Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 14, 2019

Is it time for another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Ang Lee pretty much remade the wuxia genre over in his own image with that film, and in some ways at least martial arts films have never been the same since. Shadow may end up doing something along the same lines, though perhaps with regard to style more than substance. Co-writer and director Zhang Yimou has had his own pretty redolent history with wuxia films, having helmed such features as Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and kind of ironically given one of Shadow’s most noticeable stylistic flourishes, its near black and white cinematography, many of Zhang’s previous films have been noted for their bold use of color (Zhang even employed the then rarely used Technicolor for Ju Dou). Zhang may have experienced something of a major misfire with his attempt to appeal to Western audiences with The Great Wall, but he seems thrillingly in control of Shadow, even if the film is perhaps too rote in some of its plot dynamics and may not provide enough of the kind of (literal?) high wire acts that have been a staple of wuxia films since, well, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Some introductory text gives some brief background and context for the film, detailing a war between the kingdoms of Pei and Yang, which was supposedly settled after Yang’s chief warrior, a General named Yang Cang (Hu Jun), defeated Pei’s chief warrior, Commander Zi Yu (Deng Chao), delivering a battle winning blow that left Yu seriously injured. As a result, Pei has lost control of a prized asset — the city of Jing. As the actual film opens, Pei’s kind of surfer dude-esque King Pei Liang (Zheng Kai) is holding court when Yu returns from an unauthorized mission to Yang (the kingdom) where he agreed to have a one on one rematch with Yang (the General) in order to settle once and for all which kingdom will claim Jing. The King is understandably miffed, as his chief aim is to preserve the peace and he is willing to let Jing go for the sake of that perceived harmony.

In a weirdly tense moment that is soon clarified, Yu and his wife, known only as Madam (Sun Li), are commanded by the King to play zithers that are brought in, something that leads to lots of stolen glances between Yu and Madam, and which results in both Yu and Madam more or less refusing to play despite their King’s orders. That reluctance is soon explained when Madam passes through a hidden door to a secret cavern where it turns out the man we’ve assumed is Zi Yu is in fact a slave of sorts named Jing (Deng Chao) who, due to his close resemblance to the real Zi Yu (Deng Chao of course), has taken over the “role”, since the actual warrior is in fact seriously injured and seemingly tipping over into madness. The tension in the zither scene is due to the fact that while Jing is in essence a "body double" for Yu, he does not have Yu's inherent musical talent. Madam is in on the ruse, but no one else in the palace is.

There are a number of competing interests at stake in Shadow, ostensibly built around who will control the city of Jing, but really dealing with personal power and identity. Interestingly, while both Madam and the King's sister Qing Ping (Guan Xiaotong) are shown to be the pawns that women typically were in that era and culture, it's the character of Jing who seems to be most buffeted by the vagaries of fate. In his guise as Yu, he's stripped of his Commander status by the King, but is still slated to battle General Yang, in the hopes of finally winning his freedom. In the meantime, the King tries to renew efforts at détente by offering Qing Ping as a potential wife to General Yang’s song Ping (Leo Wu), with some unexpected consequences. In some ways this is all pretty standard “palace intrigue” stuff, but Shadow invests it with surprising energy, even if the film’s wuxia elements are perhaps just as surprisingly few and far between.

With the possible exception of the fact that both characters and locations share names in certain instances, something that’s actually much easier to track watching it than it perhaps is in trying to write about it, the plot, while tracking the course of several major characters, is resolutely easy to follow once everyone is introduced and the underlying premise is established. But in a way plot hardly matters here since the film is such a riot of style. The film repeatedly references taijitu, the yin and yang symbol, and in fact there’s overt dialogue given over to how masculine and feminine approaches to battle differ. The whole “almost” black and white ambience of the film may have some deep philosophical meaning which frankly escaped me, but it provides Zhang and cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding with multiple opportunities for really striking imagery. Aside from virtual tableaux they assemble outside (where it’s always raining), there are some fascinating shots inside King Peiliang’s throne room, which seems to be adorned with weird semi-opaque panels with artwork, through which several shots are taken as if to suggest all is not as it seems.

Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.

Shadow is presented on 4K UHD by Well Go USA with a 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. This is Well Go USA's debut release in this format, and if Shadow is any indication, it augurs well for a label typically devoted to ostensibly niche fare like Asian cinema. Shadow was an amazing viewing experience in 1080p, but if anything, it's even more ravishing in 4K UHD, with appreciably greater highlights throughout the entire black and white spectrum, and with noticeably more suffused, if still very subtle, bursts of color on things like skin or blood. The black and white ambience of the film attains whole levels of interstitial tones and just to cite two examples, I noticed little stripes of off-white running down one of Madam's robes that I had not seen in the 1080p version, and one of the ceremonial black robes that is worn by Ziyu is revealed to have a kind of shiny embossed pattern that I had also missed in the 1080p version. There are some interesting new almost sepia-esque tones, especially in one of the major showdowns late in the film which tends to make the palette "three sided", black, white and brown. Fine detail is measurably improved in this version across the board, and shadow detail also reveals a few new items in the nooks and crannies of various environments, notably in the cavern where the real Commander may be slowly (quickly?) going crazy. The increased resolution of this presentation also pointed out a kind of curious focusing anomaly that occurs a couple of times, where figures toward the end of the frame looking slightly out of focus.

Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shadow features a great sounding Dolby Atmos track in the original Mandarin (a lossy English dub is included). There is fantastic immersion throughout this presentation, albeit sometimes surprisingly subtle given the hyperbolic nature of many of the events depicted in the story. Everything from Madam futzing with a metal lock on a door (in an image and sound effect moment that bookends the film) to the absolutely wild zither music to the well staged if admittedly relatively infrequent wuxia sequences offers good engagement of the surround channels, and elements (no pun intended) like the nonstop torrential downpour can help to engage the Atmos channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout.

Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The 4K UHD disc does not feature any supplementary material. The 1080p Blu-ray also included in this package of course sports the same extras detailed in our Shadow Blu-ray review.

Shadow 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Zhang is obviously attempting to create an almost mythic or folkloristic account of these relationships, and his incredibly striking imagery certainly helps to achieve that goal. The story has some predictable aspects, but it's quite interesting how it manages to interweave the lives of at least four major characters (five, if you include both "versions" of Commander Zi Yu), as well as a couple of other supporting court characters and citizens of Yang, giving each of them an interesting storyline. But it's the imagery that will probably initially stand out the most to many viewers, and it is ravishingly on display here, arguably even more so in 4K UHD than on the 1080p Blu-ray. Highly recommended.