OldBoy

Looking forward to this. Never did catch it. All 5’s at Blu-ray.com. Lots of interviews and 1.5 hr making of...

Decker

Gotta say, the packaging on the Bruce Lee set is very disappointing. A fold-out digipack. Better than Alien Quadrilogy but still not what I expect from Criterion. And such a tiny, flimsy booklet? For $125 (list), I expected a more elaborate presentation.

kefrank

That's disappointing. What's the deal with Bruce Lee sets having bad packaging? The Shout! Legacy Collection was garbage too, at least the way the discs were housed. I made custom Blu-ray covers for those so I could keep the discs in regular cases. I might have to do the same when I get the Criterion set.

milo bloom

I thought the Bruce packaging looked nice, and the magazine style book was cool, but the main box itself seems flimsy. I know it will stay on the shelf most of the time, but I hate the thought of it getting dinged up.

asianxcore

October Criterion Releases

Parasite
Claudine
The Gunfighter
Pierrot Le Fou

Mondo Kane

^The Claudine with James Earl Jones?

Brian T

I wish that Criterion would once in a while use the original theatrical poster art, even though I realize they have to do something to separate most of their releases from earlier studio editions. Not fond of that morse code title overlay for Parasite. I get how it relates to the film, but the original poster was ideal. Still, the supplements look pretty solid.

DJariya

OldBoy's going to have an erection after reading those Parasite extras.

rocket1312

Then he'll ask you to order it for him and when he gets it he'll never actually watch any of them.

DJariya

very true

lisadoris

Yep, that Claudine...I'm psyched about that.

Decker

How does the audio commentary work? Korean with subtitles?

DJariya

He's with an American film critic. So he's probably the moderator and they will probably have a translator with them.

Or the critic talks on his own and then Bong speaks about it edited in with subtitles.

Brian T

Bong shifts between English and Korean in many of his interviews. His English is good, but obviously he expresses ideas better in Korean. Ideally, this track would just be fully subtitled in English (even when he's speaking it, for those who have a hard time with accents), but leave out the translator as the time required to repeat what was said would be better spent discussing the film. That said, I do hope his go-to translator, Sharon Choi, appears somewhere on the disc, as she developed quite a devoted following of her own last year thanks to her speed, dexterity and all-around charm.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...uteurs-a-voice
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainme...r-sharon-choi/
https://www.looper.com/188009/the-tr...or-sharon-choi

Josh Z

It's unclear to me if Pierrot le fou has been updated or is just a reissue of the prior Criterion disc from 2009. Criterion claims a "new 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray," but of course Criterion is frequently very loose with their use of the word "new." If it were really remastered, wouldn't they have it done in 4K? The supplements appear to be identical to the old disc.

rocket1312

They would not have changed the artwork if this wasn't considered an "upgrade". For example, Army of Shadows, the other studio Canal title to return, was more or less a straight rerelease with the same art.

As for 4k vs 2k, I thought at one point all in house Criterion scans were done in 2k. If it was 4k, then that meant they sourced it from elsewhere. I don't know if this is one of their in house jobs, but that might explain it.

asianxcore

I'm psyched about the release of Parasite having the Black & White version. I initially was kicking myself for missing out on the Zaavi Steelbook for that reason. Not anymore!

Already have the standard BD & the 4K UHD. Can't wait to get this!

OldBoy

hey, c’mon. That’s low blow fellas. True, but still. I have feelings too ya know.
And holy fuck a convo with Chan-wook Park!!! This is going to be my second favorite October release!!! The Friday 13th set for Real 3D, UR Jason Goes to Hell and hopefully so much more. I dunno, maybe it’ll be a toss up. But I will definitely make this a priority and revisit sooner rather than later. Friday’s too...

Dan

The original disc, which I have, says it was an HD digital transfer from the 35mm negative. Could be there was a 2K version in the mix at the time, but it does sound like it's "new."

Paul_SD

If I hadn't picked up the Parasite UHD cheap in a Target sale recently, this would be the first month in maybe ever that I could say "Wow! Every single title will be a pick up next sale".

Very much looking forward to Claudine and The Hit.

Coral

Criterion looks really bad here. They can tack on as many extras onto the Parasite BD as they want, but the video quality can't compare to the UHD-BD - which is cheaper to boot.

Cartload

Agreed. Ultimately it comes down to the presentation of the actual film itself and Criterion comes up short here.

Cartload

Not a fan of the stacked discs either considering that these are all unique films and not parts of a series.

Josh Z

I'm not convinced, sorry. "HD" transfers generally actually mean 2k, and the prior Blu-ray already looked excellent. There was nothing wrong with it that begged for a restoration or remaster unless the license holder wanted to go to the effort of preserving/archiving it in 4k. And given that the license holder in this case is Studio Canal, which has been making an aggressive push in recent years to upgrade its catalog to 4k (often with underwhelming results, but that's a separate discussion), I don't see why they or Criterion would choose to re-scan this one now only in 2k.

I think it most likely that Pierrot is just a reissue of the disc from 2009.

rocket1312

HD transfer usually means 1080p. I know that's pretty close to 2k, but it's the verbiage they've always used.

​​Edit to add: the original release also apparently had some issues with tinting filters that presumably will be corrected.