criterionforum.org

Fallen Angels is coming to Blu-ray from Kino.

blu-ray.com:

Kino International, distributor of foreign and indie films in the United States, will begin releasing Blu-ray titles this fall. Sources tell us that the first high definition title they will release will be Wong Kar Wai's 'Fallen Angels'. No technical specs or supplemental features have been announced at this time.

PAL to NTSC in 1080p!

manicsounds wrote:PAL to NTSC in 1080p!

I believe that would be 1080i... not to mess up your rhyming scheme.

march 31st for Fallen Angels and Happy Together special editions

manicsounds wrote:march 31st for Fallen Angels and Happy Together special editions

They were supposed to release Fallen Angels on Blu-ray. Any news on if these will have Blu-ray editions?

I also see that Kino has new SD editions of "HAPPY TOGETHER" and "FALLEN ANGELS" due out in March. Am I mistaken, or didn't Kino announce that "FALLEN ANGELS" would be its very first blu-ray release?

Rich Malloy wrote:Am I mistaken, or didn't Kino announce that "FALLEN ANGELS" would be its very first blu-ray release?

You're not mistaken.

hearthesilence wrote:...posted on digitalbits:

we've gotten official confirmation from the good folks at Kino International that they're planning to release Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Wong Kar-Wai's Fallen Angels in high-definition on the Blu-ray Disc format sometime in 2009. The exact street dates and special features are all still to be determined, so we'll follow up with them over the next few months.

Kino International, distributor of foreign and indie films in the United States, will begin releasing Blu-ray titles this fall. Sources tell us that the first high definition title they will release will be Wong Kar Wai's 'Fallen Angels'.

We are a few weeks away from Kino's standard-def release of "FALLEN ANGELS" (also "HAPPY TOGETHER"), but I've heard nothing more about Kino's blu-ray plans. There was also a little something about a "METROPOLIS" BD release in 2009. Has there been a change of plans at Kino about its blu-ray support?

from amazon:

Fallen Angels

- Remastered From New HD Film Transfers
- Presented For the First Time in 5.1 Surround (Supervised by Wong Kar-Wai)

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Three Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes
- Interview with Cinematographer Christopher Doyle
- Trailers
- Stills Gallery
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

Happy Together
- Remastered From New HD Film Transfers
- Presented For the First Time in 5.1 Surround (Supervised by Wong Kar-Wai)

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- (Buenos Aires Zero Degrees - 1999, 59 Min.) A Documentary On the Making of HAPPY TOGETHER
- Wong Kar-Wai at the Museum of the Moving Image (2008, 44 Min.)
- Trailers
- Stills Gallery
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

manicsounds wrote:from amazon:

Fallen Angels

- Remastered From New HD Film Transfers
- Presented For the First Time in 5.1 Surround (Supervised by Wong Kar-Wai)

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Three Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes
- Interview with Cinematographer Christopher Doyle
- Trailers
- Stills Gallery
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs ...

Right. A regular ol' DVD, quite possibly from the same restored elements as the R3 Alto Media DVD (or, knowing Kino, perhaps a non-preconverted PAL>NTSC transfer derived from the R4-Aussie PAL master). And no further updates regarding any possible blu-ray release that I've heard.

As for "Happy Together", it appears that Kino is offering an additional extra not found on the AE release: Wong Kar-Wai at the Museum of the Moving Image (2008, 44 Min.). Not worth it if this is one of their typical PAL>NTSC hack-jobs, of course, but all things otherwise being equal, this inclusion would probably cause me to favor the Kino. I'd also like to know whether different transfers of "B.A. Zero Degree" are utilized. It's my understanding that the AE release has a letterboxed-only transfer (possibly a direct port from their prior release). This is a rather more significant than usual "making of", inclusive of tons of excised scenes, subplots, and other goodies. I'd hold out for a better transfer of this, as well.

Still... with all these unanswered questions, I remain awfully tempted to import the AE "Happy Together" DVD, not least because it's rather significantly cheaper at £9.98 (this price prior to removal of VAT for North American purchasers) as compared to $26.99 for the Kino.

Kino's recent-ish release of The Eagle Shooting Heroes is a very good native NTSC transfer sourced from the same remaster used for the R3 reissue a year or two back. I mention this because all of these titles (Eagle Shooting Heroes/Happy Together/Fallen Angels) are coming from Fortissimo and I would expect they're providing both AE and Kino with the Jet Tone HD remasters. With that in mind, I'm willing to bet, here and now, that the AE and Kino Happy Together will be only slightly distinguishable from each other; by extension the Kino Fallen Angels would look like the Alto/Mei Ah reissues (this also goes for AE's Chungking Express). My main worry is that Kino is stretching the bitrate budget for their Happy Together disc -- they've got about 200 minutes of material there, which isn't terrible for a DVD-9, but they're definitely pushing it.

As for Buenos Aires Zero Degree, I suspect it may not even be possible to do an anamorphic version, given that it was clearly mastered and partially shot on video -- and given its age, it might well have been done in letterboxed 4:3 rather than anamorphic 16:9. There's certainly no anamorphic version out there at the moment (both R3 editions -- the standalone release and disc two of the "10th Anniversary" set -- are also 4:3 letterboxed).

So has anyone seen the new Fallen Angels disc? I keep waiting for Beaver to update with a comparison, but they haven't yet..

I can't speak from firsthand viewing, but I saw some screens at another forum which escapes me at the moment (I'll try looking for it tomorrow if no one else digs it up). It looked virtually identical to the 2006 R3 remaster except Kino somehow ended up interlacing it, which is also apparently what happened with Happy Together. The R3 remaster itself is problematic: it's cleaner than the Accent (which despite the touchup still had instances of damage here and there), but this comes at the cost of significant DNR, which is frankly as distracting as I've ever seen on standard-def. The screenshots I saw suggested this had been carried over to the Kino disc. Also the color scheme is radically different (the Accent is more naturalistic, the Kino and R3s have an extremely strong blue-green tinge -- I wouldn't necessarily assume that the latter is wrong, but it's worth mentioning).

Tootletron wrote:So has anyone seen the new Fallen Angels disc? I keep waiting for Beaver to update with a comparison, but they haven't yet..

I'll try to finish it (and Happy Together) by the beginning of next week... Comparison at DVD Beaver, that is...