criterionforum.org

Central Pictures Corporation, Taiwan has started to restore its film library this year. The first batch of a total of 6 films produced between the 80s & 90s has been digitially remastered. They are Hou Hsiao Hsien's Dust in the Wind, Edward Yang's Terrorizers, Chen Yu Hsun's Tropical Fish, Tsai Ming Liang's Vive l'Amour, Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman and Chen Kwo Fu's The Personals.

The first 3 films has been released on dvd (Dust in the Wind on blu-ray also) in Taiwan in July. They are restored in its original aspect ratio and are all subtitled in Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Spanish and with special features.

Dust in the Wind
- 25 min behind the scenes features with director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor interviews and shooting location footage

Restoration Demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feat ... iGX4l4OeN4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(previously released dvd versus digitally remastered)


More remastered clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcbRD3Ekh2o&NR=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Terrorizers
- 20 min behind the scenes feature with screenwriter and editor interview; Hou and Wu Nianzhen on director Edward Yang

Tropical Fish
- 16 min behind the scenes feature with director interview

Remastered clips and cast interviews of Vive l'Amour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKeCBvVi ... r_embedded" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As reported, the dvd and blu-ray will be released by Sony worldwide.

Very exciting news! Do you have a link to where they can be bought?

The only Taiwanese e-tailer that i am aware of, doesn't carry it yet

So will Dust in the Wind BD be Region C? I can only flick between A and B on my Limit player
Please keep us updated dekalog on these releases, this is a lovely surprise!

Hou's masterpiece on BD? This is the greatest news EVER. Also happy for The Terrorizers, another underknown near-masterpiece, so glad I can get rid of my VCD copy. Give us some links, though, please; I can't find 'em anywhere!



PS: just found this at Blu-ray.com:

Peacock wrote:So will Dust in the Wind BD be Region C? I can only flick between A and B on my Limit player
Please keep us updated dekalog on these releases, this is a lovely surprise!

If the Limit is a Momitsu clone, it should accept 973503 for region "C". Have you tried that?

It is, and I haven't tried that. Thanks! I'd only seen online the two numbers for A and B, so just figured that's all it would play.
(Sorry for going off topic)

What???? Taiwan is Region A just like Hong Kong. Do you guys think Hou, Tsai, Lee, etc. all come from Mainland China?

Fantastic news! In my opinion, The Terrorizers is the greatest film of the 1980s, and, depending on the weather, Dust in the Wind could be my favourite Hou. Vive l'Amour is a masterpiece, and I also recall The Personals being really good as well, and I'd long given up any hope of seeing it again.

That said, what's the bet that the only one of these titles Criterion shows any interest in is Eat Drink Man Woman?

dekalog wrote:As reported, the dvd and blu-ray will be released by Sony worldwide.

Is this in reference to all of these or just one? And has anybody found out where they can bought yet?

An excited yip. Another excited yip.

Blu-ray.com also mentions that it was due for release yesterday, so hopefully it'll be popping up soon.

A pity it's only a 2K telecine, but considering how woeful the previous releases of these films were I should probably shut up.

Now to decide whether to crack instantly or wait to see what international companies do with the restored telecine transfers. I have to admit I find it difficult to imagine Sony releasing the bulk of the Taiwanese New Wave on blu-ray anytime soon.

Dust In The Wind blu-ray packaging pictures from a Taiwanese blog.
From the back cover you can see it's region free, but the MPEG2 encode isn't very promising.
Also, take a look at the publisher's page

The boxset available from here.

I'm curious if Terrorizers, and Tropical Fish remain DVD only, or if blu-ray awaits. I have to confess it would never occur to me that Dust in the Wind is that much popular in Taiwan than Terrorizers.

No current plans for blu-ray according to the company, it would make sense to put them out now, wouldn't it?

If anyone gets these, can you report on the quality of the subtitles? The horribly unidiomatic English text on the packaging is not a good sign.

Dust In The Wind blu-ray available here

Wow, hope it's sold cheaper somewhere like the press release said....

As much as I love Hou, the big story for me here is the Yang. In all these years of DVD Yang's representation has been miserable, atrocious, bad, painful, depressing, more bad and UGH. I'm *thrilled* that one of his best works is going to get something approaching respectable treatment. It's appropriate that the best news Yang fans have had in years is buried in a thread named after another filmmaker and titled "dust in the wind." Pass me a hanky cuz I'm getting weepy here!

What happened to getting this direct from the company? I thought it was $45 for the BD and Terrorizers. I was getting ready to order.

While I can't speak Mandarin, the 1300TWD listed for the boxset is only US $40.

English and Japanese subs. How rare those words are, how beautiful they sound.

I've ordered the BD and The Terrorizers from books.com.tw and that came out to TWD 1629, which is roughly $50, and that includes shipping to Sweden. Seems like a good price to me. Placing the order was fairly easy with the help of Google Translate and some guessing (when in doubt, try the button on the left or the most colorful one...)

I'm not sure if The Terrorizers is actually in stock, because Google doesn't seem to understand what 購買後立即進貨 means. And neither do I.

denti alligator wrote:What happened to getting this direct from the company? I thought it was $45 for the BD and Terrorizers. I was getting ready to order.

They said i should order from the retailer.

ola t wrote:購買後立即進貨

means they stock upon your purchase.