Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) (Metrograph Pictures)

[MifuneFan]

Metrograph Pictures (via Kino) will be releasing Tsai Ming-liang's Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) on Blu-ray on December 12th. This was one I've been wanting for some time now, so I'm glad to finally see it get a BD release in the US. The film was previously released on Blu-ray (region free) by Second Run in the UK.

https://kinolorber.com/product/goodbye-dragon-inn

Extras:

• Audio commentary by film critic Phoebe Chen
• Introduction by film critic Nick Pinkerton
• Re-Release Trailer

Goodbye, Dragon Inn [Official Trailer] - YouTube

Like the Royal Theater in The Last Picture Show and the title movie house in Cinema Paradiso, the Fu-Ho is shutting down for good. The Fu-Ho’s valedictory screening is King Hu’s 1967 wuxia epic Dragon Inn, playing to a motley smattering of spectators. The standard grievances persist: patrons snack noisily and remove their shoes, treating this temple of cinema like their living room. The sense that moviegoing as a communal experience is slipping away takes on a powerful and painful resonance. Yet Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn is too multifaceted to collapse into a simple valentine to the age of pre-VOD cinephilia. A minimalist where King Hu was a maximalist, preferring long, static shots and sparse use of dialogue, Tsai rises to the narrative challenges he sets for himself and offers the slyest, most delicate of character arcs (the manager, a woman with an iron brace on her leg, embarks on a torturous odyssey to deliver food to the projectionist, played by Lee Kang-sheng). By the time the possibility arises that the theater is haunted, we’ve already identified it as a space outside of time—indeed, two stars of Hu’s original opus, Miao Tien and Shih Chun, watch their younger selves with tears in their eyes, past and present commingling harmoniously and poignantly. 4K Restoration by CINEMATEK, the Royal Film Archive of Belgium.

[Rizor]

Cool! Been meaning to check this out. Picked up the UK release a while back but haven't sat down to watch it. Good to see this make its way over here though.

On the cover, they could've added:
"One of the Ten Greatest Films Ever Made!" - Tsai Ming-Liang

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Rizor

Cool! Been meaning to check this out. Picked up the UK release a while back but haven't sat down to watch it. Good to see this make its way over here though.

On the cover, they could've added:
"One of the Ten Greatest Films Ever Made!" - Tsai Ming-Liang

hah, that's funny. I wonder if he meant to put the King Hu film there instead? ..Thanks for mentioning the UK release, I should have added that to my post as well (I'll do that now).

[dex14]

Finally!

I almost did buy this in the Arrow sale.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by dex14

Finally!

I almost did buy this in the Arrow sale.

The Second Run disc is all-region, contains a conversation with the director talking about the film, and one of his short films (shot on video), which is supposed to be his take on M. Butterfly.

[Gacivory]

Super happy with the Second Run, but if people refused to buy that for some reason, glad they have access to this great movie on Blu.

[MifuneFan]

DVDBeaver review is up. It's a little darker than Second Run's release, and has a bump in bitrate.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-r...nn_blu-ray.htm