Kino Lorber

2017 JP Kadokawa Blu-ray has the best encoding out of all the older discs.

Kino Lorber and Artificial Eye Blu-ray use the same master, between the two the PQ on Kino's release is slightly better, but the difference is negligible. However, Artificial Eye also includes the 2.0 stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 mix, while Kino only includes 5.1 mix.

The 4K restoration (Criterion, 4K etc) are cropped to 2.35:1, have revisionistic colour grading and other changes.

Caps: old master, old master vs 4K restoration

Wong Kar-Wai on the framing:

With Fallen Angels, I have changed the format to cinemascope, because it was originally what I had intended to release the film in. When we were cutting the film, we accidentally turned the Steenbeck on anamorphic instead of standard. I felt that the film looked much more interesting because it enhanced the distance of the characters on top of the extreme wide angle that we shot on. Back then, it was impossible to shoot a film in standard and release it in anamorphic. With this restoration, we have successfully fulfilled this wish.

Kino UHD has frozen grain and other artifacts from a Paramount master with the usual lackluster Kino encoding.

StudioCanal EU has elevated blacks and inaccurate colors, Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encode.

All three are not ideal.

All three are not ideal.

• Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has frozen grain, sharpening, lots of debris, and handles lesser materials. The supposed non-Superscope version is false advertising. It merely reveals more picture information. 

• Criterion CAV LaserDisc is the most consistent due to a lack of image processing.

Criterion LaserDisc has exclusive commentary. Olive Films Signature Blu-ray and BFI Blu-ray each have exclusive extras. Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has exclusive commentary.

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray's source is provided by Paramount has had DNR applied which affects the inherently soft looking film pretty strongly for at least a third of the running time

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray maybe better than StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray?

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray maybe better than StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray?

StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray from nicolas:
The restoration is excellent and looks magnificent in 4K HDR. It’s a tasteful grade that comes across very naturally film-like. Couldn’t be much happier about that aspect of the release.Have to be the bearer of bad news though as the encode is bad. We’re almost back in the early 4K era with those terrible, bit-starved StudioCanal encodes that came out of France and brought us Total Recall, Basic Instinct etc. While they’ve done worse, this definitely isn’t FiM or VDMS. Highlights are terrible and essentially devoid of any detail, mushy grain also creeps into normal shots here and there, particularly walls or clothing. Essentially areas that are slightly larger and have similar colors and textures.

The Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encoding and auto cleanup issues

Twilight Time has an isolated score

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is disappointing (review)

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray see caps-a-holic, has good new master but as usual poorly encoded with macro blocking and chroma noise which is just as horrible. See also cap 4. Their Blu-ray looks much better in the above shot and is more consistently grainy.

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has mediocre encode

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encodes: Dolby Vision caps

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encoding see caps but still a huge improvement over the 2014 Universal Blu-ray

Both the 2.0 and 5.1 tracks are improvements over the 2014 Universal Blu-ray

Theatrical cut is on the 4K disc, but the restored Director's Cut is only on the Blu-Ray disc. Director's Cut utilizes the same 4K transfer as the theatrical cut for 86 minutes, but the 6 minutes of restored footage could only be salvaged from a standard definition source and are thus needed to be upscaled.