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I have wanted them to release Behind the Green Door for awhile now. Though I think they did do some legit porn back in the LD days.

I haven't seen it, but this hilarious scene from Nightdreams leads me to believe it could warrant a home from Criterion (THIS IS AS NSFW AS IT GETS, FOLKS)

Isn't Nightdreams the title of the show that Max Renn contemplates picking up towards the beginning of Videodrome?

You're thinking of Samurai Dreams

I hear Realm is now avaliable uncut in the UK. What happened to change the BBFC's mind?

Orlac wrote:I hear Realm is now avaliable uncut in the UK. What happened to change the BBFC's mind?

BBFC Case Study

Calvin wrote:

Orlac wrote:I hear Realm is now avaliable uncut in the UK. What happened to change the BBFC's mind?

BBFC Case Study

We should also add to that case study that the 2000 resubmission was swiftly followed by Film4 showing it on their television channel, so it would appear that a good reason for resubmitting the film was that if it was passed by the BBFC there would be an avenue to show it on, along with home video (Film4 had also done this in 1999 with the Mark Kermode re-cut of Caligula). Film4 was a monthly subscription channel at the time (moving to Freeview in the mid-2000s) which likely allowed such films to be shown that would be impossible even now, and during this time Film4 pushed some boundaries by showing Salo (which had also only just been passed by the BBFC. The Kermode documentary on the Criterion re-release dates from its Film4 screening), Taxi zum klo, Seul contre tous, Carne, Ai no corrida and Romance.

The first attempt at reframing was considered unacceptably crude and damaging to the film. Therefore the scene was reworked in a specialist lab, using a more gradual zoom into the characters' faces. With this reframing completed, the film was classified 18 uncut for cinema release in 1991.

This is something that I think gets to core of concerns about censorship - I'd much prefer if a film was censored to have the jarring cuts and edits to show that footage is missing (or on the other hand, as in the Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World thread, to show restored footage), rather than having someone other than the filmmakers do a bit of sleight of hand to hopefully suggest that there was nothing removed at all. I know that it can become a source of pride to think that a seamless edit has been made, but that does also suggest the pernicious nature of censorship that has the authority to change, delete, or create a different meaning from an extant work. (Of course outside of an ideal world scenario of keeping an artistic work fully intact, there is also an argument from the opposite point of view that optical reframing has at least allowed the film to be screened over the previous thirty years in some form rather than being completely unavailable)

And of course the technicality of being able to claim something was uncut because the imagery was reframed rather than removed can also potentially cause its own confusions.

A couple of disclaimers before my comments: I'll admit that I'm not very well-versed in the changing attitudes of the BBFC or in the Protection of Children Act, and I hope I don't come across as defending censorship (which I think accomplishes nothing in a case like this in which the film is not child pornography and any harm done to a child in the course making it cannot be undone), but I find the reasoning behind the BBFC's decision to allow the original shot of the child being harmed pretty strange. I had thought that one of the relevant facts was that actual child abuse is shown, not merely that the scene in question was considered by some to be sexually "indecent." Yet the case study points out that "The brief moment of 'penis tugging' does not occur within a sexual context and is not at all sexual or eroticised in nature," so apparently a brief episode of real child abuse is tolerable while explicit sex is not. I understand that the Protection of Children Act was specifically concerned with preventing child pornography and other "indecent" images of children, but is there no prohibition against showing unsimulated abuse of a child the way there is for unsimulated animal cruelty, or in both types of cases is the brevity of the scene something that can allow an exception?

Am wondering and can't find any info any where- which do we consider the definitive version of IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES- the Region B StudioCanal BLU or the Region A Criterion BLU? Deciding on which one to spring for! Tempted to go with Studio Canal to snag EMPIRE OF PASSION on BLU too since who knows when that will hit Region A.

Sad that CC still doesn't release Empire after over 11 years where this is such an easy bundle to package together. It is on the CC so I suppose they remastered it.

