Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Why Do Shaw Brothers Films Look Blurry?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Why Do Shaw Brothers Films Look Blurry?

    I have watched dozens of Shaw Brothers films over the years and I have always been puzzled by the number of shots where the central image is out of focus. Obviously there are reasons this might deliberately be done. However the cases that I don't understand are the fairly static, usually indoors shots, where someone is speaking and his face is blurry; although that is exactly where you would expect the camera to be focused. To my eyes, nothing else seems to be wrong in these shots and it does not seem that the camera is sharply focused elsewhere. Often there are only a couple of instances of this in an entire movie, which would seem to rule out global causes (PAL to NTSC conversion, film deterioration, etc.) Furthermore, I do not recall seeing this anomaly in non-Shaw Brothers films. Those who are unclear of what I am talking about should view Shout Factory's beautiful blu-ray of Man of Iron, which seems particularly plagued by this.

    There was a thread from 2007 in Kung Fu Fandom discussing this (https://www.kungfufandom.com/topic/3...test-releases/) and the most interesting claim is that only happens in the Celestial releases, not Dragon Dynasty and the others. I have not verified that.

  • #2
    something funny to consider, visual impairment.

    am legally blind myself so can see the humor if that was the cause

    Comment


    • #3
      Please don't think that that has not crossed my mind! I take some comfort from the fact that I only see it in Shaw films and the thread I cite seems to indicate that I am not the only one to see it. Perhaps my vision is so keen that I a one of the few who can detect it?

      Comment


      • #4
        I am mainly familiar with Celestial's Shaw restorations in the DVD format from many years ago. A lot of them intermittently look like shit. I remember many online discussions about missing frames and shorter run times. My biggest beef was the PAL speed-up, and how it made every shot with camera movement look stroby and gross. They probably took a lot of cheap shortcuts, but also I shudder to think about what condition the elements were in.

        Comment


        • #5
          Cheap shite anamorphic lenses don't help.
          I'm bitter, I'm twisted, James Joyce is fucking my sister.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by agent999 View Post
            Cheap shite anamorphic lenses don't help.
            Assuming it isn't a transfer issue, this. When the Shaw directors and cinematographers started getting the anamorphic lenses from the Japanese, it took them a while to get the hang of them and some of the SB efforts show it with some anamorphic distortion.
            Rock! Shock! Pop!

            Comment


            • #7
              Yeah I've noticed the anamorphic distortions and wondered what the hell was going on.

              Comment

              Working...
              X