The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

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jsteffe
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#126 Post by jsteffe » Thu Aug 18, 2016 10:49 am

I finally looked at the Well Go Blu-ray, and the black levels are indeed as weak as everyone has said. I *never* do this normally, but I reduced the gamma a couple points on my television, and it made a huge difference - now it actually looks like a well-photographed film.

I think part of the challenge for this transfer is that Hou and his cinematographer appear to systematically manipulate the color and contrast range to achieve a particular look. It's very distinctive, but I find it hard to believe that the extreme milkiness of the blacks on the Blu-ray was something that they wanted, because makes the film almost unwatchable. It must be a technical problem.

chetienne
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#127 Post by chetienne » Thu Aug 18, 2016 6:51 pm

It's not simply the blu-ray. The DCP of this film was quite poor as well. It didn't retain nearly the detail that a 35mm print would have in the highlights (noticeable particularly in Knives's reviled exteriors) and the colors often looked flat and garish. Moreover, there are problems here and there with what looked to me like sloppily executed digital reframing (e.g. the flashback, a few of the landscape shots, moments in the fight sequences), a lot of ugly digital noise popping up. Speaking as someone who admires the movie a great deal, I must admit that each time I saw it (four times in theaters, a couple times at home) I felt I had to imagine what the film would have looked like if it had been given a film out, or at the very least a higher quality post job. It's not just me though! Mark Lee Ping-bin noted Hou's dissatisfaction with the color correction process when he visited MoMA in May, and Hou himself complained about the DCP in interviews around the film's US release.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#128 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Aug 18, 2016 7:12 pm

Anyone know who SHIH Chun (lead actor from Touch of Zen) played in Assassin?

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#129 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Thu Aug 18, 2016 7:34 pm

I don't have my copy at hand, but I think he's the man with the long white beard accompanying Yinniang and the Mirror Polisher at the end of the film. IIRC he also shows up earlier, but I'm not sure.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#130 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Aug 18, 2016 8:25 pm

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:I don't have my copy at hand, but I think he's the man with the long white beard accompanying Yinniang and the Mirror Polisher at the end of the film. IIRC he also shows up earlier, but I'm not sure.
Could be. Not sure I could recognize him with a beard. ;-)

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jsteffe
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#131 Post by jsteffe » Thu Aug 18, 2016 10:16 pm

chetienne wrote:It's not simply the blu-ray. The DCP of this film was quite poor as well. It didn't retain nearly the detail that a 35mm print would have in the highlights (noticeable particularly in Knives's reviled exteriors) and the colors often looked flat and garish. Moreover, there are problems here and there with what looked to me like sloppily executed digital reframing (e.g. the flashback, a few of the landscape shots, moments in the fight sequences), a lot of ugly digital noise popping up. Speaking as someone who admires the movie a great deal, I must admit that each time I saw it (four times in theaters, a couple times at home) I felt I had to imagine what the film would have looked like if it had been given a film out, or at the very least a higher quality post job. It's not just me though! Mark Lee Ping-bin noted Hou's dissatisfaction with the color correction process when he visited MoMA in May, and Hou himself complained about the DCP in interviews around the film's US release.
Wow--that really makes me feel badly for Hou and Lee Ping-bin. And a little less badly about fixing the gamma levels.

UPDATE: Out of curiosity, I spent some time tonight recalibrating my TV. It has been a while since I've done that, and in the meantime I had purchased a new Blu-ray player. (An Oppo.) After going through the entire process and making some slight tweaks to the settings, I tested a few Blu-rays including THE ASSASSIN. It looks better now, but the black levels are still on the milky side, and overall the transfer is relatively disappointing.

I think part of the problem is that if an image has some underlying technical deficiencies such poor contrast or faded color, you have much less latitude to introduce adjustments without also introducing visible distortions. At least that has been my subjective and limited experience with color correction.