So I got a review copy of Umbrella's "In the Realm of the Senses/Empire of Passion" double feature Blu-ray.
https://shop.umbrellaent.com.au/product ... -3-blu-ray

I assumed they would be using the existing HD transfers found on other Blu-rays worldwide, but was very surprised to find that both films are from 4K restorations that were completed in 2016/2017, and had never had a transfer to disc until now. Haven't done a full AB comparison to the previous HD transfers, but call me surprised that these newer transfers found their way to Australia.

Well, the 4k resto of Senses did get released on Arté DVD in France and on a Taiwanese blu-ray. But it's good to hear there's such an option to get both restorations.

andyli wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 9:23 am Well, the 4k resto of Senses did get released on Arté DVD in France and on a Taiwanese blu-ray. But it's good to hear there's such an option to get both restorations.

I see the Arte DVD listing of the 2016 edition. Is it confirmed that the Taiwanese Blu-ray used the 2016 restoration?

manicsounds wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 11:00 amI see the Arte DVD listing of the 2016 edition. Is it confirmed that the Taiwanese Blu-ray used the 2016 restoration?

Yes it is the 4k restoration with English subtitle, though it's a BD25 bare-bone copy.

rewind review of the Aussie 4k restoration-sourced BD double bill

James says contrary to the specs printed on the package, the disc is region-free.

On the positive side, both films look exceptionally clean in their restorations, removing damage marks and looking incredibly sharp with detail, while also keeping film grain and without digital artifacts. Stability is also strong without problems of wobble or warping. For the slightly bad news, the overall transfers for both films look too "blue", with whites such as the snow having a bluish hue, and reds being toned slightly down. Things look noticably darker compared to older transfers and skintones are not as vibrant as they used to be. As many of the technical staff including Oshima have passed away, it's hard to say if this blue hue was intentional, but it does look off compared to what audiences have been used to. Not at all the fault or decision of Umbrella Entertainment, but the choice of Argos Films. Both films come with the original French language credits.

This seems to be the second time that the 2016 4K restoration of "In the Realm of the Senses" has been released on Blu-ray, following a Taiwanese Blu-ray from last year (which we do not have concrete specs for) and also following a DVD release from Arte in France from 2016 which they curiously didn't release on Blu-ray. The uncensored producer's cut on the disc has a runtime of 102:15. The previous Umbrella Entertainment DVD edition was the producer's cut but was the UK cut version which optically zoomed on one scene involving children. Here on the Blu-ray it is presented without any censorship.

For "Empire of Passion", it seems the 2017 4K restoration has never had a home video release until now, with this release which has a runtime of 105:12. The film never had any censorship issues so there is no issue of cuts.

manicsounds wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 6:42 am So I got a review copy of Umbrella's "In the Realm of the Senses/Empire of Passion" double feature Blu-ray.
https://shop.umbrellaent.com.au/product ... -3-blu-ray

I assumed they would be using the existing HD transfers found on other Blu-rays worldwide, but was very surprised to find that both films are from 4K restorations that were completed in 2016/2017, and had never had a transfer to disc until now. Haven't done a full AB comparison to the previous HD transfers, but call me surprised that these newer transfers found their way to Australia.

Did they cram both films onto one Blu-ray disc? ](*,)
How is the encoding? Can't be ideal...

Except if they gave too much space for the extras, it is feasible to have 2 100 min movies with 1 2.0 track on 1 BD-50 and maintain a 28 Mbps AVB. It's not maxed out for sure but would be enough to avoid visible blocking (providing of course you know how to finetune your encoder settings !).

As for the gradings, no surprises there. Even without screencaps, I know how it most likely looks like.

mhofmann wrote: Sun Mar 27, 2022 11:17 am Did they cram both films onto one Blu-ray disc? ](*,)
How is the encoding? Can't be ideal...

Both films take about 20GB each of disc space so encoding is not at all crammed. Again, they look good but the blue hue is a bit too strong. An odd trend in quite a few 4K restorations recently.

It's been going on for quite some years actually (it started appearing around 2015) and not just 4k restorations but 2k ones too. At least 100 movies are concerned.

20 Gb per movie seems on par with my above calculations.