I doubt Criterion will upgrade Cul-De-Sac to 4K because Polanski (and it's frankly cowardly of them because art is made by plenty of people and all art deserves to be preserved), but To Be or Not To Be realistically could be upgraded to 4K and I could 100% see Criterion licensing Minnie and Moskowitz from Universal.
Brand new sealed OUT OF PRINT Blu-Ray release from Arrow Video's now defunct sub-label Arrow Academy. Includes better compression/encoding and audio than the Criterion Blu-Ray (per bestblurays.com), plus its own exclusive set of extras, including an audio commentary by Terry Jones, plus reversible artwork containing original poster artwork. Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
Bought this thinking all units came with a booklet given how few units supposedly sold for Arrow at the time, but sadly that is not the case (and yes, I know booklets are limited to first pressings, but I was not sure how many pressings there were before this went OOP), so selling it off for a bit less than what I had spent on it. Either way, my loss is your gain.
$28 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
Great retailer ran by a great dude and I highly recommend them! Also, there's a prompt to get 10% off your first order when you open the link! https://valoriavideo.com/products/pre-order-im-gonna-git-you-sucka-with-limited-edition-deluxe-box-2-disc-set-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-copy?_pos=1&_psq=the+frontier&_ss=e&_v=1.0
To begin, some background context for anyone who isn't already aware: Years back, WB bought the rights to a handful of Golden Harvest titles from the 90s and aside from releasing Comrades: Almost a Love Story on Blu-Ray in some Asian countries (which is actually a good and Region Free disc FWIW, flawed subtitles aside) and largely botched releases of some of the more popular Jackie Chan titles like Rumble in the Bronx and First Strike—plus Drunken Master II and Mr. Nice Guy later on, both of which are at least in their original Hong Kong cuts with Cantonese audio but still have other issues—WB have refused to do anything with them and have been especially difficult with licensing them out to boutique labels. Until very recently, only Criterion had any real luck—that's why their Once Upon a Time in China set has all six films while Eureka's only has the first three, and why they were able to do their own new remaster of Enter the Dragon for their Bruce Lee set whereas Arrow had to just use the WB Blu-Ray from the 2010s, though worth noting Arrow's releases are otherwise superior—and even for them, it has been quite tough. Fortunately, it seems that things are finally starting to slowly change—Arrow just released those six Jackie Chan films in a 4K box set, and they have recently been confirmed to have Pedicab Driver in the pipeline on both 4K and Blu-Ray!—but point still stands that for far too long, these films have either been largely unavailable in the form of quality physical media releases or not available on physical media at all period since the VHS/LaserDisc days. This is all to say that the fact that Criterion were able to license this and undergo their own 4K remaster from scratch for a 4K disc release should be seen as something of a miracle, given the best this film had until this year was a shitty DVD-R with burnt in subtitles (same for Pedicab Driver).
ANYWAY…holy shit, what a fucking picture. I'm generally mixed on Tsui Hark, but this is a pure synthesis of his greatest qualities as an artist and without any of his obvious shortcomings—all killer and no filler, in other words—and quite easily the most formally experimental Golden Harvest production I've seen to date. The filmmaking is even more aggressive yet abstract than I expected—and the set-pieces themselves almost feel like Paul Greengrass on coke in how they're filmed and edited—and that sort of approach works perfectly here, making it genuinely idiosyncratic (especially for a revenge film) and all the more gritty. An absolute masterpiece, and comfortably the best film I've seen from Tsui thus far.
As for the disc itself? It's another first-rate restoration effort by Resillion of course with tasteful Dolby Vision grading, but even the NexSpec 4K encode is largely robust! Aside from maybe a few frames with naturally thicker grain and/or seemingly rougher shape negatives where the encode is maybe slightly questionable, this looks crisply, healthily filmic throughout without any obvious or noticeable compression artifacts. (Have not sampled the included Criterion Blu-Ray to compare.)
An enormous kudos to Criterion for both rescuing this spectacular gem from WB prison and giving it the proper treatment it has deserved all these years! Buy with confidence!
Only bought this set for DRUNKEN MASTER II and, at least for the time being, WHO AM I? (only one of these I haven't seen and want to watch before deciding) and am selling off the rest. Have zero intention of price gouging and just want to recoup costs. As this set was literally just received brand new and then opened, all of the discs are unwatched and intact. Also happy to include corresponding art cards, though worth mentioning: they do not fit inside any of the cases due to size, so they will have to be packaged along with the actual case(s) rather than inside them.
RUMBLE IN THE BRONX and THUNDERBOLT have already been sold elsewhere; other two are still available for now.
$24.50 each plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
Differences between the two are virtually negligible in this case, ultimately subjective which one you prefer but definitely not another Seven Samurai situation here! (I prefer the BFI of Seven Samurai but that's obviously an entirely separate discussion.)
Certainly glad I had only gotten the SC BD in retrospect as opposed to the 4K, as I may actually pick the Criterion 4K up at some point now.
