8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
"Farewell, My Concubine" is a movie with two parallel, intertwined stories. It is the story of two performers in the Beijing Opera, stage brothers, and the woman who comes between them. At the same time, it attempts to do no less than squeeze the entire political history of China in the twentieth century into a three-hour time-frame.
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Gong Li, Qi Lü (I), Da YingForeign | 100% |
Drama | 64% |
Romance | 18% |
Period | 7% |
Music | 6% |
War | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Mandarin: LPCM 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region B (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Winner of the prestigious Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" (1993) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of the British Film Institute. The only supplemental feature on the disc is an archival featurette with cast and crew interviews. In Mandarin, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of the British Film Institute.
The technical presentation is quite underwhelming. I was hoping to see a new transfer after reviewing the Korean release of Farewell My Concubine, but this release was also sourced from a dated master and as a result there are some very obvious limitations. The film has a very unique period look -- light and shadow are captured in unique ways by the camera and there are very specific color fonts -- but depth and clarity actually suffer because of basic technical limitations. Grain frequently appears patchy and smeary; there are obvious traces of awkward filtering corrections as well. Shadow definition isn't convincing either. The sharpening adjustments that are present on the Korean release can also be seen on this release (see screencapture #19). Colors are relatively stable, but it is very easy to see that saturation should be much better and that there should be a much wider range of nuances. Overall image stability is good. To sum it all up, this film really needs to be fully remastered so that it looks as good as it should in high-definition. The current presentation offers some marginal upgrades in select areas, but there is a lot of room for substantial improvements. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Mandarin LPCM 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.
The lossless track is very good. The music is an integral part of the intended period atmosphere and thankfully separation and balance are very good. The dialog is clean, stable, and always easy to follow. There are no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in our review.
I wanted to see this very beautiful film remastered when it was finally released in the West, but the BFI's recent Blu-ray release is also sourced from a dated master with serious limitations. The film can and should look much more impressive in high-definition. Also, I have been told by different people that the audio commentary that is included on the Korean release is very good, but the only bonus feature on this release is an archival featurette.
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