I read Thomas Spurlin's DVD review of Mother at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=43521 and...

Thomas, thank you for mentioning the black level issues on this disc. However, I'm surprised you didn't notice the severe problems with aliasing and jaggies. The disc starts out fine, but the problem gets worse and worse as the movie goes until the picture is just a big jaggie mess.

Take a look at Mother's hair in the final scene at time code 2:01:00 and the close-up of her accupuncture needles about 5 seconds later. The end credits shimmer like crazy once the text starts to scroll. There are also sporadic problems with pixelation and banding throughout the movie. This is a very sloppily-authored disc, perhaps the worst so that I've seen in a long time.

You're right, there is a pretty healthy amount of aliasing against the acupuncture needles upon closer inspection. The issues regarding pixelation and banding throughout the movie weren't as obtrusive as you've mentioned, though, and they didn't detract from my enjoyment of Hong Kyung-po's cinematography.

Watch the whole disc again with that in mind. You'll see a lot more of it. It's very strange the way the problem gets progressively worse. There's hardly any aliasing at the beginning of the movie, but by the end it's everywhere. I can't think of any technical reason that would account for that. If this were a 1080i master that was deinterlaced badly at the studio, the aliasing should be a more consistent problem.

That's fair enough, and probably a matter of personal preference. I find pretty much any "digital" artifacts to be intrusive. I can forgive print damage, dirt, or other film artifacts, but digital artifacts leap out at me.

Anyway, I find this particularly disappointing because the movie is so fantastic. It deserves better care than this.