Further Tartan Blu-ray titles!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 03:12

Tartan UK Blu-ray titles:

Paranoid Park - 28th April
I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK - 26th May
The Proposition - 23rd June
Sky Blue - 23rd June
Funny Games (2007) - 28th July
A Tale of Two Sisters - 28th July
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - 25th August
P2 - 25th August

All Tartan BDs so far have been Region Free.

Source: http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/ ... u-ray.html

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 03:16

I'll definitely pick up:

* The Proposition - It's fantastic.

I'll likely pick up:

* A Tale of Two Sisters
* Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - I'm guessing this will be the Theatrical Cut (aka - Colour version)

I cannot say I've ever heard of the rest. Are any of them any good?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 05 Mar 2008, 11:39

Sky Blue = a butchered English dubbed version of the high-budget Korean animated film, Wonderful Days. Heard that the original cut has a near incomprehensible plot.
Paranoid Park = usual Gus Van Sant no budget affair, from the looks of it. I haven't seen it or Last Days, but his film Elephant was truly outstanding.

They should release A Bittersweet Life on BD, that movie kicks fucking serious arse.

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 05 Mar 2008, 13:47

Funny Games is a remake from the original director starring Naomi Watts-reportedly shit, P2 is a thriller set in an underground car park starring some bird from Alias.i have a xvid of it but have yet to watch it.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 Mar 2008, 14:25

EvaUnit02 wrote:Sky Blue = a butchered English dubbed version of the high-budget Korean animated film, Wonderful Days. Heard that the original cut has a near incomprehensible plot.
Paranoid Park = usual Gus Van Sant no budget affair, from the looks of it. I haven't seen it or Last Days, but his film Elephant was truly outstanding.

They should release A Bittersweet Life on BD, that movie kicks fucking serious arse.

Sky Blue is the original cut, same as was released in Korea until the 10~ min longer DC which an anal German goes over here - http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittb ... hp?ID=1572 . Hardly any difference. It's a rather good film, the usual big budget anime cliché but it had good pace to make up for this and fantastic animation.

I want SFMV on BD.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 05 Mar 2008, 16:46

Thanks Lourdes, that's an interesting revelation. That establishes that there was absolutely no excuse for not including the original Korean audio + subs. I was under the impression that Sky Blue was an entirely new edit of the film, so an alternative Korean track wasn't possible.

EDIT:
All three audio options provided with this release feature the English language dub. The lack of the original Korean track was unavoidable given that segments of the film have been reordered and condensed, but the situation is made all the more infuriating due to the fact that the changes made to the film were minor to say the least. As such, although the options available are of an excellent standard (especially the DTS track), we are not getting the complete package here, and I have adjusted the score accordingly. This is not really Tartan's fault (it was not their decision to edit the film, and the original Korean cut was probably not made available to them), but the situation is annoying nonetheless.

source

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 16:53

EvaUnit02 wrote:I was under the impression that Sky Blue was an entirely new edit of the film, so an alternative Korean track wasn't possible.

It sucks in 2008 we have to put up with a English dub only version though, and cut too

EvaUnit02 wrote:Paranoid Park = usual Gus Van Sant no budget affair, from the looks of it. I haven't seen it or Last Days, but his film Elephant was truly outstanding.

I thought this looked quit good. I doubt I'll bother buying the BD though.

saltysam wrote:Funny Games is a remake from the original director starring Naomi Watts-reportedly shit.

I heard this was a respectful remake but I'd rather just watch the original.

saltysam wrote:P2 is a thriller set in an underground car park starring some bird from Alias.i have a xvid of it but have yet to watch it.

I may pick this one up, probably not the BD though. It looks decent. The only one I'll definitely pick up is The Proposition.

What's I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK like?

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 Mar 2008, 18:18

I thought that by now everybody on this board would have learnt not to trust hearsay or worthless sources like Beaver or Times.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 05 Mar 2008, 18:28

Hey, good to see that list of upcoming titles, cheers.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Mar 2008, 18:36

Will pick up "I'm a Cyborg" for sure.
Will keep my HK Vidéo "Lady Vengeance". No way I'd give up on perfect subtitles for better PQ.

I've just bought my Blu-Ray player, BTW.
You'll soon get some SD vs HD comparisons from the cat-man.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 18:42

Cool.

How are you managing to capture them? I presume you have some type of HD Capture card? What did you go for?

Is I'm a Cyborg good then?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 05 Mar 2008, 18:52

Most of the people I know didn't like "I'm a Cyborg".
I guess they were just expecting another typical Park Chan-Wook film.

Cyborg is like K-Pax on ecstasy. It's an acquired taste.
You either like it or you don't.

Re: Blu-Ray caps:
I already have a BD-Rom drive.
I'm sure it can be done via software. If Xylon (from the AVSForums) can do it, so can I.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 05 Mar 2008, 19:24

I'll be getting Cyborg, I reckon I'll like it.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 05 Mar 2008, 19:40

Lourdes wrote:I thought that by now everybody on this board would have learnt not to trust hearsay or worthless sources like Beaver or Times.

