The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have confirmed the titles to be released on Blu-ray in the UK in March 2022.
On 14 March comes the cool, seductive gangster romance, Pale Flower, a pitch perfect and unforgettable excursion into the underworld. Also on 14 March Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times is released, a timeless showcase of Chaplin’s untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy. Following on 21 March, one of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave, BOAT PEOPLE arrives, a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance from director Ann Hui.
PALE FLOWER [KAWAITA HANA] (Japan 1964) | Blu-ray | 14 March 2022
In this cool, seductive jewel of the Japanese New Wave, a yakuza, fresh out of prison, becomes entangled with a beautiful yet enigmatic gambling addict; what at first seems a redemptive relationship ends up leading him further down the criminal path. Bewitchingly shot and edited and laced with a fever-dreamlike score by Toru Takemitsu (Woman in the Dunes, Ran), this breakthrough gangster romance from Masahiro Shinoda (Samurai Spy, Double Suicide) announced an idiosyncratic major filmmaking talent. The pitch-black Pale Flower (Kawaita hana) is an unforgettable excursion into the underworld.
SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- New video interview with director Masahiro Shinoda
- Selected-scene audio commentary by film scholar Peter Grilli, coproducer of Music for the Movies: Toru Takemitsu
- Original theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A new essay by film critic Chuck Stephens
MODERN TIMES (USA 1936) | Blu-ray | 14 March 2022
Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard). With its barrage of unforgettable gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, Modern Times – though made almost a decade into the talkie era and containing moments of sound (even song!) – is a timeless showcase of Chaplin’s untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy.
SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- New audio commentary by Chaplin biographer David Robinson
- Two new visual essays, by Chaplin historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance
- New program on the film’s visual and sound effects, with experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
- Interview from 1992 with Modern Times music arranger David Raksin
- Chaplin Today: “Modern Times” (2004), a half-hour program with filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- Two segments removed from the film
- Three theatrical trailers
- All at Sea (1933), a home movie by Alistair Cooke featuring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, and Cooke, plus a new score by Donald Sosin and a new interview with Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge
- The Rink (1916), a Chaplin two-reeler highlighting his skill on wheels
- For the First Time (1967), a Cuban documentary short about a projectionist who shows Modern Times to firsttime moviegoers
- More!
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Saul Austerlitz and a piece by film scholar Lisa Stein that includes excerpts from Chaplin’s writing about his travels in 1931 and 1932
BOAT PEOPLE [TAU BAN NO HOI] (Hong Kong 1982) | Blu-ray | 21 March 2022
One of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave, Boat People is a shattering look at the circumstances that drove hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to flee their homeland in the wake of the Vietnam War, told through images of haunting, unforgettable power. Three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photojournalist (Passion’s George Lam) travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a teenage girl (Silent Love’s Season ma) and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty have forced many to resort to desperate measures in order to survive. Transcending polemic, renowned director Ann Hui (A Simple Life) takes a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance.
DIRECTOR APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Ann Hui, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New conversation between Hui and filmmaker Stanley Kwan, who was the movie’s assistant director
- Keep Rolling, a 2020 documentary about Hui made by Man Lim-chung, Hui’s long time production designer and art director
- As Time Goes By, a 1997 documentary and self-portrait by Hui, produced by Peggy Chiao
- Press conference from the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: Essays by film critic Justin Chang and scholar Vinh Nguyen
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