Oldboy (Blu-ray SteelBook) (Plain Archive Exclusive No.30) [Korea]

[teddyjun]

Release date: November 7, 2016
Purchase links: Type A - Type B - Quarter Slip - Dual Pack - Triple Pack - (Pre-order on September 29, 2016)
Price: Type A: $46.89 - Type B: $46.89 - 1/4 Slip: $45.69

Type A: 2,000 copies - Type B: 2,500 copies - 1/4 Slip: 1,000 copies

Spoiler

- The steelbook illustration is by Krzysztof Domaradzki.
- The artwork for the slipbox was used previously for the Oldboy vinyl LP. It was co-ordinated by Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of Drive, and illustrated by Laurent Durieux. The director of Oldboy Park Chan-wook wanted one of our editions to feature this artwork so we reached out to Milan Records and illustrator Laurent Durieux. You'll be able to see more of the artwork since parts of the top and bottom were cropped out for the vinyl LP.



Old mock up

 

[Actarus]

I think they showed the beeswax seal originally and then changed it. If you look at the OP now the images show more of a sticker. I agree though, it is disappointing, I know the Amaray edition got the beeswax seal so this should have done aswell really.

Yes that is what I thought as people praise them in term of Quality and I have Ernest & Celestine; such beautiful packages they did ...They did that Beeswax Seal which gives a nice warm Classy detail. For ''Still Alice'', I don't remember I should look but again a very nice edition.

 

[Flloydo]

I think they showed the beeswax seal originally and then changed it. If you look at the OP now the images show more of a sticker. I agree though, it is disappointing, I know the Amaray edition got the beeswax seal so this should have done aswell really.

Tbh I didn't know this was supposed to include a beeswax seal until Zyrin pointed out the directors Intro should have subtitles on that link, wasn't until I had a proper look I noticed the wax seal mentioned

I just assumed it was supposed to be a stickers anyway but seeing it on the listing is annoying that it was changed and the listing wasn't.
Im guessing the Same happened with the directors intro subs



I am though looking forward to the old days doc

 

[cooey]

Must admit with the amount of praise people seem to dish out for PA I was very excited about this and I am extremely underwhelmed about the overall package. Certainly doesn't inspire me to buy another PA release.

 

[Four Foot One]

This is what I thought

Also the directors 2 min Intro has no English subtitles it's becoming more of a fail every second

(Unless that was announced before hand and i missed that info but it's not hard to translate 2mins of dialogue for the wider audience)

You have to choose English subtitles from the settings before watching anything, then the extras advertised as containing English show subs. Also if you play film the intro plays with the subs. I thought they were missing as well until I did this.

The short extra about the remaster is also interesting.

 

[AlexMacOl]

Looks like almost everybody is a little disappointed with this release. And my copy is still travelling...

 

[Flloydo]

You have to choose English subtitles from the settings before watching anything, then the extras advertised as containing English show subs. Also if you play film the intro plays with the subs. I thought they were missing as well until I did this.

The short extra about the remaster is also interesting.

Well thats very odd because like I mentioned the subs weren't turning on when I was playing that part but when the film started I was able to turn them on from the controller and not by going to the setup menu

Cheers because that is working now


Hah, he even mentions in the intro that it will be grainy in places and it was intended to do so whilst remastering

Lol!
I'm still a bit annoyed of how it looks though

 

[frankfish44]

Couldn't really pull the trigger on this. Just never cozied up to the kaleidoscope designs

 

[davhyl]

Got mine today, so disappointed in Plain. Not sure if they were cutting costs on the manufacturing of the slips due to the high cost of the content on the discs. Steel is nice, not amazing though. So yeah, since I've been waiting what feels like a lifetime for this, I'm extremely underwhelmed.

 

[Noodles]

@Flloydo I watched the film last night and like you said, the director says at the start that we're to expect some grain because of how it was filmed etc. My picture certainly wasn't as grainy as what yours seems to be though mate... that looks horrendous and unwatchable. Something definitely must be wrong with either the disc or your TV. Hope you manage to get it sorted!

 

[Modulus]

From PA's facebook

Oldboy Steelbook includes a purple envelope which is sealed with not a wax, but a sticker. Oldboy Steelbook includes 3 discs, which means there's no space to include the envelope inside the Steelbook. We had to include it in the slipbox. The wax seal was never in our plans to include in the Steelbook. If we did include it, it would have damaged the surface of the slipbox.

Furthermore, the rendered image of the product also shows not a wax seal, but a normal sticker. However, we made a mistake by writing on the product page that it features a beeswax seal. This was caused by the fact we copied and pasted the product page text from the Keepcase edition.

