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Calvin wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:34 pm I wonder if it will be the 'Y Box Set' on the Arrow list for October. I haven't heard any other suggestions anyway.

beamish14 wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:49 pm Yellow Earth would be phenomenal, but I'm not counting on that getting an official HD release in North America anytime soon. Maybe a box of his Sony-controlled films like The Road Home and Happy Times.

Glowingwabbit wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:32 pm

beamish14 wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:49 pm Yellow Earth would be phenomenal, but I'm not counting on that getting an official HD release in North America anytime soon. Maybe a box of his Sony-controlled films like The Road Home and Happy Times.

Yellow Earth would be great but he didn't direct that one.

beamish14 wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:58 pm

Glowingwabbit wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:32 pm

beamish14 wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:49 pm Yellow Earth would be phenomenal, but I'm not counting on that getting an official HD release in North America anytime soon. Maybe a box of his Sony-controlled films like The Road Home and Happy Times.

Yellow Earth would be great but he didn't direct that one.

Not officially, no, but Yimou's role on it was a but more nebulous than the official director/DP relationship, as indicated by interviews with Chen Kaige (whose own works really need HD releases as well).

yoshimori wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:53 pm > Yimou's role

Just for future reference ... Family name is Zhang. Chinese and Korean names - and Japanese names in Japan and increasingly in the West - are family name first, given name(s) last. So Zhang Yimou is Mr Zhang. Kim Ki-duk is Mr Kim. And Kurosawa Kiyoshi (or Kiyoshi Kurosawa in the US) is Mr Kurosawa.

It was quite surprising that the guy from Ballyhoo who's working on the Zhang Yimou film referred to him as "Yimou". That's the equivalent of saying "George's Star Wars movie".

yoshimori wrote:> Yimou's role

Just for future reference ... Family name is Zhang. Chinese and Korean names - and Japanese names in Japan and increasingly in the West - are family name first, given name(s) last. So Zhang Yimou is Mr Zhang. Kim Ki-duk is Mr Kim. And Kurosawa Kiyoshi (or Kiyoshi Kurosawa in the US) is Mr Kurosawa.

It was quite surprising that the guy from Ballyhoo who's working on the Zhang Yimou film referred to him as "Yimou". That's the equivalent of saying "George's Star Wars movie".

yoshimori wrote: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:53 pm It was quite surprising that the guy from Ballyhoo who's working on the Zhang Yimou film referred to him as "Yimou". That's the equivalent of saying "George's Star Wars movie".

Shrew wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:28 am To throw a further wrench into things, there's also the emergence of more Asian people born/primarily working in America or Europe, who often follow western Given-Family name order. For instance, I've seen people overcorrecting by referring to Bing Liu as "Bing" when Liu is his family name.

Shrew wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 4:46 pm True. I guess it's more of how Asians in America/Europe have become more likely to go by an Asian given name rather than adopting/being given an anglicized one (Anna May Wong, James Hong, Brue Lee, Walter Chaw, etc).

vsski wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:14 pm I finally made my way through this set and like others have said it’s a mixed bag. Yes it’s nice to have all these films in one set which due to licenses is unlikely to happen in other regions, but the transfers are sorely lacking. I don’t consider myself a specialist when it comes to these things, but they all look dated and many, especially Red Sorghum and Curse of the Golden Flower are riddled with digital artifacts, while most of the others look washed out.

The other part that disturbed me were the colors especially on the first 3, RS, Judou and RTRL. I have seen these (and Qui Ju) in theaters when they originally came out and the first three again during retrospectives. And I do remember these viewings very well for primarily one reason the use of color and especially the color red. On RS the color red really popped off the screen in every image and during the eclipse at the end the screen was saturated in red. I’ve seen the screenshots of the WCL release and feel it is closer to the original, but doesn’t hit the mark either, as it has areas where the red renders the other colors completely unnatural like the wheat field or the sky and that was not the case on 35mm (except for the eclipse at the end where everything looked unnatural).
On Judou, while for me together with Coming Home the best looking of this set, the color red is a pale comparison to what I saw on 35mm. When in one of the key scenes the red cloth came down from the rafters in theaters the red was blood red (and even the yellow was much more vivid) while here it is rather muted. To me the way Zhang used the colors in this film again stood out to me, which is why I remember it after all these years.
And finally RTRL - I barely recognized the film, all washed out, as if someone had bleached the transfer. The red lantern in the title is a pale orange in this transfer and even the buildings look like they just had a sandstorm go over them. No vivid colors as I remember them.

The only one of the four that looks close to what I remember from theaters was Qui Ju, which had a very desaturated look and that is rendered here quite similar.

I guess Imprint didn’t have access to better sources and by all accounts it doesn’t sound like better ones are out there at the moment (except for the 4K restoration of RS, which I have not seen and isn’t on disc), but I hope that someone in the future can do the films justice, as I still after all these years find them incredible and they do deserve better.

The set is now sold out, and I don’t know if Imprint will release them individually, but even if they do, I’d say save your money and wait for better editions (surely Criterion can’t sit on their titles forever - I know, I know, famous last words).

MediaOCD wrote:MedicaOCD is proud to announce the following licenses. All will be released on Blu-ray for the very first time later this year:
...
and a VERY unexpected live action announcement...

Red Sorghum
The groundbreaking directorial debut of Zhang Yimou and Winner of the Golder Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. This was recently restored in China, and we can't believe that we were able to get it.