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I'm really hoping for Manila in the Claws of Brightness, A Brighter Summer's Day - both of which I have never seen and Touki Bouki which I last saw over 20 years ago.

RossyG wrote:Eight months after the first release and no sign of a volume two. I hope that's a minor blip and plans are still on course for two volumes a year.

As per Facebook future volumes are in hold due to "contractual reasons", which is very disappointing.

Ouch. Could bringing greater attention to the films have made someone to make a mess of rights issues once their commercial prospect appeared?

Hope it's not going to slow down Criterion's output of future volumes as well (was hopefully expecting a 2nd set from them in Nov/Dec).

Calvin wrote:

RossyG wrote:Eight months after the first release and no sign of a volume two. I hope that's a minor blip and plans are still on course for two volumes a year.

As per Facebook future volumes are in hold due to "contractual reasons", which is very disappointing.

Many thanks for passing that on to us non-Facebookers. Yes, very disappointing indeed.

With Criterion releasing their Vol. 2, does anyone know anything about MoC's plans to follow suit?

I'm skeptical anything would be forthcoming. When this first release came out, they were the official WCF partner for the UK. Since then, we've had a bunch of titles from WCF all come out from other labels (BFI and Second Run).

Other than the Hou, have there even been any serious rumblings about MoC acquiring any more of these titles?

Ribs wrote:Other than the Hou, have there even been any serious rumblings about MoC acquiring any more of these titles?

Even the rumoured Hou (Daughter of the Nile) is a Taiwan Film Institute restoration, without World Cinema Project/Film Foundation involvement

Calvin wrote:

Ribs wrote:Other than the Hou, have there even been any serious rumblings about MoC acquiring any more of these titles?

Even the rumoured Hou (Daughter of the Nile) is a Taiwan Film Institute restoration, without World Cinema Project/Film Foundation involvement

They could be planning a Hou set (or string of titles though), which would probably include the WCP-restored The Boys from Fengkuei, and might even stretch it to a New Taiwanese Cinema set and put one or two Yang titles in there as well. But that's obviously asking a lot, and possibly reading into their Berlinale 2016 'tease' a bit too much.

I hope at this point they could try and at least get 3 WCP titles to form a second volume, even if one or two of them had already been released by Criterion. If they don't end up going down an exclusively Taiwanese route, I'd personally love Touki Bouki, The Housemaid, A River Called Titas and Limite - or assuming they could get either of them, The Colour of Pomegranates and The Night of Counting the Years.

It is a bit curious that ever since that first volume, labels like BFI, Second Run and even bloody Mr. Bongo have had access to WCP restorations. So much for Eureka being 'exclusive UK partners' as they had initially stated (or words to that effect, anyway).

rapta wrote: They could be planning a Hou set (or string of titles though), which would probably include the WCP-restored The Boys from Fengkuei, and might even stretch it to a New Taiwanese Cinema set and put one or two Yang titles in there as well. But that's obviously asking a lot, and possibly reading into their Berlinale 2016 'tease' a bit too much.

They could be, but there has been no indication that they are. It's been 7 years since the Taiwanese Blu-Ray release of Dust in the Wind, and it still doesn't have a Western release.

It is a bit curious that ever since that first volume, labels like BFI, Second Run and even bloody Mr. Bongo have had access to WCP restorations. So much for Eureka being 'exclusive UK partners' as they had initially stated (or words to that effect, anyway).

My guess is that Eureka had exclusive rights to exploit the World Cinema Foundation name, rather than all of the restorations. And the name became pretty pointless when ot changed to World Cinema Project and then became incorporated into the Film Foundation.

Calvin wrote:They could be, but there has been no indication that they are. It's been 7 years since the Taiwanese Blu-Ray release of Dust in the Wind, and it still doesn't have a Western release.

