Looking at the old Criterion edition the image does end up having more of a washed look, and the new presentation delivers a vibrancy that suits the energy of the film.
Chungking express 1080p skin#
Outside of some reds that have been dulled a little (and this appears to have been selectively done as well) the colours have not been altered too much, whites still looking fairly white, skin tones still looking natural (not green as in Days of Being Wild) and there are the same bright pops of violet and orange and more. That tint does end up enhancing some of the green and blue filters, and it almost looks like greens and blues within some scenes have been targeted specifically with enhancements, making them a bit bolder. On this latter point I think the alteration is ultimately rather minor since the film ends up keeping a similar monochromatic look to what it has always had, with the occasional splash of bright colour. A sound effect has also been added to the opening title (which I had to have pointed out to me admittedly) and, like just about every other film in the set, the colours have been altered with a green tint. The opening and end credits have been redone and while they are a bit odd and stick out because they’ve clearly been computer generated, I can live with it in comparison to the alterations in a couple of the other films here. Restoration work has also further cleaned up things, removing some of the minor marks that remained.Ĭhungking Express has had its own set of alterations, like the rest of the films in the set, though I’d say they’re some of the milder ones in comparison.
Grain looks finer and is rendered quite a bit cleaner here, and this leads to a more photographic, less digital look with better detail, even when the photography can go hazier. I was pleased with it then (it was one of Criterion's first titles on the format) but it shows its dated aspects now, particularly in rendering the film’s grain. Like the other films in the set the presentation is sourced from a new 4K restoration scanned from the 35mm original camera negative.Ĭriterion released the film on Blu-ray in 2008, making use of a then-new high-definition restoration. Skipping over Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film Ashes of Time (which I suspect was intentional on the filmmaker’s part), the third dual-layer disc in Criterion’s box set World of Wong Kar Wai presents Wong’s fourth film, Chungking Express, in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 (the same as Criterion's previous release) with a 1080p/24hz high-definition encode.
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