Central Motion Picture Corporation

[TJS]

The URLs for JSDVD:

...add http://

Terrorizers
dvd.jsdvd.com/product_info.php?products_id=26007
Tropical Fish
dvd.jsdvd.com/product_info.php?products_id=26006
Vive L'amour
dvd.jsdvd.com/product_info.php?products_id=26005
The Personals
dvd.jsdvd.com/product_info.php?products_id=26004

[Oedipax]

Hmm. Cheaper per disc (about $27 USD) but it looks like shipping costs build it back up again to about $38 USD/disc. Did I do my conversion right there?

Anyway, I caved and ordered The Terrorizers, Vive l'amour and The Personals from YesAsia a few days back.

[perkizitore]

I checked earlier today and couldn't find them
Anyway, if you buy them all together they cost $130 shipped instead of $140 Yesasia charges you.
I will wait for books.com.tw to sell them, they are cheaper than everyone and offer DHL express shipping, but it's a pain to order in Chinese.

[zedz]

Just received the new dual disc sets from YesAsia and am happy to report that the packaging is beautiful. Simple and elegant. Two slim digipacks - monochrome, in subdued brown and green - slid into a manilla slipcase and 'sealed' with a translucent 'binding'. All the cover art is black and white and individual (e.g. a different still on the cover of the slipcase, the BD digipack and the DVD digipack), with colour stills inside the slipcases. No book or other information, but very handsome packages nonetheless, even if there's no obvious way to reattach the 'binding' once you've removed the shrinkwrap.

This packaging does mean that format purists who can't abide having a DVD in the house can easily on-sell the individual digipack, I guess.

[criterionsnob]

Are the transfers as beautiful as those screen captures make them look?

[zedz]

I'll report back tomorrow.

[Peacock]

Hey zedz, can you also confirm whether they really are 1080p?
Thank you

[Oedipax]

Just popped in my copy of Vive l'amour - it appears to be region-free and my TV reports that it's playing back in 24hz mode, which I think should confirm it's 1080p (Dust in the Wind showed up as 60hz). The Terrorizers and The Personals also report 24hz, so I think we're set (I didn't order Tropical Fish so I can't confirm that one).

[Peacock]

Great! Thanks a lot, just while i'm asking, i've seen the still posted, but does Vive L'amour look ok? I'm guessing it's not censored like the previous release... And that the subs are OK? (I noticed in the Dust in the Wind dvdbeaver review that the only cap with subs on it was missing a word, although I'm guessing it's never worse than that)

[zedz]

I haven't watched any of the features right through, but they're all 1080p (according to my Oppo) and they all look great. Contrast might be a little high in places on Terrorizers, but it's also the oldest of the films and, from the brief restoration demo, looked to be in really bad shape. Vive l'Amour looks gorgeous, from the snatches I sampled, and The Personals looks very fine indeed.

There's a restoration puff piece of about three minutes slugged before each of the features, but it's easy enough to skip.

Each film comes with a twenty-or-so minute retrospective making-of which is much better than the average such feature, with a strong focus on the filmmaking process. This is particularly helpful as each of the films enjoyed an unusual creative process that might not always be apparent from the film itself. On the Terrorizers extra you get a fascinating insight into Yang's punishing writing process; with the unscripted Vive l'Amour you get to see just how ruthlessly improvised the scenes were, with actors complaining that Tsai wouldn't even give them the immediate narrative context for the scenes they were making up; and with The Personals you get another kind of improvisation, with the lead actress and the crew having to respond to each day's unknown guest actor.

These extra features are only on the DVD, so there goes the idea of flogging them off on Ebay. I did notice that the English subs on the Tsai extra were pretty rough and ready, in a manner that will be familiar to connoisseurs of Asian DVDs, but those on the other two extras were fine.

[John Edmond]

Just got my batch and I've got nothing else to add - they look great. There might be hint of blue with The Personals, but there also might be a hint of paranoia on my behalf. And yes the puff piece is irritating, but it's a skippable chapter, and you get to main menu so quickly you'd be crazy to worry.

