It's a fairly wanky term but also the commonly used nomenclature for the frankly fucking excellent HD transfers released by the likes of Criterion, Eureka, Arrow, 88 Films and more. There's been some discussion and enthusiasm for a thread to discuss these releases so I've decided to get the ball rolling.
Since the late summer when gaming somewhat dropped off my radar for the most part, I've been spending a lot of time watching and rebuilding my collection of movies. Ten to fifteen years ago, I used to love going to the various black market DVD stores in China and emerging with an armful of European and Asian arthouse, exploitation and curio movies and documentaries and assorted series and I loved little more during the bitter winters and scorching summers than settling in with a choice selection of Kurosawa or Kieślowski or Wong Kar Wai or Miyazaki or Kusturica or Kon or whoever it may be and I have incredibly fond memories of those times. I had thousands of DVDs in various wallets and drawers and stuff but I abandoned them them all when I left, giving various mates binbags full of my cherished pirate collection.
For the best part of the last decade, while I've enjoyed a lot of films with my wife, we've gradually settled into a 'common denominator' mentality whereby we don't stay too far out of our comfort zone, not least because my attention span has been utterly cunted by gaming and because she can be a bit dismissive of anything wanky, even though she tends to enjoy stuff when we get into it and she's much more intelligent, knowledgeable and appreciative of art than I am. I think it's fairly normal, but we've been trying to get back into taking turns with ourselves picks and being more open-minded and I've really fucking enjoyed it. In largely part, this has also been prompted by my current interest/obsession with picking up high-quality BD transfers of stuff I once loved or which I've started to explore. It's been absolutely brilliant.
To kick-start the thread, I'd really like to recommend the
Lone Wolf and Cub boxset by Criterion. It's a collection of six really fun chanbara exploitation movies based on the manga. I started a thread about them recently but as an actual physical release, it's also such a fucking threat. There's sometimes an inherent softness to the picture but the detail and colour is still so rich overall. It doesn't look like modern film making at all, it retains the feel and atmosphere of early 70s cinema, but it's never looked better or more vibrant. The packaging is also brilliant with a great little book about the films and a really cool Easter egg which I won't spoil.
It's not the best looking set of films in my collection from a technical point of view but I'd say that it's one of my favourites that I've picked up over the last six months, and a series I expect to watch again and again.
Over to you!
