– New 4K digital restorations of As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks – New 4K digital restorations of Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046, approved by director Wong Kar Wai, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks
#CHUNGKING EXPRESS BLU RAY FULL#
Here’s the full rundown of the list of extras and tech info on the 4K remasters – The extras for In The Mood For Love seem mostly to be a direct port of what was made available on Criterion’s 2012 release of the film. The extras on the 2046 disc is much better, and the inclusion of the extended version of the short film The Hand is fantastic.
On the Fallen Angels disc there is a new (2020) video where Wong answers questions from other filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, Rian Johnson and more which could have been interesting, but Wong gives mere soundbite answers that again, offer limited insight into his creative process. One of the videos featuring DP Christopher Doyle is hilarious because he was obviously super high when the documentary was shot and was largely incoherent. There’s very little or no extras for the earlier films As Tears Go By and Days Of Being Wild, and those included with Chungking Express are very short, fluff pieces that offer very little useful insight into the actual film-making process of Wong. Now the supplementary materials are kind of a mixed bag. The fidelity of the video is very good with considerable sharpness, color saturation and deep darks all competently restored and printed. The 4K transfers are very impressive for all the films especially for Wong’s earlier works like As Tears Go By and Days Of Being Wild, with no noticeable dust specs and film scratches. Observations on the video quality of the film – At the time of writing I’ve re-watched all the films except for Happy Together and In The Mood For Love. Spread between the pages are thin plastic sleeves that house the 6 collectible art prints ( see image further below ).
#CHUNGKING EXPRESS BLU RAY PLUS#
The booklet that comes with the set includes beautiful stills from the 7 films, accompanied by an essay by critic John Powers, and a director’s note plus blu-ray production credits and some information on the re-mastering/restoration of the films. (below) The vista view of the designs on the foldout case when fully spread out. (above) Pictures of the foldout cardboard case with the 7 discs for the respective films in their sleeves.
The whole package is all made of cardboard/paper and contains no plastic at all ( except for the sleeves in the booklet that holds the art prints ). The 2 main items of the box-set are the foldout cardboard case that houses the 7 discs for the films (below left), as well as the French-fold booklet with 6 collectible art prints (below right), both of which are housed in a thin cardboard foldout case that opens up with 4 flaps. Here are some pictures of the box set and its contents – The set features 7 of Wong’s films – As Tears Go By / Days of Being Wild / Chungking Express / Fallen Angels / Happy Together / In the Mood for Love and lastly 2046, which has never been released on blu-ray hitherto. I received my copy of Criterion’s splendid The World Of Wong Kar Wai blu-ray boxset 2 weeks back and have been re-watching all the films and exploring the supplementary/making of material.