Russian 3D movies and 3D Blu-ray releases

[3disciple]

Given the dearth of new content, I’ve been picking up Russian releases. The Hong Kong martial arts/fantasy stuff (rightly) commands a lot of respect here but there is a solid body of foreign 3d that largely flies under the radar, not helped by a distributor aversion to subtitles (in any language). You’ll need a blu ray drive for DIY subtitles but it does open the door to another pool of content. If you've invested in a region-free player then it's the logical next step.

Viy
This is covered in-depth here but I’ll just say it's visually inventive strong, native 3d which challenges Tsui Hark’s finest. The plot is a little convoluted with a failure/refusal to fully explain the fast-moving story but it rewards repeat viewings.

Spacewalker
A brilliant film with solid native 3d that adds a little spark of magic to everything. The Baikonur dawn launch is a showstopper.

Salyut7
Another classic. All the orbital, Earth, spacecraft shots are sublime but it drops the ball in some key scenes such as zero-G droplets and cockroach-naut which should pop - but don’t. Still, I consider both superior to Gravity.

Flight Crew
There’s a slow hour-long love story to kick things off before the story veers off (literally) into non-stop action. It’s shot natively but is largely of the restrained Hollywood variety it is trying to emulate. It’s a solid watch and the volcanic, high altitude climax is genuinely impressive.

I Am Dragon
This romance/fantasy is a fantastic film and the 3d version got a limited release in Germany. The 3d is good/great but is the first official release I’ve seen which appears to compromise image quality to achieve it. The picture is noticeably lower res than the standard blu looking indistinct and more like 720p in a lot of shots. I presume they blurred the image to make the conversion easier? It’s a little distracting but not a deal-breaker.

Napoleon vs Rzhevsky
This surprised me, it’s filmed in strong native 3d with decent effects. The film itself is old-fashioned, puerile slapstick but it’s sufficiently bonkers to carry you along for the ride.

Jungle
A few genuine Russian 3d titles are masquerading as German auto conversions on Amazon.de and this is one of them. The Moscow scenes look like they were shot natively(albeit mild) but the Thailand scenes look poorly converted to me. It’s a shame because there are a few establishing shots in strong 3d and it plays a role in the plot with the main character purchasing an LG 3d TV at one point and talk of holographic windows. Too often though it’s just under-utilised. The standout CGI shot is an archer using the refraction of light in a raindrop to bend an arrow around an obstacle. It should be spectacular but comes off flat. Still, recommended and better than Dwayne’s multiple efforts.

UFO The Real Deal
Part of a shoddy US History channel series widely available in the west. For some reason, this episode was not released but can be picked up in Russia. Conspiracy. Lots of flat shots sprinkled throughout but it's amusing to see Seth Shostak slumming it.

State Hermitage Museum
This is a brief tour of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg with atrocious picture quality. Some of the paintings have been animated and dimensionalised though which is quite interesting.

Survival Game
Virtually the entire film is CGI but it looks like a conversion. The 3d is ok-ish but everything looks a little ‘off’ with errors and artefacts. Strong visually but the film is little more than a collection of cut scenes.

Attraction
A massive disappointment. The 3d is a poor conversion and the film is a slog. It may be worth a watch for the opening scene.

Shadowboxing 3
A Russian Rocky series, the last of which is in 3d. It’s a weak semi-professional conversion and only marginally better than an auto convert.

Zombie Fever – A terrible autoconversion and the film itself is diabolical (weirdly some of the animated interludes have been rendered in strong 3d).