The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
03-28-24, 10:33 AM
#2226
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Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
03-28-24, 10:36 AM
#2227
DVD Talk Hero
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
Mute Witness for me! Curious to see what extras/transfer that Madman will be about. Vinegar Syndrome out that out on 4K a couple of years ago. On the one hand, I think all of those releases will have a Fidelity in Motion (David M.) encode.
03-28-24, 06:26 PM
#2228
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
I’ve always found it odd that no boutique company even seemed to think about MUTE WITNESS all these years. It’s a fantastic suspense movie. I remember it getting a modest theatrical release back in the day, then VHS, then the barebones DVD came out 20 years ago, and nothing since. Nice to see they’ve loaded it up a bit:
- 4K restoration approved by director Anthony Waller
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-rayTM presentation
- Restored original lossless stereo soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary by writer/director Anthony Waller
- Brand new audio commentary with production designer Matthias Kammermeier and composer Wilbert Hirsch, moderated by critic Lee Gambin
- The Silent Death, brand new visual essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, examining Mute Witness and its relationship with snuff films
- The Wizard Behind the Curtain, brand new visual essay by author and critic Chris Alexander, exploring the phenomenon of the film-within-a-film
- Original “Snuff Movie” presentation, produced to generate interest from investors and distributors, featuring interviews with Anthony Waller and members of the creative team
- Original location scouting footage
- Original footage with Alec Guinness, filmed a decade prior to the rest of Mute Witness
- Teaser trailer
- Trailer
- Image gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
- Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
- Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michelle Kisner
04-24-24, 08:56 AM
#2229
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
I'm late to the discussion of the Bruce Lee set, but thought I would chime in. I'm a huge Bruce Lee fan. I don't think I can count how many times I've bought his movies on disc from multiple regions. I bought the Longstreet DVDs just to have his episodes. There was a time when I would have gone to the ends of the earth to own and be able to watch this upcoming Arrow set, but I think I'm past that time now. I admire the apparently unprecedented effort Arrow has put into the set. The big draws are obviously the longer, lost cut of The Big Boss and the massive Game of Death video essay featuring all of Bruce's dailies footage, but I'm very content without either of those in my collection. The Big Boss is my least favorite of Bruce Lee's movies and additional footage that primarily features more gore and more sexual content isn't going to make that movie any better, so the novelty doesn't really appeal to me. We're never going to see a fully realized version of Bruce's vision for Game of Death and the existing edits of his completed footage are more than enough to get a glimpse of what it could have been. I'm certainly interested to watch both of those unique offerings once if given the opportunity, but I'm not going to buy a region-free BD/UHD player and pay for the full set in order to have that opportunity.
Criterion's Bruce Lee set is a very solid compilation of his work and probably the last Bruce Lee set I will ever buy on physical media.
Criterion's Bruce Lee set is a very solid compilation of his work and probably the last Bruce Lee set I will ever buy on physical media.
- I haven't watched the movies all the way through, but I sampled each one and the 4K transfers are pretty astounding. I didn't think these movies could ever look this good - clarity is amazing and the colors really pop in HDR/Dolby Vision. Of course the added clarity amplifies some of the in-camera issues of these films (uneven focus and grain, obvious dummies and fake blood, etc) but I've come to appreciate those issues as simply an endearing part of the experience.
- I have to give kudos to Arrow for including The Final Game of Death disc with the individual release of Way of the Dragon instead of with the theatrical Game of Death. I've seen some criticism of this approach online, but for me it is perfect because I have no interest in owning anything else related to the 1978 abomination, but badly wanted to see The Final Game of Death with all of the dailies Bruce Lee shot (more thoughts on this coming in a separate post).
- I love that Arrow used reversible covers with the original Hong Kong poster art on the reverse side for these individual releases. I love it so much that I made a custom cover/case for my WB Enter The Dragon 4K UHD release to match so now I have my own "perfect for me" 4K Bruce Lee collection. I designed the cover for a 15mm UHD case (to match the Arrow cases) that holds at least 2 discs, because I wanted it to hold both the 4K and most recent Blu-ray discs since the 4K didn't include all the previous extras. Those cases are a little hard to find, but there's a
that's perfect - you just have to pull out the center spindle piece that holds four more discs. Here are a few pics (spoilered for size):
Spoiler: - It's such a treat to have The Mandarin Cut of The Big Boss and Arrow have really taken care to present it well, both in a restored version and an unrestored "grindhouse" version. I have only watched the unrestored "grindhouse" version so far, but it's an awesome experience. The unrestored scan is pretty spectacular and there's something that just feels right about having all the scratches, dust and burned-in subtitles for watching this lost cut of the movie.
