The Wong Kar-wai thread!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 04 May 2008, 23:08

Me hopeless? Of course 8)

monzo44 · Post by **monzo44** » 05 May 2008, 11:51

bradavon wrote:
EvaUnit02 wrote:Wait, don't you already own it?
I just knew you'd ask , yes I do. I meant: I will be watching HA and FA over the next few weeks and will then probably sell my R1 box set and re-buy HA (assuming I like it).

ATGB I can do without
DOBW I need to re-watch but so far I can do without
And CE + FA I have in the much better Korean SE

So far I don't need the box set and could just re-buy HA.

EvaUnit02 wrote:Buenos Aires: Zero Degree is such an excellent doco. Have you seen it, Brad?
I've not even seen the film yet

Brad,

Don't know if it interests you or not, but Buenos Aries: Zero Degree is an extra on the Artificial Eye release and it's up on play.com for £8.99. The film transfer is average but you have the superior R1 for that.

Cheers,
monzo

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 May 2008, 15:04

Thanks Monzo.

It does interest me but it's also on the R1. Thanks again.

HungFist · Post by **HungFist** » 07 May 2008, 13:35

According to Cannes website Ashes of Time Redux is 120 min

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/55933.html

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 May 2008, 15:05

Heh?
What did he do?
Add new characters? new scenes? new subplots?

I hope the upcoming DVD will contain the original theatrical cut as a bonus.
The original cut is just brilliant IMO. Not too long, not too short, just perfect. Crappy-looking, but perfect.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 07 May 2008, 15:18

What upcoming DVD do you mean Tom?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 May 2008, 15:24

I'm just guessing.
After going to all this trouble (remastering, restoring, re-cutting), I'm sure WKW will want to make some money from this film.
It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a DVD or Blu-Ray release later this year.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 07 May 2008, 15:27

I'd say a DVD at least is a definite. I cannot wait.

Regardless if the Original Cut is perfect I'd still love to see this and besides the Original Cut is completely unwatchable, there is no decent DVD period. IMO it's sadly not worth considering when you cannot enjoy the film on it's current DVD releases anyway.

p.s - Thanks Hung.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 07 May 2008, 16:11

Good point Tom, fair enough

I'd love to see it as well, I havent seen any cut of the film yet.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 07 May 2008, 16:17

I don't say it often but the HK DVD is unwatchable and the USA DVD is even worse. I was so confused by the end. The subs are just a disaster and it looks so awful you cannot work out what is going on.

New Cut or no New Cut wait for the Redux!

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 07 May 2008, 16:49

Thanks Brad, sounds like a plan

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 10 May 2008, 15:55

The 120-minute thing for Ashes of Time may well have been a misprint.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/fr/archiv ... /2008.html
Running time says 93 minutes now (1 minute less than the theatrical cut).

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 May 2008, 16:51

The 1 minute less could account for simply editing differences with nothing actually missing. Does the 94 minute running time include credits?

Thanks Tom. I'm really looking forward to this. I really hope an excellent DVD (or BD) gets released. Any idea who hold the HK rights? Is it still Mei Ah?

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 10 May 2008, 18:01

Either way it's an entirely new cut.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 May 2008, 23:27

I bet these are HK releases of the Korean Remastered DVDs. Talk about taking your time

-

Mei Ah May 20 DVD Releases:

Chungking Express (1994)

* Letterboxed and 16x9 enhanced
* Cantonese, Mandarin (DTS + Dolby Digital)
* Chinese (Traditional), English, and Chinese (Simplified) subtitles
* DVD-9

Fallen Angels (1995)

* Letterboxed and 16x9 enhanced
* Cantonese, Mandarin (DTS + Dolby Digital)
* Chinese (Traditional), English, and Chinese (Simplified) subtitles
* DVD-9

Source: http://www.asiandvdguide.com/

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 11 May 2008, 01:42

The Korean DVD's came after the Japanese ones which came from remasters Jet Tone commisioned Fortissmo to do in 2006.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 17 May 2008, 14:51

Ashes of Time Redux will be screened at Cannes in 29 hours.
We'll soon see whether Wong Kar-Wai has butchered it or not.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 17 May 2008, 16:21

Thanks Tom.

