[Please note: Blogspot seems to have auto-corrected some of the screencaps below, making them look much grainier than they really are. I will try to solve this issue eventually.]
When I first ordered the HK BD of The Grandmaster last year, it took me a while to watch it, as my obsession with Wong Kar-Wais output had finally worn off. Or at least, so I thought. After I had finally sat through the 130min movie, I wasn't impressed at all. This was not Wong Kar-Wai too me. This was a bad attempt at creating a shallow mainstream martial-arts flick, I thought.
One year later, I own five different Grandmaster BDs from four different countries as well as two OSTs and a book. It was not after I had watched the movie's international cut and read some background to its story on the internet, that I gained a conscience of this movie's greatness (1).
In this short article, I want to provide short reviews of the different BD editions of the movie that I own. I will concentrate on the feature itself, not on bonus features.
The HK Cut - 130min
This is the longest cut of the movie there is. The rumoured four hours version was denied by Wong Kar-Wai, saying that such a cut doesn't exist, all the material they shot simply adds up to four hours.
And while this Hongkong cut is the longest version, that doesn't mean that it contains all the stuff the other versions have. In fact, every cut has its own share of exclusive scenes, making each of them special and a must have to fans.
This longest version was released early in 2013 on BD by Mei Ah Entertainment. There were many complaints thereafter regarding the picture quality. I wasn't all that impressed at first, either. But now after I've had a look at all the different incarnations on BD, my criticism won't be too harsh. It's true that the FIVE different lossless audio options are too many, they automatically reduce the space that's left for the video. What's even more irksome: Two of these audio options are totally redudant, as the original soundtrack and the Mandarin dub are offered in both Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio. One lossless track per language is enough, thank you. Deleting two of these lossless track would have freed up almost 5000kbps for the video track. Macroblocking issues are visible throughout the movie, which isn't surprising regarding the low average bitrate.
HK BD average MPEG-4 AVC bitrate: 17994kbps
There are other instances where black levels aren't right, rather looking like dark blue. The grainyness of the movie is also very inconsistent. - This is what bothered me the most, but as this is also the case with the other BDs I have, I think Wong Kar-Wai might have used some degree of DNR as a stylistic device in some scenes.
Below you will find some of favorite shots from the movie taken from the Hongkong release. Many of these feature well established trademarks of Wong Kar-Wai's movies, I will comment on some of them. You might also notice that many of these shots stem from the second half of the movie, which I tend to like a little bit better.
...almost identical to 2046...
...reminds me of Maggie Cheung in Ashes Of Time...
...this is also reminiscent of shots in Ashes Of Time Redux...
People rushing by, Gong Er sitting there in stillness. The old metaphor for people caught in time!
If I were to list all the movies by Wong in which we see close ups of clocks, I'd have to list his complete filmography except for maybe Ashes Of Time.
This lets me think of Mr. Chow and Su Li-Zhen in 2046.
...In The Mood For Love and 2046...
This sequence in the snow is also part of the other cuts of The Grandmaster, although here it is actually shorter and in a different context. The ending is also different, the last two shots you see above are exclusive to the HK cut. You will find the ending shot of the other cuts at the very end of this post.
Reminds me of similar shots of Yuddy's mother in Days Of Being Wild and Wang Jin-Wen in 2046.
There is a simiar shot of Ouyang Feng in Ashes Of Time, I think.
Whispering into a hole - In The Mood For love and 2046.
The International Cut - 122min
left: German BD / right: Swiss French language BD
Of all those three releases, the one from Germany is probably the best one, as it provides buyers with a BD-50, the Swiss releases only offer a BD-25, which results in a terribly low bitrate (see below) and macroblocking issues as well as banding artifacts. Yet the Swiss BDs have an advantage of their own. For me, as an "original soundtrack junkie", it's always annyoing when country-specific masters of movies are used. When I watch a HK-movie with original sound, I don't want to read German imprints! So while the German BD has the German master, the Swiss BD doesn't.
Please note that none of theses three BDs are English friendly. They only provide German or (in the case of the French language BD) French subtitles. For detailed information about specific details, please use the links I provided above.
The upper screencap is always from the German BD, while the one below is from one of the Swiss BDs. Please note that the subtitles you can see on the screencaps are not burnt-in and can be turned off!
German BD MPEG-4 AVC Video bitrate: 23994 kbps
Swiss BD MPEG-4 AVC Video bitrate: 16525 kbps
The US Cut - 108min
I received this version only a few days ago and haven't had a chance to watch it in its entirety yet. But from what I've seen so far, there are changes in this version that go beyond the fact that it's simply cut differently, which has been discussed extensively (2) ever since the debut of the US cut in cinemas.
First, let's take a look at the text cards.
The opening features additional title cards in English providing historical background information. As you can see, some inserts come at a different time than in the other version, leaving the shot above blank.
Additional inserts are used continously throughout the movie. The above screencap comes from an exclusive scene of the US cut.
This insert corresponds to the one I also listed in the chapter about the international cut, in the US cut we are only given English text.
But there's more than just inserts. Also, the colour palette differs from the other versions. Contrast is harsher and colours are more saturated as well. Just compare the shots from the rain sequence from further above, or this scene in the snow:
international cut
US cut
MPEG-4 AVC Video bitrate: 29699 kbps
(1) I especially recommend this article: http://moonlightknighthk.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/meanings-of-the-grandmaster
(2) Recommended article: http://www.film.com/movies/wong-kar-wai-the-grandmaster-ruined-by-american-cut