- I'm still glad to have my Criterion box set for its original bonus features and the convenience of also having the movies on Blu-ray, but these Arrow releases are the crown jewels of Bruce Lee on physical media and, to eat my original words, really are essential for big Bruce Lee fans.
Last edited by kefrank; 04-24-24 at 09:01 AM. Reason: grammar
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04-24-24, 08:59 AM
#2230
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
Since my other post was already long, here are my extended thoughts on The Final Game of Death for those Bruce Lee fans that are interested...
- This is easily the most expansive exploration of what Bruce Lee completed on The Game of Death that we've ever gotten and likely ever will, with every frame of dailies presented in excellent quality with a voiceover "video essay" that provides some pretty good insights. It's extremely long, but it's broken up into separate chapters so you can take it in over multiple sittings, which is what I did.
- Chapter 8, which is a new edit of the footage into something resembling a short film, is a bit of a mixed bag, just like the other edits we've gotten of this footage before. The highlights are the additional footage in The Hall of the Tiger (including the "log fight"), the newly created title sequence in the style of the period, the high quality of the restored film elements, and apparently more accurate dialog in some instances. However, the newly-shot prologue that attempts to set up the plot comes off as especially cheesy and is best ignored in my opinion. It seems mainly like an attempt to incorporate some of the New Territories footage in a coherent way, but that comes off as very forced. Some of the voice acting and vocal sounds in this edit were also a bit weak in my opinion.
- After finishing this I immediately watched Game of Death Revisited (from my old HKL set though it's also included for reference on the Arrow disc) and Game of Death Redux (from the Criterion set) to compare the different edits. There are aspects of each edit that I prefer over the others. I think the voice acting for Bruce Lee's character is best in Revisited, but man does it have some terrible music choices. Redux has the best intro IMO with a simple text explanation of the intended plot and a description of where the action picks up, but the dialog during The Hall of the Unknown sequence is mishandled. I already detailed the strengths and weaknesses of Arrow's new edit above. Interestingly, all three edits have very different dialog for the ending when Bruce is yelling outside on his way back down the stairs.
- Not only is this a very fascinating feature for Bruce Lee fans, it's also offers pretty amazing insight into the general process of filmmaking. I can't think of another bonus feature on any release that features all the dailies for multiple scenes in shooting order and then looks at how shots are taken from all of those dailies to be edited together into a sequence of finished scenes.
- I have to think with all of the dailies footage now out in the wild, we may see some new amateur fan edits. It would be interesting to see what others might do with it.
- After watching this, it just reinforced the reality that we can never really experience what Bruce Lee intended for The Game of Death, because we only have limited fragments and at the time even he didn't have full clarity on what it might have ended up being. With that in mind, it's actually more satisfying for me to watch the complete set of dailies footage presented in Chapters 1 through 7 than it is to watch Chapter 8 or the other attempts to edit the footage into a complete sequence. So, I'm very grateful to Arrow for their restoration and presentation of all of this footage. It really is a treasure.
04-24-24, 09:08 AM
#2231
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Re: The Official Arrow Blu-ray Thread
I picked this up earlier this month. Absolutely gorgeous and the best it's every looked. Worth the import price. Yeah I know there is the Criterion 4K coming but decided to grab the Arrow version instead.
04-24-24, 06:06 PM
#2232
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Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
How’s Arrow’s release of Basket Case? Vid and audio quality? Good extras? How’s the movie itself? Don’t think I’ve ever seen it.
04-25-24, 09:48 AM
#2233
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
It’s a crazy, fun film. Easily worth checking out. I can’t comment on the UHD, but I have the arrow blu-ray from a few years ago. The extras are plentiful and I think they ported them all over to the new release. I doubt I’ll upgrade right away. Probably wait for a sale.
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04-26-24, 09:44 AM
#2234
Re: The Official Arrow Films 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
