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Arrow Video Shawscope Vol. 4 Box |
Comparison between the German Blu-ray from filmArt (= Celestial HD master) with the uncut British Blu-ray from Arrow Video
- 8 relevant cuts Several other master errors/“framecuts” with a duration of less than 1 sec each were not listed in the report.
Here we are again: After there were were many reports on Shawscope Vol. 3 at the end of 2024, Vol. 4 of the box set will now be available from December 8, 2025 (UK, or December 9 in the US). Once again, the collector's label Arrow Video offers new restorations of 16 films from the legendary Hong Kong film studios, which were notorious for years for their “framecut” versions of Celestial: countless moments roughly shortened at splice points and any kind of damage on the film material. Two, or on closer inspection even three titles are included in several versions within the box set. For Super Inframan, you also get the different US version, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is also available with an additional scene exclusive to the Mandarin version. With Bloody Parrot, there was once again the typical British situation, without any prior announcement, that scenes involving animal cruelty are critical for the BBFC, which is why the uncut version is available on the same disc with code A (intended for America), but a slightly censored version is served up with code B (UK / Europe). Disc 3 features Black Magic starring Ti Lung, Lo Lieh, Lily Li, and Ku Feng. Another film that not only made it to Germany (originally cut and banned in 1983), but has also been released on Blu-ray in this country:
Minus Celestial references, there is effectively a 02:25 min difference. This time, no complete shots are gone, but there are several instances where more than 5 seconds are missing at a time. In addition, the color scheme in the old version was not particularly appealing to the eye, so the Arrow rescan is a clear improvement in this area as well.
Running times are listed according to the following scheme The Celestial logo can be seen separately beforehand on the Arrow disc, while the filmArt Blu-ray has it as a part of the film stream.
+ 11 sec
During the first shot of the actual film, the color of the text displayed differs. Here are also a few more comparison images from throughout the film. The old Celestial master was quite pale and milky.
6:18 p.m. / 6:27-6:28 p.m. The building can be seen a little earlier, before the camera pans back. 1.1 sec
31:03 / 31:31-31:36 Lang looks around earlier, takes out the bag, and looks up again. 5.7 sec
31:35 / 32:09-32:14 The long shot begins much earlier, and Lang only enters the frame from the right. 5 sec
42:23 / 43:14-43:15 Mrs. Zhou looks up again at the end of the shot. 1.4 sec
55:18 / 56:29-56:30 Shan looks at the needle earlier and prepares to stitch again. 1.8 sec
56:46 / 58:01-58:03 The camera zooms out a little further. 2 sec
63:12 / 64:41-64:42 Xu puts her glasses back on at the end of the shot. 1.4 sec
93:42 / 95:51-95:52 Ms. Zhou startles at the end of the shot. Another classic: a small jump cut can be seen here, and Celestial removed this latter part of the shot completely. 0.8 sec
The old version concludes with a Celestial note. filmArt Blu-ray 8 sec longer
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