Wong Kar Wai - Japanese Trailers

[LucasGodzilla]

So lately I've got Wong Kar Wai on the brain, and I randomly stumbled on an odd little rabbit–hole that has been sort of nagging at me since I've discovered this, but I noticed that on YouTube you can find a handful of Japanese WKW trailers, and the thing that struck me the most about them was that they looked very much akin to what I would expect from a print?

I'm embedding all three down below (Days Of Being Wild, Chungking Express & Fallen Angels in that order). Unfortunately from what I can tell though, they seem to not really be playable on the site here, so you'll have to jump to some other tab to check them out.



Anyways, given I know that the color situation for WKW's works have always been a mess to keep straight, I thought I'd drop these here if anyone's remotely interested in attempting some sort of oddball blanket regrade to any other existing UHDs out there.

That said, I imagine you'd have to track down the original encodes of these trailers to get anything workable out of them from something like Dr. Dre's color matcher. I don't suppose any WKW fan would know where these trailers were included, do they?

[PDB]

Those do look very nice and film like.

[shiftyeyes]

I have a copy of the early Japanese Blu-ray of Happy Together, which is sourced from a print as opposed to the Kino and other Blu-ray releases which use Jet Tone's 2009 "remaster". I took a look at it and these Japanese trailers are included among the extras in SD quality!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XiHODwa...drive_link

Edit: Looks like these might also be on the Kino Blu-rays?

[The Aluminum Falcon]

Oh hi everyone, nice to see fellow WKW fans here too I know I've discussed more or less some of the following thoughts with you but figured I'd put in the thread for more general consumption.

- CHUNGKING EXPRESS - The laserdisc is from an interpositive and doesn't look particularly accurate to the 35mm. @LucasGodzilla also pointed out to me that it's missing some filters (blue mostly). I think the trailer is probably a more accurate representation though I haven't seen this title in cinemas. Other laserdiscs may give better color insights.

- FALLEN ANGELS - The first Kino DVD looks great (again, haven't seen this title in cinemas). While that Kino DVD is missing some footage (around the reel ends) and various splices, it has really strong colors. Unsure if this is from an interpositive, internegative, or print. Has at least one shot reversed...

- HAPPY TOGETHER - The Japanese Blu-Ray is print-sourced. Case closed!

- IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE - The first UK DVD or the first Mei Ah DVD both look like a print I've seen, UK probably a bit closer. This has a warmer, greener tint but nothing like the blanket muted green tint of the current master.

- 2046 - Early DVDs also probably give better idea of color.

For anyone who's heard me consider the above before, excuse the repetition.

[LucasGodzilla]

To my knowledge, there's also Days Of Being Wild where the current Criterion includes a print scan of some alternate cut.

Finally, a little picture comparison. Although the 4K remaster of the Regular Version tends towards the greenish, much more detail can be seen especially in slightly darker scenes.

Alternate Cut | Regular Version

[shiftyeyes]

Days of Being Wild is curious. From the liner notes, it seems the 4K remaster of it and As Tears Go By were not approved by War Kar Wai so I'm curious who dictated the cooler/greener color push. There are those quotes from Christopher Doyle that dictated the movie should be very green, but I think it looks a bit better on the print scan than on the 4K restoration. Possibly Media Asia Group or L'Immagine Ritrovata? Either way, the alternate cut on the Criterion disc is a fantastic extra!

Don't know if you guys have come across this, but in Wong Kar Wai's Director's Note on the changes for the Criterion box set, there's a clip of a print of Fallen Angels running on a Steenbeck, which might be of interest. Guess it isn't too far off from the original Kino DVD release.

[LucasGodzilla]

Days of Being Wild is curious. From the liner notes, it seems the 4K remaster of it and As Tears Go By were not approved by War Kar Wai so I'm curious who dictated the cooler/greener color push. There are those quotes from Christopher Doyle that dictated the movie should be very green, but I think it looks a bit better on the print scan than on the 4K restoration. Possibly Media Asia Group or L'Immagine Ritrovata? Either way, the alternate cut on the Criterion disc is a fantastic extra!

I believe all of the restorations were done by L'Immagine Ritrovata which is why—generally speaking—the color density as a whole looks pretty decent as far as 4K restorations go. The biggest qualm that I've always had with that restoration team is that they never seemed to get white balance down which is exactly the issue I see in practically all of these masters.

The thing that sticks out for me between the alternate cut print and the 4K restoration is really in the highlights. Because the highlights desaturate to white on prints, they help to sort of add a balance to the strong color tinting. You can clearly see this effect here in this screencap I plucked off YouTube when looking at the specular highlights in the background.



And it's a huge shame really given how much of WKW's works involve heavy push–processing that just inherent promotes these really bright, blooming highlights in a lot of scenes that kind of just look flat now due to the white–point tinting. It's the kind of thing that would be best friends with modern HDR capabilities since you could push those highlights like before but still maintain a dense level of detail in the upper NIT range without the roll–off prints enforce.

I suspect perhaps it's a case where they had to alter some of the grading after Ritrovata applied a print film emulation, but if that's the case, that's technically really bad color management lol

Don't know if you guys have come across this, but in Wong Kar Wai's Director's Note on the changes for the Criterion box set, there's a clip of a print of Fallen Angels running on a Steenbeck, which might be of interest. Guess it isn't too far off from the original Kino DVD release.

Funny. In the same YouTube video I posted a still of from above, they also showed that same clip and I was wondering where in the world it even came from.



Admittedly I've always been a devil's advocate in letting directors cook and make their own newer versions of their old movies, particularly when it was something they wanted to do originally but couldn't for some technical reason. That said, the line for me is drawn at when a director ends up burying the older version as direct result of their newer creation, so it's a shame that—odds are—we won't see a newer remaster of the original cinematography for quite some time.

[shiftyeyes]

The dull highlights are rather bothersome and it seems to be a recurring trend in color grades. Think L'Immagine Ritrovata likes this for some reason. But perhaps WKW likes it too? I recall watching The Grandmaster and noticing there was a lot of yellow in the highlights.

[LucasGodzilla]

The dull highlights are rather bothersome and it seems to be a recurring trend in color grades. Think L'Immagine Ritrovata likes this for some reason. But perhaps WKW likes it too? I recall watching The Grandmaster and noticing there was a lot of yellow in the highlights.

In the case of Ritrovata left to their own devices, it's more of a byproduct of the print film emulation they use. Due to how film projection differs from the white balance of a standard monitor, technically the yellow is "accurate" since your eyes would sort of adjust to the projector light in a dark theater. However, for home video transfers, it is kind of unacceptable of them to not adjust the image to compensate for the differing white balances.

For WKW, I do think it could just be a matter of preference since I think that flatter look is just generally the modern aesthetic nowadays.