Our sincere apologies for misleading any of our customers.

Thank you for your understanding.

 

[Flloydo]

@Flloydo I watched the film last night and like you said, the director says at the start that we're to expect some grain because of how it was filmed etc. My picture certainly wasn't as grainy as what yours seems to be though mate... that looks horrendous and unwatchable. Something definitely must be wrong with either the disc or your TV. Hope you manage to get it sorted!

I didn't know that the director said that until this morning lol Subs wouldn't work on that 2 min director intro by selecting subs with the controller (the standard way I select subs) but i could select them on the actual film. Until it was pointed out to select subs from the menu before starting the film (something I never do)

I managed to sort some of the settings on the tv which made it a tad better and now everything else i watch is so dark. so just for this one film I've messed up my settings I've had for 5 years lol That too has annoyed me

The worst part was when he meets him in the room with the the blonde dude. That was painful to watch. But I assure you those pictures are exactly what I was seeing, the pics haven't made the screen look worse at all infact it's worse in person, because the grain is so bad

 

[lgans316]

Sorry to say but this is a very disappointing release. Nothing stands out IMO.

 

[burtbird]

ok regarding the screenshots, i rather trust what i can see on caps-a-holic

Spoiler

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=9043&d2=9044&s1=87109&s2=87127&i=6&l=0

than pics taken directly from a tv screen. @Flloydo probably a combination of a grainy, low quality film stock scanned at best quality with original grain resolved + tv settings that try to "fix" or "polish" the picture? do you have any automatic filters or noise reduction settings switch on on your tv?

regarding the package, looks good, still waiting for mine. but very disappointed by NO wax seal as promised and advertised. the whole production of the project took them so long that probably they had to rush it to have some time to sell before the licencing contract runs out!?

Thanks for the caps-o-holic link. It looks like an improvement in clarity/detail to me but the colour timing has been changed for the worse in some cases, in the below shot for example you can see the blacks have been crushed resulting in loss of detail in the mens' suits and hair:

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=9043&d2=9044&s1=87104&s2=87122&i=1&l=0

Some shots appear to have been reframed too, in some cases cropped (see above) but others now reveal more picture information:

http://www.caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=9043&d2=9044&s1=87115&s2=87133&i=12&l=0

As with many remasters it's debatable as to whether these changes are an improvement as they have seemingly altered the look of the original film. I never saw the movie in theatres so I can't comment on how it looked before being mastered for home media but I prefer the look of some shots on this release (the close up above for example).

Personally I'm a fan of grain as long as it's representative of the original source and hasn't been introduced during the remastering process... I hate DNR!

 

[burtbird]

I didn't know that the director said that until this morning lol Subs wouldn't work on that 2 min director intro by selecting subs with the controller (the standard way I select subs) but i could select them on the actual film. Until it was pointed out to select subs from the menu before starting the film (something I never do)

I managed to sort some of the settings on the tv which made it a tad better and now everything else i watch is so dark. so just for this one film I've messed up my settings I've had for 5 years lol That too has annoyed me

The worst part was when he meets him in the room with the the blonde dude. That was painful to watch. But I assure you those pictures are exactly what I was seeing, the pics haven't made the screen look worse at all infact it's worse in person, because the grain is so bad

Can you supply timecodes of the worst offending scenes please? Going to check them out on my panel later

 

[Flloydo]

Can you supply timecodes of the worst offending scenes please? Going to check them out on my panel later

Pretty much the first scene when he's in the room trying to talk to the guard is bad. And I remember 54 mins being really bad. But you only have to fast forward every few minutes or seconds and you'll notice it.

Oh the scene when he imagines the ants is awful too.

The day time scenes are not so bad

 

[Sigill]

From PA's facebook

Oldboy Steelbook includes a purple envelope which is sealed with not a wax, but a sticker. Oldboy Steelbook includes 3 discs, which means there's no space to include the envelope inside the Steelbook. We had to include it in the slipbox. The wax seal was never in our plans to include in the Steelbook. If we did include it, it would have damaged the surface of the slipbox.

Furthermore, the rendered image of the product also shows not a wax seal, but a normal sticker. However, we made a mistake by writing on the product page that it features a beeswax seal. This was caused by the fact we copied and pasted the product page text from the Keepcase edition.

Our sincere apologies for misleading any of our customers.

Thank you for your understanding.

That's a fair point, all the beeswax seals have always been inside the keep case and Steelbooks. As there was no room on this it could have made an indentation on the slipbox. That is understandable now.

 

[nekromantik]

wow this is looking bad.
getting mine today.

