Thinking about purchasing Criterion Wong Kar-wai Blu-Ray collection
 

Amazon has this Criterion Blu-Ray collection (World of Wong Kar Wai (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]) which was released in March 2021. It costs about $120.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...FFUL7LO9&psc=1

It has seven Wong Kar-wai movies.

Thoughts?

Re: Thinking about purchasing Criterion Wong Kar-wai Blu-Ray collectio
 

Criterion is awesome and their releases are pretty much always excellent, especially box sets. I don't have that set myself, but it looks great so I would suggest getting it. I might end up buying it at some point myself.

Re: Thinking about purchasing Criterion Wong Kar-wai Blu-Ray collectio
 

So, WKW decided to alter some of the movies as part of the transfer. The main one I noticed and noticed people complaining about was Fallen Angels. I can't remember if I watched the remastered or non-remastered version of In the Mood for Love when I revisited (most of) his movies last year. (calling that one out specifically because that's the really acclaimed one). It's also possible the difference with FA was comparably a lot more noticeable that I didn't appreciate the differences with the others. However, it's not like I watch some of them every year like I do with some other movies, so take my take with a grain of salt.


You might want to Google around to see if there's any complaints about the specific movies in the set you really care about to get a sense of that'd ruin it for you, but otherwise I think it was a solid collection.


Unless you're asking because they're some in there that'd be a blind buy. In which case, I think the only one in the group I still don't find myself caring for is 2046. And I think FA was really hurt by the re-mastering in ways I can't fully explain, because the style didn't match the emotional sense I recall from it. But that's also difficult to say because the mood of the viewer is always going to affect the mood the style will evoke in the viewer watching it.

Oh, I didn't think to check, but the collection is currently on the criterion channel. Weirdly. The original theatrical versions are available there (as alternate cuts), but I don't think those are included in the Blu-ray collection. I'd have get out my discs and actually fire them up. I was slightly less concerned about that since I already had the kino classic blu-rays for Happy Together and Fallen Angels, as well as the pre-remastered In the Mood for Love. So when I bought the set it was mostly to get upgrades of all the other movies which I had some fairly old, not so great, DVDs of.


But you can always do a visual comparison on a version of you care a lot about it, at least for the moment (I know they went up there when the collection came out, so they've been up there for probably at least a year).

It’s £150 in theUK. Way too expensive

It'll be 50% off in 3 months I wouldn't do it because the movies are on TCM all the time and if I am going to spend the money of physical media it needs to be stuff that's not on TV.

If you like having physical copies and have the money, you can do a lot worse than a Wong Kar-Wai boxset.


So buy it if you want it and can afford it. Criterion is pretty reliable in doing this shit right.

Re: Thinking about purchasing Criterion Wong Kar-wai Blu-Ray collectio
 

I have it, and due to the packaging one of them didn't have a smooth playback, but it's a wonderful collection, treat those discs special if you get it.