I hope that Hou and Lee Ping-bin have the opportunity to revisit the film someday and fix the color problems.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#132 Post by hearthesilence » Sun May 14, 2017 3:47 pm

Amazon doesn't appear to be selling brand new copies of this anymore, not unless you buy from a third-party on their marketplace. I'm wondering if this is falling out-of-print here in the U.S.?

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Never Cursed
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#133 Post by Never Cursed » Sun May 14, 2017 3:56 pm

It's still available on Walmart's and Target's US websites new. Though, if it is going OOP, I wonder if Hsien's phantom pages might be for more than just The Boys From Fengkuei.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#134 Post by hearthesilence » Sun May 14, 2017 4:54 pm

As mentioned, the transfer can be improved - it was shot on 35mm film, and both Hou and the DP hated how the DCP looked.

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dda1996a
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#135 Post by dda1996a » Sun May 14, 2017 5:11 pm

It was shot on film? I could swear it looked 100% digital.

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#136 Post by hearthesilence » Sun May 14, 2017 5:33 pm

dda1996a wrote:It was shot on film? I could swear it looked 100% digital.
I did too, I was very surprised how badly they messed up the DCP.

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dda1996a
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#137 Post by dda1996a » Mon May 15, 2017 11:25 am

But is that a fault of a DCP? I saw the film at home, but the way it looked, how characters moved looked very digital to me. I find it hard to understand how a DCP can cause that.

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tenia
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#138 Post by tenia » Mon May 15, 2017 11:38 am

That would be 2 different things : on one hand, the possible visual render of a digital shoot regarding movements and such, and color grading on the other hand.

For all I could find so far, it seems like both the DCP and the BDs released all over the world are not graded properly, and are notably displaying black levels which are way too weak.

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dda1996a
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#139 Post by dda1996a » Mon May 15, 2017 12:58 pm

I was referring to the fact it was shot on film and not digital. That's what surprised me

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hearthesilence
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#140 Post by hearthesilence » Fri May 26, 2017 9:19 pm

jsteffe wrote:I finally looked at the Well Go Blu-ray, and the black levels are indeed as weak as everyone has said...I find it hard to believe that the extreme milkiness of the blacks on the Blu-ray was something that they wanted, because makes the film almost unwatchable.
I finally saw the BD as well - this is NOT what it looked like when I saw it in its original theatrical run. (FWIW, I saw it the week it opened at IFC Center here in NYC.) I tried dropping the brightness level on the monitor but a good bit and it definitely improved things, but something's definitely off with the black levels.
chetienne wrote:It's not simply the blu-ray. The DCP of this film was quite poor as well. It didn't retain nearly the detail that a 35mm print would have in the highlights and the colors often looked flat and garish. Moreover, there are problems here and there with what looked to me like sloppily executed digital reframing, a lot of ugly digital noise popping up.
I do indeed remember the garish look of the colors when I saw it at IFC, and the blown out highlights as well. This is a glaring problem (no pun intended) on the BD. Skipping through it a bit, the whites on clothing during exterior daylight scenes are all clipped and blown out (and FWIW, this is after I dropped the brightness setting - I wonder if it's worse on the Blu-Ray because they made everything so light?). Also on the BD, there's a shimmer in the leaves and the grass of exterior daytime wide shots. This is especially visible when the camera pans (not quickly, but slowly). Even when there's no movement, it's there. Can't remember if this was on the DCP but regardless, I wonder if the picture was sharpened as well. This is a pretty horrible looking finishing job, I wonder if they got someone who's used to working on video games than actual films, because it looks like they were trying to bring that etched, ultra-sharp look to what should be a "softer" (for lack of a better term) looking image.

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jsteffe
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#141 Post by jsteffe » Fri May 26, 2017 9:52 pm

Mungo wrote:It's still available on Walmart's and Target's US websites new. Though, if it is going OOP, I wonder if Hsien's phantom pages might be for more than just The Boys From Fengkuei.
His family name is Hou pronounced approximately "ho" - think "He's a Ho."

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)

#142 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri May 26, 2017 10:26 pm

Ho Show (as in "shower") Shen (more or less). ;-)

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