Are Cannes Critics really critical? More so than most "normal" folk.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 17 May 2008, 18:20

It's a festival that gave an award to Michael Moore just because they wanted to make a political statement. So at the least they're capable of selling out just as much as "normal" folk are.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 18 May 2008, 17:33

I didn't know that. I didn't mean that though. I meant they are know to bash films, the most people then go on to like

.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 19 May 2008, 19:58

Just seen an interview of Wong Kar-Wai.
Says he's very happy about being able to bring Ashes of Time Redux to Cannes, and being able to finally complete it after 15 years.
The version that he's brought is exactly what he wanted to do at the time, but wasn't able to because of technical limitations. It is a completely new cut.

The interview included a few shots from Redux. It looks brand new, almost like it was shot yesterday. Can't say anything about the editing, but it's obvious he's changed the colour filters in some scenes (there's a very strong blue tint that I don't recall seeing on my Mei Ah DVD).

Has anybody found some kind of review yet?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 19 May 2008, 20:02

Never mind. Here's one:

This full-scale restoration will be a grand treat to those many fans of Wong Kar-wai who have never been able to see the 1994 original except on badly duped DVDs. One of the director’s rare forays into genre territory, the film depicts the timeless and placeless world of wuxia (chivalric warriors practicing the martial arts).

Predictably, though, the rambunctious Wong was not content merely to repeat or reinvigorate the genre when he began shooting “Ashes of Time” more than 15 years ago, but decided to reinvent it completely. Commercial prospects for this new version are dicey because martial-arts lovers may find it too arty, and art-film lovers, Wong’s international fan base, may find it too generic and too violent. DVD sales, however, should be robust and festival screenings plentiful.

In any case, one wonders what fecundity of imagination—or perversity of artistic willfulness—it took to shoot a costume epic that is made up almost entirely of dark rooms, close-ups and tightly constricted long shots. Or what about the fact that the film contains only a handful of repeating, doubled, easily confused characters rather than the proverbial cast of thousands?
Wong’s obsessive themes of memory, the irretrievability of the past and the impossibility of love, trump those of the traditional wuxia film, which tend to deal more with honor and the indomitability of the spirit. Furthermore, where is all the sword-fighting that audiences might reasonably have expected to see? While it’s true that some stirring action scenes are sprinkled throughout the film, for the most part, as in most of Wong’s films set in modern times, it’s all interiority, unrequited longing and emotional frustration.

The film is still a formal wonder, as it was 15 years ago, full of Wong’s signature step-printing technique, his off-kilter shooting angles and a flamboyant visual style that often produces something more like an abstract expressionist painting than a movie. But while it’s hard to be definitive about what’s different in the new version without comparing it shot by shot with the old, the music seems much more powerful and more fully keyed-in to the action, and the color is saturated and intensified to make the film even more stylized than it already was.

In short, while those who didn’t “get it” the first time around won’t warm up to the film any more than they did then, those who do will be ecstatic.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 May 2008, 20:10

tom2681 wrote:The version that he's brought is exactly what he wanted to do at the time, but wasn't able to because of technical limitations. It is a completely new cut.

You cannot complain with that, or can you? Yes Mr. Lucas I'm looking at you.

I'm still really looking forward to it. Thanks Tom.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 19 May 2008, 23:45

Found this interview in a french press kit:
(sorry for the rough translation)

WKW - " After some years, I finally realized that there were several versions of Ashes Of Time. Some of which I supervised and approved, and some I did not. To fix this, we decided to redo the editing of the film and establish a definitive version.

When we started this, we found out that the negative and the original soundtrack were under threat. The HK laboratory where they were stored had closed without notice. We saved what we could, but the negative was badly damaged. We started looking for prints elsewhere, asking foreign distributors and even chinese cinemas to provide their prints.

Jet Tone films was founded in 1992 and AOT is the first film that we produced. I always regretted that we didn't have the necessary technical means to achieve the quality that this film deserved. 15 years later, I want to rectify it.

It's difficult to recreate a 15-year old dream. The new technologies have been a great help sometimes, but not always. I tried to ignore the experiences and evolutions that I have experienced since then. I just want the film to be what it was always meant to be, with its qualities and its faults."

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 20 May 2008, 01:16

Thanks Tom. It sounds interesting. I really, really hope WKW doesn't add modern CGI to it but I don't think he will.

WKW certainly is focused to the point of madness in getting his version out there.