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Anyone familiar with this Dutch label - the home video branch of Rotterdam Film Festival? They have accumulated quite an interesting catalogue, a lot of which I don't think is available elsewhere, and most of the titles come with English subs. I stumbled upon them while hunting for a DVD of Li Hongqi's Winter Vacation - unfortunately that one had Dutch subs only

The real find here IMO is this boxset - a blind buy on the strength of Family Nest, Postman and The Cyclist alone. (For Tarr fans, as previously noted, Family Nest is also available separately)

Also grabbed the "Young Malaysia" set, Mundane History and Hospitalité on impulse - any recommendations from the rest? West of the Tracks looks pretty fucking amazing actually (pardon my Dutch) - will probably have to pick that up as well

Do you have direct confirmation from them that Winter Vacation has no English subs? Because the info on their site is often inaccurate in that respect -- for example they only list Dutch subs on the "Young Malaysia" titles when they all have English as well. Their distributor's site lists English subs on the box but not on the individual titles, and contradicts some of the info on the IFFR site -- Adrift is listed without English subs on one site and with them on the other, etc. (For the record, it does have them.) It's really frustrating.

I did get direct email confirmation that the "Young China" set and Perfect Life don't have English subs, though I've been thinking of pulling the trigger on Perfect Life anyway, since at this point I doubt it'll come out anywhere else. West of the Tracks definitely has subs (and was discussed here), though there's a weird glitch where some of the subtitles -- mainly for the text introductions at the beginning -- don't display, even though they're encoded on the disc.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:Do you have direct confirmation from them that Winter Vacation has no English subs?

I have the disc, it's Dutch only. Difficult to say much about this film without understanding the conversations, except that it is truly the most unrelentingly apathetic 90 minutes I ever sat through (I don't mean that as a putdown, as it's obviously the point) - makes Sátántangó look like a Michael Bay film in comparison.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:they only list Dutch subs on the "Young Malaysia" titles when they all have English as well

Are you sure though - both Filmfreak and the IFFR site seems to list the separate discs as Dutch only, whereas the 5-DVD box would appear to have added English ones? Anyway it's very perplexing - I guess the only way to be certain is to ask them directly...

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:there's a weird glitch where some of the subtitles -- mainly for the text introductions at the beginning -- don't display

Both discs I've watched so far (Winter Vacation and Rain Dogs) have a similar glitch at the beginning of the subtitles: the very first line appears and disappears instantly. A very minor complaint of course, but irritating nonetheless. Had a quick flip through the rest of the Malaysia set (nearly disgorging my breakfast at the opening of At The End of Daybreak - pet rat owners beware ), and they were all OK.

BTW I seem to have read the "Jubilee Box" description too hastily - Family Nest does NOT have English subs, and neither does Parque Vía (I can confirm this when the set arrives); fansubs are available for the Tarr, but I wouldn't hold out much hope to find any for Perfect Life or Winter Vacation anytime soon

They told me via an email awhile back that all of the Malaysian titles have English subs, in both the box and as standalone titles. A label of this size isn't likely to press two different versions of these titles for release at the same time. They also said (this was a couple of years ago) that they intend to include English subtitles whenever there isn't a contractual issue blocking their inclusion, so I can't get too upset at them -- I just wish they (and Filmfreak) would be more careful with the sub listings on their site. (Filmfreak still lists West of the Tracks with Dutch subs only, even though the whole rest of the internet knows otherwise by now.)

As for Winter Vacation, an English-subbed disc is already available for institutional sales (with online VOD soon to come, apparently). This being the internet, I expect it to enter "general distribution" at some point, if you catch my meaning. dGenerate also distributes a couple of the titles in the "Young China" box.

I have yet to see Winter Vacation, but I've seen Li's first two films (So Much Rice and Routine Holiday, which got legitimate English-subbed releases in China), and from what I've been told, Winter Vacation is a Zucker Brothers laff riot by comparison. This is easy to believe, since Routine Holiday is pretty much the ne plus ultra of the "uncomfortable silence" school and I don't see how he could've taken it any further; at least one-third of the movie is a few guys sitting around in a room saying nothing to each other, until one of them finally gets up and slaps someone. Ha-ha! The DVD also has a "hilarious" making-of that's indistiguishable from the film itself, except with a few crew members also sitting around saying nothing. Somehow Li talked an official state-run studio into putting their name on this.

