Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

An Autumn's Tale Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov March 26, 2011

Winner of three Hong Kong Film Awards, Mabel Cheung's "An Autumn's Tale" (1987) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Hong Kong-based distributors Kam & Ronson Enterprises. The supplemental features on the disc include two theatrical trailers; video interview with actress actress Edith Cheung; and video interview with writer Alex Law. In Cantonese and English, with optional English and Traditional Chinese subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Am I falling in love?

Jennifer (Cherie Chung, The Story of Woo Viet, The Postman Fights Back) arrives in New York City to study and reunite with her boyfriend, Vincent (Danny Chan, Job Hunter). At the airport, she is picked up by Figgy (Chow Yun-Fat), a distant cousin whom she has never met before, and his friends. Her immediate impression is that he has absolutely no style and talks too much.

Figgy’s place is in a part of the city where garbage trucks are rarely seen and graffiti artists roam free. Strangely enough, his front door is always unlocked and his neighbors always somewhere else. There are no cops around either.

Jennifer’s room has not been cleaned in years, but she does not care. She is grateful that is letting her stay with him and excited that she is finally going to meet Vincent. It is only a matter of hours before she would be able to kiss him again.

On the following day, Figgy takes Jennifer to the train station to meet Vincent. Much to her surprise, however, he appears with his new part-time girlfriend, with whom he has just spent a lovely weekend in Boston. Heartbroken and outraged, Jennifer warns Vincent to stay away from her and then leaves with Figgy.

A few days later, Jennifer gets a job as a waitress in a small restaurant somewhere in Chinatown. Figgy also goes to work -- occasionally waiting tables and regularly gambling with his friends.

The more time Jennifer and Samuel spend together, the more they begin to like each other. Eventually, while taking a walk on the beach, Samuel confesses to Jennifer that one day he would like to open up a restaurant -- with that special girl right next to him to help him manage it.

Before Samuel could save enough for a down payment, however, Vincent reappears. Jennifer also agrees to babysit for a wealthy family somewhere in Long Island. On the day she moves out of Samuel’s place, the two finally realize that they have fallen in love.

Most North American viewers know Chow Yun-Fat primarily from the sizzling action films he made with John Woo and Ringo Lam during the late '80s and early '90s. The Killer (1989), Hard Boiled (1992), and Full Contact (1992) solidified him as an international action star. However, in some of the very best films he made during the years, Chow Yun-Fat never had a gun in his hand. For example, in Stanley Kwan’s little seen on this side of the Atlantic gem Women (1985) he plays a man who desperately tries to win back his wife. The film was a tremendous success in Hong Kong, where it was nominated for nine Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor.

In Mabel Cheung’s An Autumn’s Tale, Chow Yun-Fat plays a charming gambler who falls madly in love with a very distant and very naïve cousin. Most of the time, he looks extremely vulnerable and insecure, almost like a teenager who simply does not know how to properly express his feelings. The woman he loves does not know how to interpret his behavior either.

Chow Yun-Fat is the heart and soul of the film. There are hardly any surprising twists or intriguing subplots in it, but his character’s constant struggle to impress his cousin without being pushy is quite the treat. Men who suddenly fall in love after years of living alone look a lot like him -- inspired but completely lost.

*In 1988, An Autumn's Tale won three Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay (Alex Law).

An Autumn's Tale Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Hong Kong-based distributors Kam & Ronson Enterprises.

There is a six-disc Blu-ray box set of Chow Yun-Fat films that is set to be released on Blu-ray in Japan this May, and one of the films in it will be An Autumn's Tale. I wonder how it would look, because the transfer Kam & Ronson Enterprises have used for their Blu-ray release of An Autumn's Tale is far from impressive. In fact, it looks like it has been sourced from a very old, standard-definition master. Frankly, I am not surprised because it appears that there simply aren't high-quality masters for many films that were produced in Hong Kong during the '70s, '80s and '90s. But I wonder if there are better masters outside of Hong Kong, and perhaps in Japan. At least as far as An Autumn's Tale is concerned, we will find out in May.

Fine object detail and clarity are quite weak. Many of the close-ups look dull, while the few panoramic vistas from New York City are plagued by light to moderate macroblocking. Edge-enhancement also routinely creeps in, especially during the daylight scenes. Color reproduction is relatively good, though there is quite a bit of color bleeding. Unsurprisingly, contrast levels are inconsistent. Finally, there are no serious stability issues, but I noticed plenty of tiny flecks and scratches popping up here and there. (Note: This is a Region-A Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

An Autumn's Tale Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Cantonese Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (with portions of English). For the record, Kam & Ronson Enterprises have provided optional English and Traditional Chinese subtitles for the main feature.

The Cantonese Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track is rather uneven. For example, most of the time the surround channels are inactive, but during the big gang fight from the second half of the film there are random sound effects that stick out. Each time the train passes by balance is again problematic. The dialog is mostly clean and easy to follow. I also did not detect any disturbing pops, cracks, or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is rather good, though I did notice a couple of spelling errors.

An Autumn's Tale Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer 1 - theatrical trailer for An Autumn's Tale. In Cantonese, not subtitled. (5 min, 1080p).

• Trailer 2 - theatrical trailer for An Autumn's Tale. In Cantonese, not subtitled. (3 min, 480/60i).

• Law Kai Yui Interview - an interview with writer Alex Law. In Cantonese, not subtitled. (21 min, 480/60i).

• Cheung Yuen Ting Interview - a short interview with actress Edith Cheung. In Cantonese, not subtitled. (17 min, 480/60i).

An Autumn's Tale Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The latest batch of Kam & Ronson Enterprises Blu-ray releases contains a number of highly acclaimed Hong Kong films. Unfortunately, it appears that for a few of them the company did not have quality masters. Nevertheless, I plan to add every single one of them to my library. There are a number of early films I am interested in that never received anamorphic transfers when they were released on DVD in Hong Kong, and I think that this is probably the last chance I would get to acquire them. Because of the problematic presentation, I can only recommend that you rent this release. RENT IT.