Ashes of Time - A theory.

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 07 Jun 2008, 13:31

This might sound off-the-wall... okay, this will sound off-the-wall, but what the hell...

As some of you probably know, the Taiwanese DVD of AOT is unmatted. Consequently, when you watch the film, the aspect ratio will change, almost from shot-to-shot. Some shots are full frame, some are letterboxed, some are MORE letterboxed. On some shots you can see rounded corners on the image, on some they're dead square.

I used to think this was simply the result of shoddy transferring on the part of Scholar - now, however, I'm wondering if this wasn't the way the film was supposed to be seen. What brought this to mind is that the Japanese trailer on the Japanese DVD of AOT exhibits the same multi-aspect-ratio characteristics.

And THIS got me to thinking that the scratches, splices, blown out frames, etc.... perhaps THEY were intentional TOO. Not placed there intentionally, not faked... but also not avoided, and were included to add a kind of patina to the film, almost like "aging" a piece of furniture.

To support this, I can point out that the scratches, etc. are on the pre-print material, since the same defects appear on both the Japanese DVD (with no burned in subs) and the HK DVD (with burned in subs). I also find it very strange that there's a frame during the first fight of Jackie Cheung with a huge ugly splice on it... but it's merely a duplicate of the SAME frame (clean) which comes before it - which is not what one would expect if this were simply the result of a crude edit.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 07 Jun 2008, 18:28

So you're saying that there's a good chance that AoT was always meant to look like crap.
That's a possibility.

WKW said recently that AoT was one of the first films that his company produced, and that they didn't have a clue about what they were doing when they were editing the film.

But what's your point?
Are you trying to make us feel better about our shoddy Mei Ah DVDs?

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 09 Jun 2008, 01:47

Just simply to examine an aspect of the way AOT looks that just might not be what everything thinks.

This isn't to imply at all that the Mei Ah DVD isn't a substandard piece of crap. It's almost as bad as "The Mission" or "Crocodile Hunter" (both of which I was literally unable to watch).

I just wonder whether some of those scratches and splices were allowed at the time in order to give the film a certain look - a misguided idea, if true.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jun 2008, 02:17

PGW wrote:This isn't to imply at all that the Mei Ah DVD isn't a substandard piece of crap.

If you don't have the guts to say it, I will: The Mei Ah DVD is a substandard piece of crap.

.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 09 Jun 2008, 02:50

A director who intentionally makes his movie look ugly deserves to have an ugly DVD release.

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 09 Jun 2008, 13:26

But it's not necessarily an invalid artistic choice. Lars von Trier, for example, intentionally degenerated the image on "Kingdom" to make it look grainy. If, indeed, this was something done for "Ashes of Time," it MIGHT have worked, to some extent, in the cinema - but, obviously, once the film hit DVD, people would have no way of knowing if the defects were "built into" the film, or simply the result of a shoddy DVD mastering.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jun 2008, 14:21

I seriously doubt the Mei Ah DVD is how WKW wants it to look, god I hope not.

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 09 Jun 2008, 15:10

I'm only talking about the dirt / splices / scratches that are on ALL editions of the film (with and without the burned in subtitles). The Mei Ah DVD exhibits a whole bunch of other terrible characteristics in addition to that - browned-out picture, lousy encoding, edge-enhancement and crappy sound. Their laserdisc is actually better (though that's not saying much, either).

Knetan · Post by **Knetan** » 09 Jun 2008, 17:21

hey,

beautiful gatefold laserdisc edition of the film though. They rarely did that.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 09 Jun 2008, 19:06

@PGW:
If the dirt/splices/scratches have been left intact in the Redux version, then it would prove that your theory is correct.
It's just a question of time, now. Does anyone have a theatrical release date yet?

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 10 Jun 2008, 00:10

Hi, Tom... call me Doug.

Actually, if "Redux" shows up scratch/splice free, all that would mean is that WKW has realized that keeping the defects in was kind of silly in the first place, and has used modern technology to "paint" the defects out. Indeed, I'm almost sure that's going to be the case.

Personally, the only use I have for the thing is to wait for the DVD and use it as a source of clean visuals, then hopefully graft the original score back onto it to restore the version of the film I know and love. Except for maybe something like "Close Encounters," where the movie company really DID step in and demand changes in the film, I don't like these after-the-fact re-writes of cinematic history. As someone pointed out in that board-that-shall-never-be-named, the HK version of "Chungking Express" is already close to lost, since the only place it can be found on DVD is that horrible first issue by Ocean Shores (which makes Mei Ah's "Ashes of Time" look like a Criterion disc!).

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 Jun 2008, 00:25

Hi, Tom... call me The Dude

.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 10 Jun 2008, 03:06

Oh, is that you Doug? Why didn't someone mention it before?