Once A Thief

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by YenChanChow

What are the other restorations that China Film Archive has done? What are some that made it to blu ray? What were their problems?

I don't think any are on Blu-ray but, as I understand things, they add loads of gimmicks to their restorations. The Horse Thief is a great example. There were actually two restorations, one in 2K by Xi'an Film Studio and one in 4K by China Film Archive. The Xi'an restoration was released on Blu-ray in China. It looks and sounds really good.

Meanwhile, the CFA restoration interpolated extra frames so that the film runs at 48 fps (i.e., they made it look more soap opera-esque), used what I'm told was a really bad surround sound remix, and messed with the color timing. I don't think it has ever been released for home video or streaming, and that's okay with me. This gimmicky garbage was made around 2017-2018, years before "AI" was plastered over everything by idiot marketing men and middle managers who assume it'll do all the work for a fraction of the cost. If CFA really is restoring The Killer, I fully expect the restoration to be bad enough to make fans want to cry.