Chungking Express Artificial Eye vs Criterion Blu-rays

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 12 Feb 2009, 03:52

You'll have to use this DVDTimes Link for now as I don't have access to webspace at the moment. Will upload to this thread when I sort that out.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 13 Feb 2009, 00:19

The AE is ruined by being far too dark. Shadow detail is missing in most of the caps. The Criterion is too bright in parts but with the possible exception of cap #9 (Valerie Chow at the fridge) preferable. A balance between the two would be ideal. No mono track on either.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 13 Feb 2009, 00:35

Can't believe that after all these years, companies are STILL not getting such simple things right.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Feb 2009, 00:42

I'm sure the 5.1 is director approved. The Criterion has a DD2.0 track I forget. Isn't that original? Not Mono.

I'd prefer the Criterion being a bit bright rather than the AE which going by reviews, is clearly too dark. It could look too bright next to the dark AE but not really, just next to it. In other words, I imagine the Criterion is fine.

It's the one I'll be getting.

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 13 Feb 2009, 11:44

I honestly wouldn't go for either based on those caps.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 13 Feb 2009, 12:43

luckystars wrote:I honestly wouldn't go for either based on those caps.

What? The Criterion's a lovely transfer! It's a bit bright, but definitely not too bright! No one was complaining that the transfer was so bright when DVDBeaver put their screengrabs up, it just looks immensely bright next to the excessively dark AE release.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Feb 2009, 13:10

Exactly, what I said earlier.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 13 Feb 2009, 13:59

bradavon wrote:I'm sure the 5.1 is director approved. The Criterion has a DD2.0 track I forget. Isn't that original? Not Mono.

It was originally mono.

Other than that I would be happy enough with the Criterion if I wanted to own the film.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 13 Feb 2009, 14:32

Shingster wrote:it just looks immensely bright next to the excessively dark AE release.

I would say the same thing about the AE looking too dark only in comparison to the excessively dark Criterion, because when I watched my AE BD, it looked fine.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Feb 2009, 18:25

Thanks Gas. I often find that. The audio also swings the Criterion for me. What are the deleted scenes like?

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 13 Feb 2009, 18:35

gasteropod wrote:I would say the same thing about the AE looking too dark only in comparison to the excessively dark Criterion, because when I watched my AE BD, it looked fine.

It's definitely excessively dark, I've tried it on a couple of displays including a 106" screen and the shadow detail is poor.

I'm not saying the Artifical Eye is a that bad a transfer, just if price or region coding isn't an issue then the Criterion wins this hands down.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 13 Feb 2009, 18:42

Yeah I'd have gone for the Criterion if I had the chance because of it being director-approved, but since I'm restricted to region B, at least the AE is good enough

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Feb 2009, 19:30

It's also quite a lot cheaper too.

Criterion review:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.ph ... how=review

Chunking Express review, comparing with the Criterion:

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.ph ... how=review

With thanks to Clueless Monkey.

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Annoyingly that reviewer doesn't say which he prefers but interestingly says the AE has noticeably better contrast in some scenes. It's also interesting to read the darkness doesn't bother him.

The AE is definitely too dark but then looking again the Criterion does look too bright, even without comparing against the AE.I do prefer the Criterion though, the AE is so dark in places you cannot see people's faces properly (even if probably on a TV it's fine). I'll still pick up the Criterion but maybe the AE isn't too bad.

At the end of the day Shingster is the only one of us whose actually seen both, which means a lot.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 13 Feb 2009, 22:12

I can't say I agree with that comparison review in the slightest. The AE does not have a "blueish tint" at all, what it does have is more saturated colours, so the scenes that have a blue light look bluer, but if a scene has a redder tinge to it, it looks redder. Also the reviewer says the big difference between the Criterion and AE is in the contrast - now surely anyone who has seen my comparison grabs can clearly see that it's not the contrast that makes the most impression on the AE release, it's the brightness!

This reminds me a lot of when the new Godfather remasters came out and they were compared to the old release. Now the majority of reviewers out there always argued that the old release of the Godfather was too dark. When the new one came out with a much brighter look and higher contrast in certain scenes, which showed much harsher highlights and a generally more "exposed" look to the exterior scenes, all of a sudden everyone (well on here anyway) were saying "oh that image is too bright, the contrast is too high". It's not too bright, an excessively dark transfer is a terrible transfer to compare against because the darkness changes everything about the image, and more importantly it actually ads a shitload of detail to the highlights. So say, a scene where you can see strip lights in the background you will see those strip lights clearly defined in the dark transfer, but just a touch more brightness and wham, those lights bloom and glare. This isn't a fault of the image being "too bright", it's because the previous image was too damn dark!

I will reiterate what I stated earlier, no one said anything about the Criterion transfer of Chungking looking too bright when DVDBeaver released their grabs, and none of the reviews I read made any statements about poor black levels or an overly bright image. That's because it's not too bright, it really does look lovely up on my big screen. The AE looks good as well, honestly if you have £15 to spend on a Blu-ray you can spend it a lot more foolishly than on the AE release. I'm just totally flabbergasted by luckystars's comment earlier, because if the Criterion transfer isn't a "good enough" transfer of a classic HK film, well I don't know what the hell is!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Feb 2009, 22:22

Also the reviewer says the big difference between the Criterion and AE is in the contrast - now surely anyone who has seen my comparison grabs can clearly see that it's not the contrast that makes the most impression on the AE release, it's the brightness!

To be fair, it reads like he was talking about a particular aspect of the contrast and he did mention the brightness (or rather darkness).

Personally I've never said anything about the old Godfather DVD transfers but did comment I prefer them to the new ones. Otherwise thanks for the comments as ever.

Going back to the DVD Beaver comparison and you're right, they don't look too bright:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompar ... xpress.htm

PGW · Post by **PGW** » 31 Mar 2009, 22:43

Can anyone tell me whether the Criterion has the unaltered soundtrack on it? On WKW's "remaster" (which I have on Korean DVD) he's fiddled with the soundtrack to add digital reverb to some of the songs (obvious the first time you hear "California Dreaming"), and (poorly) edited the final song ("Dreams") that plays over the credits.

I just want to know before I find myself quadruple-dipping for this film...

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 01 Apr 2009, 14:59

I can't tell you right now PGW, but I should be getting my Criterion disc back on Friday, so will check then for you.