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Old 01-15-2025, 03:59 PM   #1
MifuneFan MifuneFan is online now
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Criterion Chungking Express (1994) 4K UHD (Criterion Collection)

WKW's Chungking Express coming to 4K from Criterion in April


Quote:
DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K + UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
  • 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, both supervised and approved by director Wong Kar Wai
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Interview from 2002 with cinematographer Christopher Doyle
  • Episode of Moving Pictures from 1996 featuring interviews with Wong and Doyle
  • Deleted scenes
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin

Cover by Sarah Habibi, based on an original design by Nessim Higson

Last edited by MifuneFan; 01-15-2025 at 04:13 PM.
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:08 PM   #2
Cremildo Cremildo is online now
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The recycle bin is the destination of my UK AE Blu-ray.
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Old 01-15-2025, 07:59 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cremildo View Post
The recycle bin is the destination of my UK AE Blu-ray.
Why? It looks great. Keeping it right next to my kino of fallen angels.
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Old 01-15-2025, 08:06 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yiddo1981 View Post
Why? It looks great. Keeping it right next to my kino of fallen angels.
Dated master and incorrect aspect ratio.
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Old 01-24-2025, 08:07 AM   #5
Yiddo1981 Yiddo1981 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cremildo View Post
Dated master and incorrect aspect ratio.
Looks amazing on my 65 inch Sony mini led.
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Old 01-16-2025, 04:43 AM   #6
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I'm still not going to get over the subtitle changes.
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Old 01-16-2025, 12:25 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scottie View Post
I'm still not going to get over the subtitle changes.
What's changed?
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Old 01-16-2025, 09:12 PM   #8
Scottie Scottie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OSHAN View Post
What's changed?
223's password went from "Love You for 10,000 Years" to "Undying Love."

"Love You for 10,000 Years" was such an iconic line, setting the tone for the entire movie.


Last edited by Scottie; 01-16-2025 at 09:20 PM.
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Old 01-29-2025, 09:13 PM   #9
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Problem is, their 4K release of ITMFL didn't show much of a difference resolution-wise (or grain) neither... so without HDR what's there to improve over the blu-ray?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scottie View Post
I'm still not going to get over the subtitle changes.
So other scenes have been affected? Were these changed for better accuracy or..?

Last edited by slask; 01-29-2025 at 09:18 PM.
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Old 01-29-2025, 09:22 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slask View Post
So other scenes have been affected? Were these changed for better accuracy or..?
There are some other changes to the subtitles throughout, but they weren't quite as noticeable as this particular one.

Here's a Reddit thread discussing some of the changes besides the iconic passphrase:

https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/c...estoration_of/
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Old 01-29-2025, 10:14 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slask View Post
So other scenes have been affected? Were these changed for better accuracy or..?
If you scroll back to the first page, I also linked some posts that went over some of the changes.
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Old 05-28-2025, 09:55 AM   #12
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For those wondering, since Criterion is not consistent with it's practices. (The UHD of 'The Seventh Seal came with the old Blu-Ray release, even though Criterion had a newer Blu-Ray release based on a newer master in the Bergman Boxset).: The Blu-Ray accompanying the UHD has timestamps from 2020, which means it's the new restoration as released in the Wong Kar Wai boxset. ..Not that surprising since they also released a new stand-alone BD release of Chungking Express at the same time as the UHD.
The grade is identical. only difference is brightness of the subtitles in slightly darker on the UHD.
So if anyone hoped for the older oop BD with the bluer grading, you're out of luck. unfortunately.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Cremildo View Post
The recycle bin is the destination of my UK AE Blu-ray.
I wouldn't go that far... I'll definetly hold on to mine (with all my other Chungking Express DVDs and BDs). It's imho the best of the non-revisionist releases. It's not as overly bright and blue as the other BDs. It's colour-grading looks closer to the new color-grading than any other release. It has the previous 5.1 mix, the original credit sequence and the older subtitles.
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:16 PM   #13
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No HDR for THIS movie? Come on!
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:19 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backwater View Post
No HDR for THIS movie? Come on!
Wong Kar is such a queen when it comes to restoring his films
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Old 01-15-2025, 05:52 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backwater View Post
No HDR for THIS movie? Come on!
Bad form!
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Old 01-16-2025, 03:42 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backwater View Post
No HDR for THIS movie? Come on!
Approved by the director himself.
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:18 PM   #17
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Happy for those that were waiting for this. As for me, I'll still gladly be keeping the original Criterion Blu-ray. All the modifications introduced in the 4K restoration change the film a little too much for my liking, unfortunately.
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:35 PM   #18
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For those capable of adding external subtitles, the German Plaion release (still under their former Koch films branding) is beautifully encoded and has a HDR grade.

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Old 01-15-2025, 04:37 PM   #19
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I may pick this up, was this one of the few that WKW didn’t ruin?
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Old 01-15-2025, 04:58 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BluProofie View Post
I may pick this up, was this one of the few that WKW didn’t ruin?
I think there was less tinkering here than on the others. For me though, it's the altered color and sped up audio.

Member jjlikesonions did more detailed comparisons in the World of Wong Kar Wai Blu-ray thread.