This movie deserves a good transfer and release!

 

[Flloydo]

wow this is looking bad.
getting mine today.

This movie deserves a good transfer and release!

I'm waiting to hear what others think and obviously everyone has different set ups but one things for sure in my case those clips are not a true representation of what I see on screen. But they have picked some of the better images from the film for cap o Holics.
The scene at the end in snow and she's In red looked very good

Suits and hair and dark patches are so grainy it's unbelievable. It's like they are wearing static

The fact the director states they went for this in the intro makes me wonder if that's true or not because I don't know why anyone would like grain on this level. Completely takes me away from the film

I'm happy I have the DVD and play . Com steel because I'll prob watch that one in the future

 

[batmobilly666]

@severo i went back and had a fiddle with some enhancements and and dynamic contrast on the tv etc and it's made it a little better and a little less grainy but still not great and what I was expecting (or like those pics on the link you posted)

Problem is i sorted all my picture settings out a few years back and depending on the film I change between a selection. I've never had issues like this unless the PQ is common knowledge bad or it's a really old film. And I watch a lot of films and barely ever change the settings.

Sometimes all I do is switch between picture mode depending on the tone of the film ( movie, dynamic, standard) and what looks better on my eyes (for example I have pixars and marvel a bit brighter the same as i would have avatar or Transformers)

And although I did have a change around anyway before you mentioned it you reminded me of edge enhancements etc so it's helped a little but I'm still dissapointed with this (and even at the little things like no subtitles on director intro, no hand sealed wax on eneveloe etc etc etc )

Also I noticed on those pics on caps o holic they are actually okish on my screen before I changed all the setting except picture 7 - hammer time. So again unless they have just picked the less grainy scenes to show it off im not sure. Just thought I'd mention that

What TV do you have? I bet it has supposed "enhancement" features that make grain look atrocious and exacerbates or even introduces artefacts. You shouldn't use the presets, use advanced picture settings instead. If your TV doesn't give you the ability to fine-tune picture settings, I'd suggest investing in one that does. If it does, turn off things like dynamic contrast, edge enhancement, noise reduction, motion blur reduction/interpolation. (The latter often hides behind "120Hz", "TruMotion" or something like that) And turn down the sharpness. Way down. Over-sharpening kills PQ and is likely the main culprit for what we're seeing here. Brightness and contrast shouldn't be overdone, either.
If you have some Pixar movies on BD, most of them include a simple calibration tool in the extras that works well to get the basics right. These taught me a while ago that my TV was set up to use the antiquated overscan setting. It was basically throwing away pixels at the edges and stretching the remaining ones to 1920x1080, thus resulting not only in loss of image but also blurring.

Once calibrated right you shouldn't need to switch picture settings for different movies, at all. If the BD uses a good transfer, any movie will look good on your TV.
You mention issues with "really old films", what age are we talking here? I've watched some really old films on BD and they looked great. (Like Nosferatu, a film made in 1922)

 

[Flloydo]

What TV do you have? I bet it has supposed "enhancement" features that make grain look atrocious and exacerbates or even introduces artefacts. You shouldn't use the presets, use advanced picture settings instead. If your TV doesn't give you the ability to fine-tune picture settings, I'd suggest investing in one that does. If it does, turn off things like dynamic contrast, edge enhancement, noise reduction, motion blur reduction/interpolation. (The latter often hides behind "120Hz", "TruMotion" or something like that) And turn down the sharpness. Way down. Over-sharpening kills PQ and is likely the main culprit for what we're seeing here. Brightness and contrast shouldn't be overdone, either.
If you have some Pixar movies on BD, most of them include a simple calibration tool in the extras that works well to get the basics right. These taught me a while ago that my TV was set up to use the antiquated overscan setting. It was basically throwing away pixels at the edges and stretching the remaining ones to 1920x1080, thus resulting not only in loss of image but also blurring.

Once calibrated right you shouldn't need to switch picture settings for different movies, at all. If the BD uses a good transfer, any movie will look good on your TV.

I have a Samsung

Did mention this last night when severo was helping me out but most of that was all turned off anyway and I just played about with a few bits which made it slightly better but sharpness and other bits were already off or low.

Plus like I mentioned to noodles earlier I've had my set up years and never had any issues like this unless the film was famous for a bad transfer and grain or a really old film and has a bad transfer because of that.

I did turn edge enhancement off after severo mentioned it and the black tone which were a little high.

I do need a new tv Anyways but I'm not in the position to go out and buy one. Plus with Christmas coming up I'll get shot if I were to buy a new tv

I have all Pixar movies on BD and did not realise they had that feature. I'll check it out