Getting slightly off topic. On the Film Forum thread people are complaining about the Lincoln Centre's Taiwanese retrospective using HDCAM and not 35mm prints. I'd also be pissed if I lived in NY, but I don't. Instead I'm delighted as it means all these films have lovely HD transfers floating around. Considering Central Pictures Corporation released some of these films I wonder if they'll be next up in this DVD/BR reissue series....Rebels of the Neon God would be nice.

[zedz]

That is good news, but I expect the next Tsai BluRay will be The River, since they included a postcard for that film in the first box set.

[criterionsnob]

I've watched Vive l'amour and The Terrorizers all the way through and wow, they look outstanding. What a treat to have these in 1080p looking so great. I had not seen the Yang before, but it looks like it was shot yesterday.

[denti alligator]

Ok, so what about the issues with stuttering movement I reported on the Hou Blu? Is this evident? I can't bear to shell out $35 per disc only to have the same problem...

[knives]

It might be a problem with your player as that doesn't occur on my disk.

[denti alligator]

May I ask what player you use.

[knives]

I've played it only on my Sherwood (RIP).

[denti alligator]

That's what I use. And you noticed nothing on the Dust in the Wind Blu? That's hard for me to believe.

[Oedipax]

That's what I use. And you noticed nothing on the Dust in the Wind Blu? That's hard for me to believe.

The Dust in the Wind blu was mastered at 1080i50 which explains the stuttery playback. For what it's worth, it was barely noticeable for me as well, but I think it's dependent on your player & display.

The four new releases are all 1080p24, which is exactly as it should be, and shouldn't show any stuttering regardless of your system.

[denti alligator]

Thanks. So, where can these be found for cheapest delivery to the US?

[Finch]

Yesasia preorder for The Time to Live, The Time to Die (English-friendly Korean DVD)

The only thing that gives me pause are the aspect ratio specs, 4:3 & letterboxed.

[JonasEB]

Hello. I'm not much of a poster so I don't know how much I'll contribute around here (love to read the boards) but I have a useful tip for owners of the Dust in the Wind Blu-ray (viz the "Blue Hue.")

I've found a way to almost entirely reverse engineer this problem. I've tried it on a Samsung - my main TV - and a Sony and achieved similar results but results may vary depending upon your brand of TV. If you haven't properly calibrated your TV, you should do so first.

First, take a look at your TVs picture menu and look for the "color tone/color temperature" setting; you should have something like "Cold", "Normal", "Warm 1, 2, 3", etc. On my Samsung, I used "Warm 3." Second, go to your general color setting and tune it down. On my Samsung I find the 40-45 range works best (I use 40) but however you get there, you just want to desaturate the color.

The result is natural color, in general quite close to the old DVD but with the superior qualities of this restoration. Normally those color temperature settings tinge the screen blue or red/orange and should be left off but in this case there's no red infiltration, it simply counteracts and neutralizes the pronounced blue hue - the reds and greens look normal, the blue is no longer neon blue but a pleasant shade, grays become gray once again, and whites are usually purely white.

Again, your results may vary depending on what options your TV gives you, but give it a try. It really is worth the effort.

[andyli]

Central Pictures Corporation, Taiwan posted the trailers for their next batch of blu-ray releases (set to be out during the upcoming Taipei Film Festival) on YouTube. The Father Trilogy (The Wedding Banquet, Pushing Hands, Eat Drink Man Woman) by Ang Lee received 2K restoration and was screened in Taiwan earlier this year.

The next in line for blu-ray treatment should be the newly restored A Time To Live and A Time To Die (1985) and The Sandwich Man (a.k.a. Son's Big Doll, 1983). They will have their world premiere in this year's Taipei Film Festival.

[Calvin]

They showed a restoration of In Our Time last year, but I don't think it was released on DVD/Blu-Ray.

[andyli]

Yes! I hope this one is in the next batch, too!