Post 1
[Show spoiler]
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjlikesonions View Post
Here's a couple of comparisons for the new Chungking Express restoration just using the 4k trailer.

Disclaimer: The main reason for these comparisons should be color differences. Grain and detail aren't comparable because of the different compression of the sources (streaming vs. disc).

Original (source is an old trailer. I couldn't find the timestamp on my Criterion BD. The color on the old trailer probably doesn't exactly match the Criterion, but I know it's close. Both are bluish)



4K Restoration trailer



Original (Criterion BD)



4K Restoration trailer



MAJOR EDIT on 12/20/20: I thought that an alternate take used in the trailer was indicative of a change. But now I realize that they just used a different take for the original trailer vs. the original cut. So then for the restoration they restored both the trailer footage and the "in film" cut footage. The shots below don't match up because the 4k restoration trailer take is a different take than is used in the actual film.

Original (Criterion BD)



4K Restoration trailer



Same continuous take, but a few seconds later.

Original (Criterion BD)



4K Restoration trailer



You can watch the clips here for yourself.

Original
This is from one of the Criterion extras, but I compared it to my Criterion disc and it matches:
@ 1:30
Under the Influence: Barry Jenkins on Wong Kar-wai - YouTube

4K restoration
@ 1:24
CHUNGKING EXPRESS 4K | Official Trailer (English) - YouTube

Evidence that the takes are different:

- Different angle / tilt
- The shape of Tony's hand gripping the plane is noticeably different
- The speed at which he moves the plane is different. It takes him longer to land it in one of the takes.
- His girlfriend's reaction is different. She smiles more in the original and we see her teeth. (Unfortunately the youtube video cuts away before we see her teeth, but here is a screenshot from my disc)


Post 2
[Show spoiler]
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjlikesonions View Post
I didn't get screencaps of the end credits, but they are completely different now. In Chungking Express, they're colorful now instead of black & white.

Chungking Express: Restoration Comparison

1. The stream on the Lincoln Center site is presented in a way that is slightly sped up, similar to PAL speed up. Hopefully this only affects the stream and that the disc presentation will not be affected. EDIT: This apparent speed up DOES effect the disc. The speed of the film is slightly faster than before. The audio (both music and dialogue) is pitched up slightly as a result of the speed increase.


2. The "Chungking Express" title card

On the old versions, the title card appears silently and with the whole graphic at once. On the new restoration, each individual Chinese character (4 total) appears one by one, with each one accompanied by the sound of a gunshot. Definitely trying to highlight the action side of the film.

3. The scene of Takeshi Kaneshiro's character running in the rain at the baseball field. On the old Criterion BD, the scene ends with a fade to black. On the new restoration ends with a freeze frame on Takeshi and then cuts away.

4. I already covered this here, but in the scene after Tony rejecting the letter from his lover (Valerie Chow) that Faye tries to give him: the old Criterion BD doesn't contain music on this part. Only the sound of an airplane, and then diegetic sounds. On the new 4K restoration (and the 98 min HK cut) the song "Dream Person" aka "Dreams" sung by Faye Wong plays during this scene.

5. Finally, the image quality. The restoration brings the black levels down (darker). In some scenes, it's too dark. But in a lot of scenes, it looks more realistic / life-like than the original. I don't know which look is "correct" or more similar to a 35mm print. The tint is also different, but I think it is not bad in the way that In the Mood For Love seems to be. It is much more subtle than that. More importantly, the skin tones are more accurate and clothing/bedding/walls are more saturated than before. In a few shots, mainly in the Midnight Express, the old BD had increased contrast that lessened detail, though it of course gave it a certain gritty expressionist look. The restoration doesn't have this contrasted look, and instead retains a more realistic appearance.

The original image also contains some visible flickering (imperfections between film frames). The restoration removes the flickering entirely, from what I can tell.

It might be up to personal preference. Some may prefer the older version with slightly muted colors, raised blacks, cooler colored, more gritty, somewhat washed out look. It gives the film a bit more of a dreamy quality. Others may prefer restoration for the cleaner, more bolder colored, proper black leveled, more realistic image.

Overall: I think this restoration may be considered a success by some, assuming the "speed up" thing is not present on the disc, otherwise that would be a total blunder.

The colors are arguably better. Black levels arguably better. Flickering removed. No major cut differences. The only music cue difference is one that has valid historic precedent (reverting back to the HK theatrical cut). Although, personally I prefer the scene without the song. As long as the future BD disc has good compression and retains healthy amounts of grain, then I think it will be a relatively good presentation of the film. More to defend here than the presentation of Fallen Angels (RIP).

I think there is still room to debate over which look is more "accurate" to original look of the film or which look fits the film better. I think there is room for difference in opinion. In my personal opinion, the old look is more fitting to the film's themes and atmosphere.

Disclaimer: These screenshots are only meant for comparing colors. Do not use them to compare resolution detail or to compare framing (an outer edge of the frame is slightly cropped due to my setup). Also, the frames may or may not be exact matches because of my timing.

Left is 2008 Criterion BD vs. Right is 2020 4K restoration stream















































P.S. Sorry for not including any screenshots of the first story with the blonde and Takeshi Kaneshiro. I wasn't even planning on doing screenshots for this. Then when the second story started, I suddenly felt the urge to take screenshots.
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