PTU (Masters of Cinema) Blu-ray - June 21st, 2021

[Mr_Orange]

Just ordered my copy from Amazon UK via AU during Prime Day. Hopefully Amazon's delivery speed will be quicker than direct from Eureka as I'm looking forward to watching this.

[Liersi]

Originally Posted by Mr_Orange

Does anyone know if this release comes from either a new 2K or 4K transfer?

Quickly compared to the old HK release, and the source looks identical. Compression is much better on the new MoC, though.

[Owenjohnston]

Just saw that Ritrovata has remastered Infernal Affairs in 4k. Really hope Eureka can release this:
https://www.facebook.com/16240973844...?sfnsn=scwspmo

[Pochacco]

Originally Posted by Owenjohnston

Just saw that Ritrovata has remastered Infernal Affairs in 4k. Really hope Eureka can release this:
https://www.facebook.com/16240973844...?sfnsn=scwspmo

I'd favour the trilogy of this on BR from Eureka if they were to release it with extra content. I can then retire my Mega Star HK DVD sets of them.

[beamish13]

Originally Posted by Ben_C

Received a dispatch email this morning for PTU (along with Encounter of the Spooky Kind). Another great one to add to the Johnnie To blu-ray collection.
Have owned the Third Window dvd for ages, and never bothered with the older HK blu due to the apparent watermark that appears every so often, so looking forward to seeing an upgraded version.

Hopefully more To will follow (I really hope Eureka release Breaking News so I can replace my HK version which no longer plays).

DVD Beaver review:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-r...TU_blu-ray.htm

Too Many Ways to be No. 1 and The Heroic Trio are 2 of my most-wanted

[alexrinse]

Originally Posted by beamish13

Too Many Ways to be No. 1 and The Heroic Trio are 2 of my most-wanted

Same here, for me PTU is by far the best of a trio of 2nd-tier To films released so far.

[drobswim13]

Originally Posted by beamish13

Too Many Ways to be No. 1 and The Heroic Trio are 2 of my most-wanted

Originally Posted by alexrinse

Same here, for me PTU is by far the best of a trio of 2nd-tier To films released so far.

Gotta release Heroic Trio and Executioners together as a double feature. Would be fantastic

[justwannaboogie]

Originally Posted by Owenjohnston

Just saw that Ritrovata has remastered Infernal Affairs in 4k. Really hope Eureka can release this:
https://www.facebook.com/16240973844...?sfnsn=scwspmo

Get ready for a teal tinted disappointment.

[Owenjohnston]

Originally Posted by justwannaboogie

Get ready for a teal tinted disappointment.

Their post says the colour grading was done by One Cool Group:
https://www.onecool.com/one-cool-production/

[ravenus]

Where do you fellows place Mad Detective and Breaking News in your assessment of Johnnie To movies? I have only seen these two by him...apart from some bog-standard Kung Fu movie he made long ago about a bloke that wants a pair of good shoes (the only selling point of that movie was Maggie Cheung doing an early version of the ethereally graceful woman she would embody in Wong Kar-Wai movies).

I absolutely love the former and thought the latter had a lot of great ideas (though it was also a little messy).

[ravenus]

^Actually I've seen Blind Detective too. Didn't care too much for that one. The story was okey-dokey and I thought the entire angle of him being disparaging about the deputy's looks was very tacked on irony. In some ways it was like a parody of Mad Detective.

[Ben_C]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Where do you fellows place Mad Detective and Breaking News in your assessment of Johnnie To movies? I have only seen these two by him...apart from some bog-standard Kung Fu movie he made long ago about a bloke that wants a pair of good shoes (the only selling point of that movie was Maggie Cheung doing an early version of the ethereally graceful woman she would embody in Wong Kar-Wai movies).

I absolutely love the former and thought the latter had a lot of great ideas (though it was also a little messy).

The Bare-Footed Kid presumably I bought the dvd of that when I was trying to get hold of as much Johnnie To as I possibly could.

I can’t remember the first Johnnie To film I saw, but whichever one it was, it must have left a big impression, as I did go on to buy lots of To DVDs and then blu-rays. The Mission, Exiled, Sparrow, PTU, Fulltime Killer, Thrown Down, Running out of Time, Election, and the two already mentioned, Breaking News and Mad Detective. I love ‘em all.
I even enjoyed Vengeance.

[HoldenCarver]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Where do you fellows place Mad Detective and Breaking News in your assessment of Johnnie To movies?

Breaking News is worth it for To's Touch of Evil homage. The rest of the movie is fun, but you can clearly see a point or two where they haven't figured out how to get the plot from A to B, so they just skip over it and cut directly from scene A to scene B instead.

Mad Detective didn't do anything for me. I think the translation let it down, because choices were made in terms of translating the cultural nuances that meant a lot of what happened just didn't make sense until (much later) I read an article on the cultural background to ghosts in Hong Kong culture. Certain things made a lot more sense after that, rather than just coming across as goofy and silly as the subtitles did. I liked Running on Karma much more than Mad Detective.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by HoldenCarver

Breaking News is worth it for To's Touch of Evil homage.

And the Jackie Chan joke.

Anyone seen the Russian remake?

[HoldenCarver]

Originally Posted by Futurhythm

They're referred to as 'inner ghosts' in Cantonese but these aren't literal ghosts--the meaning of the term and use of 'ghosts' is similar to the English 'inner demons' which also happens to be a major theme of the movie. I've always seen the movie to deal more with (faux?) psychology and the mind more than anything supernatural or mystical, on both a literal and figurative level.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell - because the subtitles called them 'ghosts', and because I know what ghosts are, I completely failed to get that they were 'inner demons' rather than supernatural phenomena, and bounced off the film hard as a result. I realise it's a well-regarded film and that it therefore might be more of a 'me' thing than a general thing, but I would've preferred the subtitles to have found a way of translating closer to the real meaning rather than the misleading simplification of 'ghosts'. Maybe then I wouldn't have fundamentally misundertood the film and how to approach it.

In that respect, Running on Karma being less clear-cut and more obtuse actually helped it, as this helped it avoid the same trap. Thinking I understand what is happening but having got the wrong end of the stick is far worse than not knowing entirely what is happening but figuring it out as the film goes on/afterwards. It's the difference between being maybe a bit confused, and wholly wrongfooted. If that makes sense.

[Lasse Reden]

Originally Posted by Owenjohnston

Just saw that Ritrovata has remastered Infernal Affairs in 4k. Really hope Eureka can release this:
https://www.facebook.com/16240973844...?sfnsn=scwspmo

Well, that's some timing. I just ordered the old Infernal Affairs trilogy set a few days ago after holding off on it for years due to the not so great image quality. I think i even tried to look up if there was talk about a remaster before ordering it. Oh well, at least it was cheap.

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Lasse Reden

Well, that's some timing. I just ordered the old Infernal Affairs trilogy set a few days ago after holding off on it for years due to the not so great image quality. I think i even tried to look up if there was talk about a remaster before ordering it. Oh well, at least it was cheap.

Same

[Owenjohnston]

Same, I bought the trilogy from cex to use up some vouchers

[Mr. Chaverria]

Originally Posted by Owenjohnston

Just saw that Ritrovata has remastered Infernal Affairs in 4k. Really hope Eureka can release this:
https://www.facebook.com/16240973844...?sfnsn=scwspmo

Man, I'd love to see these again.

[Drake2222]

Just watched PTU on dvd from the library, great film! Of course I was already a fan of Exiled and The Mission. I’ll be picking this up on blu. And 4k Infernal Affairs would be great, especially my favorite of the series IA II