unprecedented.

I thought about exchanging the FM set for the Umbrella but with their own characteristically poor encoding, I imagine the difference isn’t as big. I’m hopeful though that the four films will be released in the UK by one of the good labels at some point.

As I mentioned in my previous comment, I see the same problem on an Edition Filmmuseum DVD (Die Widerständigen/White Rose) on my Panasonic UB 820. My firmware is a mod of v1.60 (2019). I’m trying to get an updated mod to v1.82 (2024). I just received it today and will try to test soon to see whether it fixes the problem.

What firmware version is your UB-824?

[nicolas]

As I mentioned in my previous comment, I see the same problem on an Edition Filmmuseum DVD (Die Widerständigen/White Rose) on my Panasonic UB 820. My firmware is a mod of v1.60 (2019). I’m trying to get an updated mod to v1.82 (2024). I just received it today and will try to test soon to see whether it fixes the problem.

What firmware version is your UB-824?

Interesting that you’re also having the issue. I’m not using any mod software on my players. I’m running the newest official Panasonic firmware.

[DeprongMori]

As I mentioned in my previous comment, I see the same problem on an Edition Filmmuseum DVD (Die Widerständigen/White Rose) on my Panasonic UB 820. My firmware is a mod of v1.60 (2019). I’m trying to get an updated mod to v1.82 (2024). I just received it today and will try to test soon to see whether it fixes the problem.

What firmware version is your UB-824?

Interesting that you’re also having the issue. I’m not using any mod software on my players. I’m running the newest official Panasonic firmware.

I tested with the modded v1.82 firmware and the problem still exists with several Edition Filmmuseum all-region DVDs.

[hearthesilence]

Ju Dou is now playing at Film Forum, distributed by Film Movement. It's been restored at Hiventy Laboratory (Paris) by IMPEX Films, but tbh it looks thoroughly detrained in the reissue trailer. Hopefully the DCP will look better, but given the lack of availability prior to this reissue, it's going to be the "best" looking version out there.

[Murdoch]

I thought the Imprint version looked alright although I'm not expert.

[malachi_lui]

About the Film Movement Lee Chang-dong set, has anyone compared it to the Umbrella set? I bought the FM set during Vinegar Syndrome's halfway sale and I agree that the films look tolerable but not great: mediocre constant bitrate encodes at 25Mbps, too much DNR that renders any grain left as blocky digital mush, some banding towards the end of Green Fish. Also, Oasis is supposed to be 1.85:1 like the other films in the set, yet it looked like it was cropped a little tighter than that, maybe 1.90:1.

The Umbrella set is much more expensive and doesn't have Green Fish, but is it noticeably better in any way? Mostly just looking for the best copy of Peppermint Candy. Or is there any chance that a UK label picks these up and does the definitive release? The restoration colors look very good but otherwise, lots of questionable decisions.

[nicolas]

The Umbrella set is much more expensive and doesn't have Green Fish, but is it noticeably better in any way? Mostly just looking for the best copy of Peppermint Candy. Or is there any chance that a UK label picks these up and does the definitive release? The restoration colors look very good but otherwise, lots of questionable decisions.

I wouldn’t expect anything noticeably better with the Australian set. Umbrella are only using Fidelity in Motion for select 4K releases, all others are encoded by at least two local facilities that also work for Imprint. They’re delivering encodes in different shades of poor.

Radiance managed to get an interview with Lee Chang-dong for Splendid Outing, so here’s hoping that they got his films as well for the UK.

[Lowry_Sam]

Film Movement have picked up the rights to Tsui Hark's Shanghai Blues

Just went to the BAMPFA screening of the 4k "restoration". The film opens with the Film Movement logo & mentions the supposed restoration (2024) and Cannes screening. This was probably the worst 4k restoration I've seen. Scenes alternate between crystal clear detail & a sort of hazy grainy pixelated (?) mess. At 2 points in the film the image broke up so much it was difficult to clearly see what was actually going on, which made me wonder if there was some problem with the projection, but there were other scenes where this weird large digital grain (?) pops up (I'm guessing that's what it is because I've never seen this before). One of the worst of these is when the ruckus in the upstairs apartment causes silt to fall into the lower apartment, but instead of the silt falling from the ceiling clouding the air we see the entire image completely disintegrate. This made me think that the 4k restoration was done by AI & not a human. The changes in the PQ between scenes was so dramatic & distracting that I didn't even notice any color timing issues (which is what people had been wondering most about as it was supposedly done by Ritrovata). The dubbing was also poorly done & distracting. During the musical numbers it was often noticeable that it was a completely different song than what the actors were lip-synching to.

Paul Fonoroff gave a nice introduction to the film, noting that HK films dominated the HK market in the 80s & 90s (100-200 HK produced films per year which has since dropped to only about 40) & that only 3 Western films cracked the top 25 in the HK market the year it was released (& in which it was 3rd biggest box office hit). He covered some of the film's inaccuracies (like that South Pacific wasn't a broadway hit yet, let alone a film during the time the film is set). He mentioned Darkie toothpaste & showed ads to set the background for the blackface scene. However, there was no such scene in the presentation, so I had no clue as to what the scene entailed, but can confirm it was cut from this version. He also mentioned that it would be the first time watching it again since he first saw it during its opening in HK, but that he had scribbled that the film was lousy in his notes onto a napkin right after he watched it & was interested to see if that needed re-assessing.

[pistolwink]

Fonoroff published two absolutely amazing coffee-table books on HK cinema, but funny enough he had an almost complete distaste for popular genre cinema, including action films, which puts him at odds with pretty much every other Westerner who writes extensively about Hong Kong cinema. Most of the major HK films of the 1980s and 1990s which we now think of as "classics," Fonoroff panned in his reviews of the time.

It's a real shame the "restoration" sounds like a disaster.

[malachi_lui]

I saw the Shanghai Blues restoration at Metrograph in NYC over the summer (2K DCP). First time I'd seen the film, I didn't notice anything glaringly wrong (it looked very clean and clear, arguably a bit too plasticky but I don't remember it being super DNR waxy) but was also trying to simply enjoy the movie and bask in the theatre's air conditioning. I'll have more of an opinion once I watch it again at home, it's streaming on the Criterion Channel right now. Perhaps my restoration quality standards are a bit lower for Hong Kong films, as so many have been stranded in potato resolution for so long that any 'upgrade' is acceptable, even if there are some issues.

[andyli]

My main issue with this “thing” ( I hesitate to call it a restoration) is the cut scene and the poorly done redub. I understand this would be less of an issue if you were watching it for the first time and didn’t under the original language anyway. The change was made with Tsui Hark’s blessing, so I fear this is another case of WKW revisionism and the old version will become harder to see.