Yeah, the subtitle information issue is a minor thing indeed and I should add I haven't found any reason not to recommend this label - watched four titles now and all have been beautiful transfers and had good extras (not to mention very interesting films!).

dGenerate seems to be collaborating with MUBI so hopefully Winter Vacation will appear there at some point. Er Dong from the "Young China" box is viewable there; from their roster I'd also recommend The Other Half, an excellent, excellent film from the recently exiled Ying Liang, one of the most exciting filmmakers at the moment, in my view

The added comedy in Winter Vacation must be in the dialogue, because in every other respect it looks just like you describe the earlier ones. Looking very much forward to seeing it properly w/ subs (I even considered ripping the Dutch subs and feeding them through Bing but that started to seem a bit desperate already)

Good news: just got the IFFR Jubilee Box and can confirm that ALL films, including Family Nest and Parque Via, do have optional English subtitles. The set also includes this collection of short films, all of which have non-removable English subs.

Also got a copy of Koji Fukada's Hospitalité, which, once again contrary to De Filmfreak's information, only has Dutch subs

edit: just noticed that the IFFR box is available for a bargain price from this vendor, cheap worldwide shipping - I just paid about twice that price for this ](*,) edit 2: Perfect Life is going for cheap too!

repeat wrote:edit: just noticed that the IFFR box is available for a bargain price from this vendor, cheap worldwide shipping - I just paid about twice that price for this ](*,)

Thanks for the tip. Even with hefty shipping (20E), this works out as cheap as the label's 'discount price' without.

What are the transfers like? My existing DVD of The Cyclist (the old US one) is a travesty, one of the worst transfers I own, so just about anything would be an improvement.

dGenerate also has a good selection up on Fandor.

zedz wrote:

repeat wrote:edit: just noticed that the IFFR box is available for a bargain price from this vendor, cheap worldwide shipping - I just paid about twice that price for this ](*,)

Thanks for the tip. Even with hefty shipping (20E), this works out as cheap as the label's 'discount price' without.

What are the transfers like? My existing DVD of The Cyclist (the old US one) is a travesty, one of the worst transfers I own, so just about anything would be an improvement.

I paid 8 euros for European delivery, I didn't know you lived in the States zedz!

perkizitore wrote:I paid 8 euros for European delivery, I didn't know you lived in the States zedz!

Oh, it's far worse than that. . .

zedz wrote:What are the transfers like? My existing DVD of The Cyclist (the old US one) is a travesty, one of the worst transfers I own, so just about anything would be an improvement.

The Cyclist looks and sounds pretty much exactly like this excerpt (of course making due allowances for the loss in quality from YouTube compression - it's sharper and the sound is a bit clearer). If you have the Image/Kimstim disc, then judging by the Beaver review I'd guess that this is much better - the colors look much better than in those caps, no significant distortion in the audio, and rather normal specks and scratches instead of "enormous dirt and debris".

Family Nest looks good too, most probably an improvement over the Facets disc (which I haven't seen).

Postman then again looks pretty shoddy: I'll stress I'm not 100% sure about this, but it looks to me like it's been mastered from a VHS copy - there's constant color fluctuation in the image and those occasional descending horizontal lines (I'm afraid I don't know what they're called) you sometimes get on old tapes. It might have to do with the fact that the film had to be smuggled out of China (maybe the original materials or prints are not available?) - would be interesting if someone could shed light on this. Anyway I think it's the only available version of a historically important film, and a perfectly watchable one, so I'm not complaining!

I haven't looked at the others yet but as they're relatively recent films and the half a dozen discs I've seen from this label have been pretty much as good as DVD gets, I don't expect to be disappointed...

repeat wrote:The Cyclist looks and sounds pretty much exactly like this excerpt (of course making due allowances for the loss in quality from YouTube compression - it's sharper and the sound is a bit clearer). If you have the Image/Kimstim disc, then judging by the Beaver review I'd guess that this is much better - the colors look much better than in those caps, no significant distortion in the audio, and rather normal specks and scratches instead of "enormous dirt and debris".

That looks much better - the Image was a smeary, murky mess.

Does anyone own the 10 to Watch DVD series? Apparently there is a 3rd box that looks fairly intriguing.

I guess this is as good a place to post this as any, as the film was briefly discussed above - Capricci have made Li Hongqi's Winter Vacation available on Mubi, with English subs. Don't know which countries it's available for, but at least in Europe I suppose. Strangely no DVD of it in their catalogue though (all the other stuff on their page is available on disc as well)