Zhang Yimou

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

There were two restorations done in China in the late 2010s: a 2K from the Xi'an Film Studio (used for the WCL Blu and the contemporaneous theatrical reissue) and a 4K from the China Film Archive (which has never been commercially released). But last year there was a Japanese Blu and theatrical run of an "HD restoration" purportedly supervised by Zhang himself, which AFAICT wasn't the case for the two aforementioned restorations. Gu Changwei approved the grading of the CFA restoration after requesting "a twilight tone, warmer and redder," but the CFA also subjected it to one of their ludicrous 48fps conversion jobs, so I very much hope that isn't what Discotek is referring to.

[qw0aszx]

There were two restorations done in China in the late 2010s: a 2K from the Xi'an Film Studio (used for the WCL Blu and the contemporaneous theatrical reissue) and a 4K from the China Film Archive (which has never been commercially released). But last year there was a Japanese Blu and theatrical run of an "HD restoration" purportedly supervised by Zhang himself, which AFAICT wasn't the case for the two aforementioned restorations. Gu Changwei approved the grading of the CFA restoration after requesting "a twilight tone, warmer and redder," but the CFA also subjected it to one of their ludicrous 48fps conversion jobs, so I very much hope that isn't what Discotek is referring to.

Actually no, the Japanese blu-ray should be the same alternative HD source that Imprint release used and no supervising from Zhang Yimou was ever mentioned, it seems originated from CCTV for the HD broadcast of their movie channel. Regarding on contrast, it's better than the Xi'an 2K restoration but colors seem too less saturated than it should be in some parts. Not enough red! Though Xi'an didn't do it very good either, the best one is actually that 4K restoration from China Film Archive, but the 48fps upconversion is ridiculous. (Also CFA never license any of their works, so there's no hope for that version to be seen outside some festival screenings.) But the biggest problem for that source was quite obvious compression artifact throughout the whole presentation, I think it's either from a compressed file or the original source file being less than true HD.

Current releases of Red Sorghum:
Chinese blu-ray - 2K restoration from Xi'an
Korean blu-ray - 2K restoration from Xi'an
Australian blu-ray - alternative HD source
Japanese blu-ray - alternative HD source

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Actually no, the Japanese blu-ray should be the same alternative HD source that Imprint release used and no supervising from Zhang Yimou was ever mentioned, it seems originated from CCTV for the HD broadcast of their movie channel.

The distributor repeatedly said as such in the publicity materials, including the trailer for the theatrical reissues ("チャン・イーモウ監督自らが監修HDレストア版"). They also furthermore claimed that it was the first Blu-ray release of this "HD restored version." But I'm as skeptical as you are.

[qw0aszx]

The distributor repeatedly said as such in the publicity materials, including the trailer for the theatrical reissues ("チャン・イーモウ監督自らが監修HDレストア版"). They also furthermore claimed that it was the first Blu-ray release of this "HD restored version." But I'm as skeptical as you are.

Yeah, II believe it was just false advertisement, Zhang never officially supervised any restorations of his old works I believe, the 4K restored version of Red Sorghum done by CFA was supervised by Gu Changwei. As for that claim of first blu-ray release, I believe Japanese publisher always use such kind of "初Blu-ray化" if this film never released locally in blu-ray format.