EoS Entertainment brings us 2046 on blu-ray for the first time anywhere. Add it to the collection or wait for a better release?
2046 – Korean Blu-rayI can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw this blu-ray of 2046 at Kyobo Bookstore late last year. It was an instant purchase as I have been waiting years for this to be released on blu-ray. When I got home I was extremely disappointed at the picture quality. This seems to be merely a DVD transfer upscale to HD.
Little to no work has been done on the image. It is often muddy looking and there are heavy amounts of ugly grain in darker shots. Also there is weird image blurring on the slow-motion shots.
The subtitles are white with little to no grammatical errors and visually they are an upgrade from DVD versions; but it still is not of a high quality that we would expect with blu-ray subtitling. I actually like the picture quality better on my Tartan R2 DVD.
We do get a nice DTS 5.1 mastered audio track but it is not noticeably different from previous DVD editions.
This release feels like it was rushed out for the sake of being the only blu-ray available and I’m sure EoS cashed in on this opportunity. It also feels like they just released this so they could include it in the WKW six film blu-ray box set as well.
This is the third time I have purchased a home copy of 2046 for the home library and apparently it won’t be the last time. I’ll have to buy this one again when a real blu-ray quality version is released. A film this beautiful deserves so much more. SKIP. At all costs avoid purchasing this blu-ray copy of 2046 and get back to praying for a release worth owning. *Cough* *Cough* Criterion please if your listening…
Standard blu-ray packaging with slipcase. No booklet or extra goodies.
