The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai, 2013)

[ola t]

as is in evidence from the screen grabs a few pages back it has extremely bad (sub DVD) quality image.

If you mean these, they're not from the blu ray.

[Jack Phillips]

I have the HK Blu-ray, and I think it looks wonderful.

[R0lf]

Sorry I went over the thread and it looks like the post has been deleted.

There was a comparison between the high def broadcast version and the blu ray to show the lack of definition in the blu ray.

edit. I have the HK version and it looks dreadful to me. For example the last scene with Gong Er in the restaurant her face becomes a smeared, glowing, blotchy mess. I can't fathom it is supposed to look that way?

[manicsounds]

Who has the UK rights? On imdb it says "Weinstein" but I don't think they distribute titles outside the US, right?

[knives]

It is indeed Weinstein. They have it in essentially all english language territories.

[Adam X]

I was under the impression, from what I'd read in this thread, that the soundtrack was in a combination of Cantonese & Mandarin, but having just received the HK blu-ray, it seems there are separate language tracks for each dialect.

Can someone help me out, as to which is the preferred track to watch the film with?
cheers

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The "Cantonese" track is actually bilingual Cantonese/Mandarin, with the actors speaking their native language (all except Song Hye-kyo, who was dubbed into Cantonese). That's the one you want.

As for the rights situation, the Weinsteins have the rights for all English-language territories, but they'll farm it out to other distributors, since they don't have their own distribution arm outside the U.S. But they can still prevail upon foreign distributors to use their 108-minute cut, so I wouldn't count on the UK (or Australia, etc.) getting a longer version. There's a similar situation with Snowpiercer, except in that case we have a report that the UK distributor is fighting to release the original version.

[r32]

The PQ of HK ver. BD is really bad compared with FR. version.

HK ver(upper) vs FR ver.(lower)

Hardware : Pioneer BDP-LX91 regional free modified + KRP600M KURO

[r32]

Look at the "contours" distortion created by the HK ver. master, photo 3.

[albucat]

An excellent (as usual) article by David Bordwell on the film here.

Notably, he has Wong's quote about the four hour version, the existence of which was being debated earlier:

A novel like this never follows any particular character. A main character in one chapter may just hurry away in another chapter. The author will continue by telling another story. I think that this structure is unique to the Chinese novel. Such is life. Suppose you meet a very good friend. Next time you meet him, he has moved to Chengdu. And five years later you meet him again. That’s the structure of the four-hour version.

However, this structure is too free for contemporary audiences to follow. Therefore, in the two-hour version, I chose to tell the story in a chronological way, from 1936 to the end of the story.

[Jeff]

Hong Kong is submitting The Grandmaster as their Best Foreign Language Film contender.

[mrmarbach]

I've just watched the HK cut. It's certainly a very beautiful surface, as one would expect.

I'm starting out from the assumption that the above quote confirming the existence of a four-hour cut is accurate (or likely to be), and it seemed to me extremely plausible on watching this cut of the film. As a poster said several pages up, a lot of it could do with being longer. I had the feeling both in terms of plot that someone kept pressing the fast-forward button every now and again, but also in terms of character that leaps were made unnaturally. Suddenly characters would appear important as individuals or emotionally connected to one another without any reason, and I don't mean this in a way I recognised from other films by him I've seen.

It's tough (= impossible) to know if I would have had this reaction not knowing there may be a much longer cut, of course. But I'm certainly very curious indeed to see it if there is.

[FrauBlucher]

The U.S. Pre-order is up.

It doesn't look like a directors cut or extended version according to product details. I don't have hope that this will be a stacked edition.

[zedz]

This prompted me to look up the French BluRay on Amazon, and that listing claims a runtime of 144 minutes, which is surely a mistake, but can anybody who has the disc confirm just what version it contains and how long it runs?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

"yuettoi" (who is also "r32" from earlier in this thread) says it's the 122-minute version, which Amazon.fr also shows for the standard BD edition. The distributor gives the same runtime for both of the BD editions. The DVD has a making-of, an SFX feature, and a Wing Chun demonstration that come out to 22 minutes, so my guess is Amazon.fr somehow added that onto the 122 minutes and came up with 144. (The BD editions actually have a longer making-of and some more features.) yuettoi also says the French subs are imposed if you watch with the original soundtrack.

Next month will bring a German BD (no fancy-schmancy steelbook edition, though, and hopefully that ratings logo isn't printed on the cover), and Japan will get two releases in December (a standard edition and a deluxo collector's set). All of these should be the same cut as the French release. South Korea is the best bet for an English-subbed edition, but nothing's announced yet.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

This is unexpected: in the wake of the film's two Oscar nominations (Cinematography and Costume Design), plans are afoot to re-release it in China...in the U.S. cut.

[Clodius]

This is unexpected: in the wake of the film's two Oscar nominations (Cinematography and Costume Design), plans are afoot to re-release it in China...in the U.S. cut.

Well good for China I suppose, considering there STILL isn't any actual U.S. Release. I know I'm watching it in a butchered release, but it doesn't diminish the beauty of the cinematography or the excellent acting. Considering I'm an extremely poor recent college grad and can't blow $40 on importing the HK, any idea when an actual disc will be released stateside?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The U.S. BD is out on March 4th. It was originally announced for December but they postponed it, probably hoping the movie would get some Oscar attention (the ceremony is on March 2nd).

[shaky]

zedz, you saw the longer cut by way of the HK blu-ray, right?

[zedz]

Yes. That's the only cut I've seen to date.

[FrauBlucher]

Didn't see a Starz-Anchor Bay thread.... The Grandmaster bluray.com review

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Just saw Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster for the first time. Excellent film - Kar-wai still has it! This has a lot of elements found in other Kar-wai films, including unrequited love, a focus on the passage of time & life changes, and a strong story. And, or course, the martial arts fight scenes were extremely well choreographed.

Especially liked the scenes that took place in the falling snow - bleak & at the same time visually stunning...

IIRC, this is only the second film that Kar-wai has made which focuses on the martial arts - the first was Ashes of Time (another great film)...

[Michael Kerpan]

IIRC, this is only the second film that Kar-wai has made which focuses on martial arts fight scenes - the first was Ashes of Time (another great film)...

Kar-wai is this directo's given name, Wong is his family name. Unless you are his BFF, probably it is more appropriate to refer to him as Wong or WKW. ;-}

[MichaelB]

Although it's better than calling him Wai, which I've seen once or twice!

[JAP]

The 3D version apparently contains yet another cut of the movie, inserting a new fight sequence between Tony Leung and Chang Chen. 100 years from now this movie will endlessly puzzle film archivists from 3 continents...