• worldwide UHD debuts of The Tales of Hoffman and The Small Back Room
• I Know Where I'm Going with Dolby Vision/HDR grading (per the description; would be a pretty egregious mistake if it's actually SDR like the Criterion 4K, though still should look good regardless)
• Fidelity in Motion encoding across all discs!!!
Very glad I decided to sell off my still sealed StudioCanal BD of The Small Back Room some time back and never got around to buying Tales of Hoffman or any of the others! This will be at least $200 USD but man is it enticing!
(And yes, it will almost definitely be fully Region Free like 99% of Imprint releases are.)
Only bought this set for DRUNKEN MASTER II and, at least for the time being, WHO AM I? (only one of these I haven't seen and want to watch before deciding) and am selling off the rest. Have zero intention of price gouging and just want to recoup costs. As this set was literally just received brand new and then opened, all of the discs are unwatched and intact. Also happy to include corresponding art cards, though worth mentioning: they do not fit inside any of the cases due to size, so they will have to be packaged along with the actual case(s) rather than inside them.
Should mention: for those who are not already aware, the Hong Kong Cut of RUMBLE IN THE BRONX is known to be faulty in Dolby Vision on Panasonic UB820 models, and after Arrow investigated it on their end, they confirmed within the past 48 hours that they will NOT be issuing replacement discs and are depending on Panasonic to fix it with a firmware update. That said, this disc is confirmed to play fine on UB820s in HDR10 and as of writing, no similar issues have been reported on other players.
UPDATE: ***RUMBLE IN THE BRONX HAS SOLD ELSEWHERE AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE***
$24.50 each plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
This information was gained by emailing mulvaney@criterion.com this email is found on the "contact us" section of the criterion website
All 13 movies have Dolby Vision HDR (including Fear and Desire) but the 3 short films are SDR
Fidelity in Motion encoded all the discs except Barry Lyndon which was done by NexSpec, pretty much confirming they are reusing criterion's previous stand alone 4Ks for this set
Fear and Desire is only included in it's 70 minute version so keep the Kino disc if you want the 62 minute version
Brand new sealed OUT OF PRINT Blu-Ray release from Arrow Video's now defunct sub-label Arrow Academy. Includes better compression/encoding and audio than the Criterion Blu-Ray (per bestblurays.com), plus its own exclusive set of extras, including an audio commentary by Terry Jones, plus reversible artwork containing original poster artwork. Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
Bought this thinking all units came with a booklet given how few units supposedly sold for Arrow at the time, but sadly that is not the case (and yes, I know booklets are limited to first pressings, but I was not sure how many pressings there were before this went OOP), so selling it off for a bit less than what I had spent on it. Either way, my loss is your gain.
$28 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
Given what will surely be faithful presentations of all of Kubrick's films in both video and audio with flawless encoding by the single best disc authoring house in the business, plus all the dense supplemental material that will be included, I completely fail to see how anyone can write this off as an unnecessary cash-grab. This is clearly a labor of love from all involved, and I'm super excited for what will absolutely be the best physical media release of the year and Criterion's crowning achievement, and their Eyes Wide Shut release felt virtually impossible to beat!
God bless you, Arrow and Cliff MacMillan!!!!
Edit: Per Frank Djeng, this will get both a 4K AND a Blu-Ray!!!!!
Original source: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24153023&postcount=84666
Brand new sealed OUT OF PRINT Blu-Ray release from Arrow Video's now defunct sub-label Arrow Academy. Includes better compression/encoding and audio than the Criterion Blu-Ray (per bestblurays.com), plus its own exclusive set of extras, including an audio commentary by Terry Jones, plus reversible artwork containing original poster artwork. Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
Bought this thinking all units came with a booklet given how few units supposedly sold for Arrow at the time, but sadly that is not the case, so selling it off for a bit less than what I had spent on it. Either way, my loss is your gain.
$28 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
OUT OF PRINT Limited Edition REGION B Blu-Ray release from Eureka, in unwatched and intact condition (just missing the outer sealed wrapping). Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
$38 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
Vinegar Syndrome/Cinématographe Standard Edition Blu-Ray release of Abel Ferrara's NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998) in like new unwatched/intact condition. Just missing the sealed wrapping but disc itself has never been played.
$20 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
Vinegar Syndrome/Cinématographe Standard Edition Blu-Ray release of Abel Ferrara's NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998) in like new unwatched/intact condition. Just missing the sealed wrapping but disc itself has never been played.
$20 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
FOUND! Thank you u/b34t!
OUT OF PRINT Limited Edition REGION B Blu-Ray release from Eureka, in unwatched and intact condition (just missing the outer sealed wrapping). Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
$38 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.
OUT OF PRINT Limited Edition REGION B Blu-Ray release from Eureka, in unwatched and intact condition (just missing the outer sealed wrapping). Once again, this release is REGION B-LOCKED.
$38 plus Media Mail shipping. PayPal F&F and Venmo F&F accepted.
Please PM if interested.