Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

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Shingster
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Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Shingster »

I've noticed that Killer Meteor has called out Eureka's release of Project A I+II for possibly having a day-for-night filter applied erroneously to daytime set scenes? I don't know if he keeps an eye on this place anymore, but if not could someone ask him for timeframes so I can investigate it further? I haven't watched those discs since they first came out but at the time I had a sneaky suspicion that Eureka or someone else might have boosted some scenes with blue to "cool down" the colour scheme in much more subtle, but similar way that the Eureka release of City Hunter has quite blatantly had a blanket blue filter applied to just about everything undertaken eithin the ship interior (after early trailers showed the blue gel lighting had been severely reduced through the restoration).
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Killer Meteor »

Hi Shingster, I am Killer Meteor (and so is my wife!) I can dig out the time-codes for you.

The same error is on The Protector and Dragon Fist, which came from 88 Films, so I think it's something at Fortune Star's end.
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Shingster »

Awesome, any time codes you give for any title I have I can take screenshots and compare. I'm particularly interested in Project A because of it coming on the heels of City Hunter and what I view as some clear tint adjustment in that title. IIRC isn't Hand of Death also affected with a night for day shot, or was that just the lack of tint in a flashback? I seem to recall posting something about that.
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Killer Meteor »

Hand of Death, Once Upon A Time in China parts 1 and the new 88 Films release of Spiritual Kung Fu, are missing day-for-night filters.
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Shingster »

Yeah I know OUATIC is ptobably the best known example of filter and optical shenanigans, and IIRC OUTAIC 2 has the ship optical as it should be, so it's not like they were totally clueless as to the use of these elements, it's really bizarre.
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Killer Meteor »

Ok, Project A II

First scene with possible blue filter- 7:00 in approx
Second scene - 38:00 minutes in
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Shingster »

Awesom KM, will sit down and look into this soon!
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Shingster »

OK so I rummaged through my old DVDs and sod's law kicked me in the balls and revealed that I must have sold my old HKL Project A DVDs, but I've, ahem, "acquired" a rip of the Echo Bridge US BD and compared that to my Eureka BD. Anyway, it's quite an alarming difference but my gut is telling me that this is most likely not a day-for-night filter SNAFU here, it's probably just very, very, cool grading emphasising shadows and making these scenes look like they were shot at dusk. IMO the highlights in these scenes are too strong to have had a day-for-night filter applied, if they have, then it's an extremely weak filter.

I must admit though, while I'm pretty confident about the opening credits sequence (7mins in) not being slapped by a day-for-night, the scene outside the HQ between Jackie and Bill suk is VERY dark and I can see where you might call day-for-night shenanigans on that. I'm not so confident it's just a grading issue on that scene.

Caps-a-holic already has a grab for the opening credits sequence where you can clearly see how much more "shadowy" it is, but in other shots you've got that shadow in there with really sunny highlights and you shouldn't really be seeing that sort of thing in a day-for-night filtered shot. Same with the first shot of the 38mins sequence. You can see that in this latter shot the difference isn't so startling despite how gloomy the Eureka looks. I'm thinking it's possible that these exterior building sequences were shot close to dusk when the light is weaker and the shadows longer and the Eureka grading has really emphasised this.

It's definitely odd though, the grading is just so extremely cool on these transfers and we have seen cool grading in subsequent restorations but not quite to the extent of the Project A films imo, especially part II.

Does anyone here have the capability of posting matching screenshots from any DVD release they might own if I provide grabs from the Eureka BD?
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Re: Project A I+II Eureka - Erroneous Blue Filters?

Post by Killer Meteor »

thanks for your thoughts!
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