Raise the Red Lantern (Da Hong Deng Long Gao Gao Gua) (1991) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Animation & Audio Notes-Synopsis, Zhang Yimou's Style
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	119:00 (Case: 125)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Yimou Zhang
Studio Distributor	Rajon Vision	Starring	Li Gong Caifei He Jingwu Ma Cuifen Cao Qi Zhao Lin Kong Jin Shuyuan Ding Weimin Cao Zhengyin Zhihgang Cui Chu Xiao
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Naoki Tachikawa Jiping Zhao

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Chinese Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Chinese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Chinese Chinese English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Songlian (Gong Li) is an educated, beautiful and perhaps even slightly belligerent nineteen-year-old, sold by her family who has fallen on tough times after the death of her father. She is deployed to serve as the fourth concubine to Chan, the Lord of a respected and powerful family, and is understandably miffed at being unable to complete her studies. Her role as concubine is explicitly defined by centuries of tradition and ritual, but she soon discovers that underlying rivalry between the wives is harsh, while hidden agendas and backstabbing abound. This is mainly due to the fact that being chosen to spend the night with the Lord brings with it certain privileges, including massages and a personal pick of the menu for dinner. A great incentive! When it comes to living space, each of the concubines resides in separate quarters, complete with a personal handmaiden, and they do fraternize with one another. It's interesting to find that regardless of culture or upbringing, some people thrive on confrontation while others find it intimidating. Songlian certainly falls into the former category, and when she is assigned a maid that she doesn't particularly like, the friction between them escalates immeasurably when it becomes apparent that the Lord has a fancy for a common servant.

    The Lord is depicted as a vague, shady figure, whose face is never fully revealed, nor is his occupation completely clear. Such details aren't necessary though, because the focus here is the internal politics, customs and, ultimately, the tragedy of this strict familial structure.

    This is Zhang Yimou's masterpiece, a beautiful, challenging and heartbreaking film that explores genuine human interactions, whilst revealing the complexities of a culture we so rarely get to see in the west. The film resembles a work of art and the performances are near perfect across the board. It's also clear that Raise The Red Lantern exhibits many of Yimou's trademarks, most notably his use of colour, however fans of his recent action efforts Hero and House Of Flying Daggers may be left a little perplexed. On the upside, it appears actress Gong Li and Director Zhang Yimou have reunited after more than ten years for his new film, The City Of Golden Armor, which should be fantastic to see.

Video

    This transfer has been sourced from a theatrical print that was in very poor condition. This ranks as one of the worst transfers to DVD that I have seen.

    This NTSC transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of roughly 1.80:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. This film was produced in 35mm and screened theatrically in 1.85:1. The image on this DVD has an odd framing unlike any I have seen before, with weird, rounded corners. Note that the cover slick incorrectly lists this transfer as "widescreen 2.35:1".

    The level of sharpness is poor, which is hardly surprising given the condition of the source and the level of compression that has been used. Contrast has been boosted to a hideous level. Colour depth fluctuates between poor and terrible. This is particularly disappointing for a director that uses colour as such an integral part of his storytelling.

    Film artefacting of all shapes and sizes is rife throughout the transfer and is particularly heavy during reel transitions. Small scratches literally fill the screen, accompanied by hair, dirt and some moments of extreme telecine wobble. Ridiculous hand drawn reel change markings are present, in fact each reel looks as though it has been through a shredder rather than a projector.

    As if the extreme array of source artefacting wasn't enough, MPEG compression artefacting has also been introduced in the form of macro blocking and grain during many scenes. Obviously, having to encode a myriad of film artefacts would greatly limit the efficiency of the compression process, however large the bitrate.

    Chinese subtitles are activated by default (which is one of many clues as to the origin of this transfer), so I switched to the English stream on the fly. The English subtitles contain many typos and grammatical errors, but are generally easy to read. The font is white with a black outline. I found the subtitle timing a little off at times because some lines were revealed before they were spoken and others lingered on screen for way too long. I wouldn't be surprised if these were composed by a non-English speaker.

    This disc is DVD5 formatted, so there's no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two soundtracks accompanying this film on DVD, both in the film's original Mandarin language. The default soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0, which is accompanied by a Dolby Digital 5.1 alternative. In short, the audio transfer is as disappointing as the video.

    Both audio streams are marred by pops, clicks, distortion and poor depth in general. A very loud, distracting pop can be heard at 20:10, while a moment of very extreme distortion can be heard at 33:00. A strange buzzing noise emanates from the soundtrack at 29:30. The dialogue is fairly distinct and doesn't appear to suffer from any major sync issues.

    The two-channel soundtrack is effectively a mono effort, in fact I couldn't detect any evidence of panning whatsoever. The surround alternative is noticeably louder, but retains all the faults of the default stream. Because the soundtrack has been evenly spread across the front with some slight spill to the rears, I found this enhanced the pops, clicks and distortion that was present.

    The subwoofer isn't utilised at all. This is a shame, because it could serve the excellent, percussive score well if it were mixed properly.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Plot Synopsis & Director Facts (4 Pages)

    Four pages of text outlining the plot of the film and Zhang Yimou's artistic style. Though not particularly well written, these are presented in both Chinese text and English.

    The video and audio transfers are awful.

    The extras are limited to a few pages of text.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall