Fires on the Plain (1959) 4K (Criterion Collection)

[MifuneFan]

Criterion will be releasing Kon Ichikawa's Fires on the Plain on 4K in August! The Burmese Harp is also coming the same month.

Fires on the Plain 4K UHD

https://www.criterion.com/films/347-fires-on-the-plain

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Introduction by Japanese-film scholar Donald Richie
• Program featuring interviews with director Kon Ichikawa and actor Mickey Curtis
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Chuck Stephens

Cover by Michael Boland

An agonizing portrait of desperate Japanese soldiers stranded in a strange land during World War II, Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain is a compelling descent into psychological and physical oblivion. Denied hospital treatment for tuberculosis and cast off into the unknown, Private Tamura treks across an unfamiliar Philippine landscape, encountering an increasingly debased cross section of Imperial Army soldiers, who eventually give in to the most terrifying craving of all. Grisly yet poetic, Fires on the Plain is one of the most powerful works from one of Japanese cinema’s most versatile filmmakers.

[mikesncc1701]

Absolutely fantastic film! Shame no HDR or Dobly though...

[trip66]

To have both Kon Ichikawa's films released together is monumental! Both are probably my two favorite WWII films from the Japanese perspective. I knew The Burmese Harp was coming, and it made me wonder if Fires On The Plains would be getting the shaft, but this is an awesome surprise!

[hipsofjw]

Disc Title: FIRES ON THE PLAIN
Disc Label: FIRES ON THE PLAIN
Disc Size: 60,682,397,724 bytes
Protection: AACS2
Playlist: 00003.MPLS
Size: 59,409,648,576 bytes
Length: 01:44:47.364
Total Bitrate: 75.59 Mbps
Video: MPEG-H HEVC Video / 69,997 kbps / 2160p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / Main 10 @ Level 5.1 @ High / 4:2:0 / 10 bits / Limited Range / BT.709 / BT.709 / BT.709
Audio: Japanese / LPCM Audio / 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: English / 18.07 kbps

[nicwood]

Found some caps. Very nice PQ upgrade: https://slow.pics/c/A7c4udqh

Here’s an audio comparison: https://slow.pics/c/PHbUWcO9

[nicwood]

Fires on the Plain looks wonderful in motion. No issues with the grade and the grayscale in SDR looks fantastic with detailed highlights and shadow detail. Grain is very fine but looks organic and the opticals were left alone. Encoding is excellent although I imagine a BDInfo graph reveals that it ebbs and flows more than usual with NexSpec as they throttled the bitrates quite a bit when it gets darker and the shots become more static. But fear not, everything is in order.

The only thing I noticed that struck me as slightly odd is very subtle hints of something that looks like aliasing around characters when they’re illuminated against a darker background. If it’s aliasing or another phenomenon, I can’t tell as it’s that subtle but I do see some faint, usually vertical lines that do look a bit pixel-y if you look very closely. I have to emphasize that this is very minor and most viewers won’t notice a thing as you’d almost have to see it through a magnifying glass. I just thought I’d share this, particularly for professorwho and our Japanese / Asian cinema experts who have more info by any chance. Sadly, Criterion don’t list scanners any more but the booklet states Kadokawa did the restoration (mastering would probably be the better term) from the original negative and Cineric did the image restoration.

I’ll try to spot this in the above caps, otherwise I’ll do a few of my own.

[DonaldMcDonald]

The HD disc looks fine, but the UHD aliasing issues are really ghastly. Will probably seem fine when watching from a distance, but it's a shame.

[Zack83]

Originally Posted by nicwood

Found some caps. Very nice PQ upgrade: https://slow.pics/c/A7c4udqh

Here’s an audio comparison: https://slow.pics/c/PHbUWcO9

I don't see any difference between the US BD and the UHD. Certainly an upgrade from the FR BD.