About the film
Hollywood Chinese is a captivating look at cinema history through the lens of the Chinese American experience. Directed by triple Sundance award-winning filmmaker, Arthur Dong, this documentary is a voyage through a century of cinematic delights, intrigues, and treasures. It weaves together a wondrous portrait of actors, directors, writers, and movie icons who have defined American feature films, from the silent era to the current new wave of Asian American cinema. At once entertaining and enlightening, Hollywood Chinese reveals long-untold stories behind the Asian faces that have graced the silver screen, and weaves a rich and complicated tapestry, one marked by unforgettable performances and groundbreaking films, but also by a tangled history of race and representation.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
1.85:1: Kino Lorber 4K / Capelight 4K
1.66:1: Criterion 4K but low pass filtered
Comparison between the 4Ks, Criterion on the AR choice
Other discs have unnecessary filtering and sound worse, the difference isn't substantial but audible
Director: Buster Keaton
Kino Lorber new Seven Chances / Sherlock Jr. Blu-ray?
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
MoC 4K Blu-ray late 2027
Lobster Films (Kino Lorber?) > Cohen/Eureka https://slow.pics/c/3KWXoMyR The new Kino Lorber's Seven Chances / Sherlock Jr. might be using the same restoration as Lobster Films
Director: Tony Gilroy
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Director: George Stevens
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has unusually strong encode but only a minimal upgrade over the excellent Eureka Blu-ray
Director: Steve De Jarnatt
2024 Kino Lorber Blu-ray
UK Transmission 4K Blu-ray in January 2027
Either the 2015 Kino Lorber Blu-ray or the Arrow Blu-ray
The 2024 Kino Lorber Blu-ray is botched.
Director: Simon Wincer
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
4K is defective with color space issues and poor encoding, UHD replacement disc is also defective with worse encode. The UHD has visible artifacts from the bad encoding. The HDR is overdone and the Paramount 4K master has grain management.
The new Kino Blu-ray has none of the UHD's problems and is superior to the UHD in every way though it still uses the same Paramount master.
DVD 5.1 or LaserDisc 5.1 AC3, LD PCM 2.0 for the matrix stereo version. The LD and DVD seem to be the theatrical audio mix untouched with plenty of low end. This low end like a number of 90's Paramount titles was mixed out or tamed on subsequent releases.
The Lionsgate BD and Paramount BD share the same lackluster HD master with DNR and image distortion. The Lionsgate is much better encoded but has a 7.1 remix which messed up the original mix design by lessening all the great Foley work in favor of the score. The Paramount BD had a 5.1 lossless version of the original mix but it's a new version where the bass has been tamed so the track has lost its punch. The Kino Lorber UHD and Blu-ray recycle this same lesser 5.1 mastering. The original mix can still be heard on LD and DVD. The 2.0 stereo on the Kino is matrixed but also does not sound as good as the 2.0 matrix audio on DVD or LD.
Kino has a replacement program for the defective UHD to fix the color space issue. The new disc is not marked, has a worse encode AND DOES NOT FIX THE COLOR SPACE! Thus it is a worse defective disc version of the original defective disc.
The Billy Zane interview on the Kino BD has technical issues in the editing and clip quality used.
Director: Preston Sturges
No information on French Elephant Films Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
Other releases have horrendous DNR
More Documentary on Blu-ray
Mono: 1999 WB DVD
5.1: Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Werner Herzog
Director: Steve James
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
While it's included on both Criterion The Palm Beach Story extras and Arrow's Sullivan's Travels' extras, Criterion uses a different source and is vastly superior, see caps
Director: Ebrahim Golestan
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