That is a bit odd, especially since other titles in the 'Coming of Age' trilogy - A Summer at Grandpa's and A Time to Live, a Time to Die - have also been released on Blu-ray. I'd assume if they were doing a Hou box set they'd try to include those alonside The Boys from Fengkuei and Daughter of the Nile to cover his 1983-1987 output at least.

In that case, it's most likely we'll only see one or two titles from Hou if any. I wonder what the hold-up is with Daughter of the Nile? Could be something as simple as subtitling, or maybe negotiations with TFI take longer than other rights-holders, considering the time it took between announcing the King Hu titles and actually releasing them.

Talking of King Hu, considering the success of A Touch of Zen especially, I wonder if Eureka have enquired about the recently-restored Legend of the Mountain? I'd love for them to release that if they can - even better if they could include the anthology film Four Moods, also restored by TFI.

Calvin wrote:My guess is that Eureka had exclusive rights to exploit the World Cinema Foundation name, rather than all of the restorations. And the name became pretty pointless when ot changed to World Cinema Project and then became incorporated into the Film Foundation.

Ah right, I guess they have been the only label other than Criterion to explicitly state "World Cinema Project" on the front of their release - BFI just included the WCP logo on the back, and Second Run didn't even mention them. I'm sure the part that helped with sales was Scorsese's name, with the more pointless part turning out to be the "Volume One" bit - I still think they should've learned their lesson from the Naruse DVD set not to name a box set "Volume One" unless you have plans for a "Volume Two" at the very least.

PS: Out of curiosity, was "World Cinema Foundation" actually the original name or was it just a typo on Eureka's part? I notice some listings and pack shots online say "World Cinema Foundation" but the set itself definitely says "World Cinema Project".

rapta wrote:I wonder what the hold-up is with Daughter of the Nile? Could be something as simple as subtitling, or maybe negotiations with TFI take longer than other rights-holders, considering the time it took between announcing the King Hu titles and actually releasing them.

I don't know what's going on at MOC, but I have pretty good information from another company that it's the second one.

I should also add that A Summer at Grandpa's has so far been released on Blu only in Japan. There's no Taiwanese Blu and no digital restoration playing the festival circuit—I'm not even sure if there's a DCP. It's not part of either the CMPC or TFI catalogs, so I don't know where the Japanese distributor (Pony Canyon) got it from.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:

rapta wrote:I wonder what the hold-up is with Daughter of the Nile? Could be something as simple as subtitling, or maybe negotiations with TFI take longer than other rights-holders, considering the time it took between announcing the King Hu titles and actually releasing them.

I don't know what's going on at MOC, but I have pretty good information from another company that it's the second one.

I should also add that A Summer at Grandpa's has so far been released on Blu only in Japan. There's no Taiwanese Blu and no digital restoration playing the festival circuit—I'm not even sure if there's a DCP. It's not part of either the CMPC or TFI catalogs, so I don't know where the Japanese distributor (Pony Canyon) got it from.

We may not see Daughter of the Nile (or whatever Hou they did get) 'til Q3 or even Q4 of this year then, assuming they signed off on them this time last year. I think it took over a year for Dragon Inn to get a firm release date.

Perhaps the Japanese label just upscaled A Summer at Grandpa's? If there isn't a DCP it's less likely that's been restored then, in which case Eureka couldn't complete the 'trilogy' if they wanted to (unless they waited for a restoration or released it on DVD only).

Anyway, I'm sure we'll find out in the coming months. It's only February, and I'm sure they have one or two surprises set for later this year.

I spoke too soon about A Summer at Grandpa's—apparently a DCP of the new digital restoration played in Japanese theaters on a double bill with Dust in the Wind. But again, it doesn't seem to have played anywhere else and the CMPC and the TFI don't seem to have had anything to do with it. According to this article (in Japanese), the restoration was headed up by Nettai Museum (a small distributor of mostly imported art films) and will eventually be sold abroad. I still find it puzzling that it hasn't shown up at any overseas festivals. There's a trailer with a short before/after comparison here.