AxeYou wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2023 2:23 am
If anyone’s interested in the piano scores in Yi Yi, I managed to catch a word with Kaili Peng (composer and Yang’s widow) today at Lincoln Center’s Edward Yang retrospective. She said they were hoping to release the scores this year or next.
Did you get the impression that this includes physical releases? I’d love to get some of those on vinyl
I only got a very brief exchange with her while she was leaving the theater. IIRC she said she'd been thinking about releasing them for some time and was now hopeful to make it happen this year or next year. But no specifics beyond that, sorry!
I have tickets for That Day on the Beach, Mahjong, and Confucian Confusion at BAMPFA in Berkeley, California which is showing all of Yang's movies next month if anyone wants to meet up for coffee before hand.
Broadway Circuit in Hong Kong claims to be screening a “4K restoration” of Yi Yi this month.
I haven’t been able to find any announcement of a 4K restoration anywhere. The current DCP & Blu-ray are based on an HD master from an interpositive scanned on the infamous Spirit Datacine. It’s definitely one of the softer-looking Blu-rays I have. I believe that old restoration is what Lincoln Center screened for their Yang retrospective in December/January. While I certainly hope there is indeed a new restoration, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a misprint.
AxeYou wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2024 9:15 am
Broadway Circuit in Hong Kong claims to be screening a “4K restoration” of Yi Yi this month.
I haven’t been able to find any announcement of a 4K restoration anywhere. The current DCP & Blu-ray are based on an HD master from an interpositive scanned on the infamous Spirit Datacine. It’s definitely one of the softer-looking Blu-rays I have. I believe that old restoration is what Lincoln Center screened for their Yang retrospective in December/January. While I certainly hope there is indeed a new restoration, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a misprint.
I’m getting my hopes up that it’s a new restoration. I always found it suspicious that there was barely any talk of Yi Yi during the recent Yang retrospectives and restoration talk. It would be only fitting to tackle his final masterpiece as well together with his early films, so maybe they weren’t quite ready to release it.
AxeYou wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2024 9:15 am
Broadway Circuit in Hong Kong claims to be screening a “4K restoration” of Yi Yi this month.
SIFF is now advertising this too, as part of a "series celebrating the 4K restorations of his five masterpieces"
Someone who attended the Hong Kong screening reported that it was more or less the same as the Criterion transfer, even starting with the Criterion logo. So don't get your hopes up.
Probably not much difference, except that the Korean edition provides an English subtitle track.
Now that we're in the Edward Yang thread and the Cannes Classics announcement is due any day now, I'd like to share rumors that a major Yang is among the line-up in a brand new 4K restoration. You won't be disappointed.
Eh? The TFAI's 4K restoration of Mahjong premiered in late 2023 in a Lincoln Center retrospective and even had a U.S. theatrical run last year alongside A Confucian Confusion. Weirdly its commercial rollout elsewhere has been much slower (for example, it just came out in Japanese theaters even though A Confucian Confusion has been out on Blu there for a year). Given the history of Yang's films I wonder if there was an unanticipated eleventh-hour rights snag.
he didn't make many movies, aren't they all major in that case?
sounds like a 4K restoration of A One and a Two, though. that's how it seems to me, since we have Mahjong and A Confucian Confusion already (but not on disc..)
The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Wed Apr 30, 2025 9:59 pm
Eh? The TFAI's 4K restoration of Mahjong premiered in late 2023 in a Lincoln Center retrospective and even had a U.S. theatrical run last year alongside A Confucian Confusion. Weirdly its commercial rollout elsewhere has been much slower (for example, it just came out in Japanese theaters even though A Confucian Confusion has been out on Blu there for a year). Given the history of Yang's films I wonder if there was an unanticipated eleventh-hour rights snag.
Ah, I'm behind the times. I thought only A Confucian Confusion had ultimately been restored. I remember an announcement of the restoration of Mahjong, but when A Confucian Confusion came out I jumped to that conclusion.
I finally caught up with Yang's debut feature, That Day, on the Beach, and thought it was quite effective at capturing the struggles of long-term relationships both within the cultural context and universally. The film feels bifurcated in its approach, for alongside the central story there are all of these lyrical moments that transcend the narrative - like expressions of hope lost during everyday conversations, but with the energy to state one's expectations and values in a crystallized manner. And of course the ending where we see the brother intimately touching objects and meditating on his gratitude, even while fading away. A beautiful film that falls just short of the greatness Yang would master soon after
Is Yang's segment in In Our Time worth checking out? I just have that and Mahjong left to see
therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Jan 05, 2026 6:56 pm
I finally caught up with Yang's debut feature, That Day, on the Beach, and thought it was quite effective at capturing the struggles of long-term relationships both within the cultural context and universally. The film feels bifurcated in its approach, for alongside the central story there are all of these lyrical moments that transcend the narrative - like expressions of hope lost during everyday conversations, but with the energy to state one's expectations and values in a crystallized manner. And of course the ending where we see the brother intimately touching objects and meditating on his gratitude, even while fading away. A beautiful film that falls just short of the greatness Yang would master soon after
Is Yang's segment in In Our Time worth checking out? I just have that and Mahjong left to see
It's definitely worth checking out if you've seen everything else, but it's probably his most constrained and least impressive work. A fine first effort nevertheless.
That Day, on the Beach is insanely ambitious as a first feature, and sometimes the effort really shows (e.g. Sylvia Chang's chronologically coded costumes and hairstyles), but in most other careers it would be the incredible debut to which nothing else ever measured up. It was extremely bold for Yang to entrust his epic-length, visually complex would-be-breakthrough to a novice cinematographer (who turned out to be one of the most influential of the last half-century). I agree with you that many of the highlights of the film are those little poetic grace-notes that seem to sit just outside the main narrative.