Ok i'm not letting that comment lie, theres no way you can lump us in with the likes of DVDBeaver. As one of DVDTimes' Asian film contributors I know for a fact that our reviewers do try pretty hard to make sure they spot every flaw and inconsistency between releases, but when it comes to researching Asian cinema online you usually hit a dead end unless you can actually read the language of the film in question. Now, I'm not saying Michael's comments on Sky Blue cannot be mistaken (as every reviewer makes mistakes), but he had seen and reviewed the original r3k DVD prior to writing his review of Sky Blue, so you'd think he would notice any differences. It's also worth bearing in mind that Michael is one of our most anal and technically minded reviewers, and is usually well informed when there are multiple releases of a film available.

In the case of Sky Blue and Wonderful Days I know for a fact (as I viewed the film as soon as it was released on DVD in Korea) that the 86min edit of the film was considered the "Theatrical Edit" and the 2004 2-disc SE was just an extended "Director's Cut", as it was common at the time for animated features in Korea to clock in at around 80minutes for their theatrical release. Although I have not watched Sky Blue, it was also widely considered at the time of its release that it was a new edit of the film, with some re-edits and the script altered via the English dub. Now, I haven't bothered to keep informed on the subject of this film since the original r3k and r2uk releases, mostly because I thought the film was extremely average, but if there has been new information on the differing versions I can definitely say it wasn't around when Michael wrote his reviews.

Can you provide more evidence that Sky Blue is the exact same version of the film as the original 86minute r3k release beyond a German comparison that is only looking at the differing Korean edits of the film?

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 Mar 2008, 20:34

Shingster wrote:Can you provide more evidence that Sky Blue is the exact same version of the film as the original 86minute r3k release beyond a German comparison that is only looking at the differing Korean edits of the film?

I read the last paragraph. I don't really care that much but I shall reacquire both versions anyway.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 23:43

tom2681 wrote:Re: Blu-Ray caps:
I already have a BD-Rom drive.
I'm sure it can be done via software. If Xylon (from the AVSForums) can do it, so can I.

Surely you can just use most capture software that is HD aware? You've already got a BD-ROM drive, which is the main thing.

Regard Cyborg, thanks. It doesn't look too hot IMO. Sorry I meant which BD Player did you go for?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 Mar 2008, 23:52

It looks like they're mostly coming to Tartan USA the same date too. There are some slight (highlighted) differences:

A Tale of Two Sisters - 14th of April
Paranoid Park - 28th of April
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance - 26th of May
I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK - 26th of May
The Proposition - 23rd of June
Sky Blue (aka. Wonderful Days) - 23rd of June
Funny Games (2007, English remake) - Not Listed
P2 - Not Listed

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/ ... Slate/1537

I wonder if any will get the 2 Disc SE treatement? Like Oldboy, which is a 1 disc BD in the UK but 2 Disc SE in America.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Mar 2008, 07:03

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK BD News:

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/im-a-cyborg.html

Extras are likely to be the same but:

"We'll bring you full details and art for the BD release just as soon as we can, but we do know that it will feature a 1080p transfer and both Dolby Digital/DTS 5.1 soundtracks, along with Dolby TrueHD 5.1."

I wonder why Tartan have moved from DTS-HD to TrueHD.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 29 Mar 2008, 18:02

Good to see Tartan releasing so many HK movies..............

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 29 Mar 2008, 18:33

Tartan have never been big on HK releases or releases, why should they start now? Because of the sheer brilliance of HK cinema's output over the last decade? Remember Tartan is more a distributor of contemporary cinema.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Mar 2008, 20:51

As Shingster said, plus with the odd exception Tartan have never released action/martial arts films.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 29 Mar 2008, 21:12

There's more to HK cinema than action (and there's hardly been any Kung Fu films made in the last 15 years - where have you been, Brad?) But Asian cinema fans have too big a hard on for Korean and Japanese cinema to notice.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Mar 2008, 23:32

I didn't say there wasn't. I know there is more to HK cinema than action, thank you

. I was just commenting HK cinema is known for that and a good portion of it is action.

I said Martial Arts not Kung Fu. Hasn't there been elements of Martial Arts in many action films from HK over the past 15 years?

It's not about having a hard on (WTF!) but what Tartan thinks will sell in the genres they work in and that sadly means there isn't much decent HK films to choose from. They released the Infernal Affairs trilogy for example. Tartan have always been more of a horror or arthouse(eque) studio.

I think most would agree overall Japanese cinema has been stronger than HK cinema for some years now. Korean cinema agreed is overrated.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 30 Mar 2008, 00:28

Speaking of HK cinema, I hope that Tartan put out these on BD:- ITMFL, 2046.

Criterion would likely use their cock colour corrected master if they put out ITMFL, so Tartan is our only hope for a proper English subbed HD release.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 30 Mar 2008, 02:43

I second 2046 and ITMFL. Those would be easy buys. Right now I'm most looking forward to The Proposition from Tartan.