The Legend of Sealed Book (1983) 4K UHD - WCL Limited Edition

[qw0aszx]

Disk Kino is going to release classic Chinese animation THE LEGEND OF SEALED BOOK from Shanghai Animation Studio on UHD.

• Feature film presented in 2160p with new Dolby Vision / HDR10 grade
  4K master of the "4K remastered version" supplied from the studio, with new grading and corrections done by Disk Kino
• Original Mandarin mono and 5.1 remix tracks
  Original mono track in LPCM format as well as the 5.1 remix done for the "4K remastered version" in DTS-HD MA format
• Restoration featurette (HD, 5 minutes)
  Short featurette on the previous restoration. (in Mandarin, no subtitles)
• Frame by Frame: Shanghai Animation Studio (23 minutes)
  A 1985 TV documentary hosted by Tony Rayns on the Shanghai Animation Studio, originally shot for the 1983 documentary "Visions: Cinema in China" but cut for the length and was not finished until 1985. It features interview with Te Wei and Wang Shuchen, as well as behind scenes footage of THE LEGEND OF SEALED BOOK. This documentary is sourced from a brand new transfer from the U-Matic tape. (in original English and burnt-in English subtitles for Mandarin parts, optional Chinese subtitles included)

Full cover art:

[Show spoiler]

[qw0aszx]

The "4K remastered" version re-released in 2021 was done by the streaming service MiGu and was upscaled from the previous 2K restoration, with a ten-minute behind the scenes featurette added to the end. The end result was...problematic. Unfortunately this became the only version that Shanghai Animation Studio would license out. At least Disk Kino did a complete re-grading of the film for this release, previous 2K restoration introduced an incorrect cold color scheme and the 4K remaster made it worse by adding a green filter, most of these color problems were solved during the re-grading process. Also similar to the release of Nezha Conquers the Dragon King, more than 2000 broken frames caused by auto-restoration were fixed by Disk Kino. The 5.1 remix used for the re-release was quite controversial also, at least Disk Kino includes a separate original mono track to this release.
The real hidden gem of this release is the inclusion of 1985 documentary Frame by Frame: Shanghai Animation Studio. The documentary was not shown anywhere after its premiere on British TV Channel 4, I don't think people were aware of this documentary until Tony Rayns brought it up during one conversation. Disk Kino tried to locate the original 1-inch broadcast tape but it seems lost, in the end a U-Matic tape from the original production company was located and transferred for this presentation. So this disc would be the first time after all these decades that this film was shown to public again.