The Postmodern Life Of My Aunt: Technical Notes

Technical Notes Technical Notes:
The Postmodern Life Of My Aunt
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    by So Good... - Hong Kong DVD Movie Reviews
    www.sogoodreviews.com



Universe presents the film in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with anamorphic enhancement. Print is clean and transferred in fine manner that does justice to Kwan Pun-Leung and Nelson Yu's often stunning, natural cinematography. The blend of old Shanghai, new Shanghai and rural Manchuria really are felt outside of the screen.

Audio options are the original Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 track and a Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0 dub but as I'm not equipped with a 5.1 system, my assessment of this disc aspect will be left off this review.

The English subtitles read perfectly clear without any spelling or grammar faults along the way. Traditional and simplified Chinese subtitles are also included.

Released as a 2 disc set, our first contains some minor extras. The trailer starts off things, Star's Files for Ann Hui, Siqin Gaowa, Chow Yun-Fat and Vicky Zhao are merely filmography listings while the Photo Gallery (15 images) houses some decent production stills. There is some meat however on disc 2, with supplements touted as running 72 minutes and containing the same subtitle options as the feature to boot!

Teaser 1 (9 minutes, 6 seconds) is a loooong teaser for the film, showing mostly clips of Siqin Gaowa and Chow Yun-Fat while title cards narrates the film's intentions theme-wise. Possibly a reel to show buyers but nothing you'd want to watch so shortly after you've seen the feature. Teaser 2 (1 minute, 11 seconds) is however a teaser trailer.

Interview Of The Director And The Casts (21 minutes, 33 seconds) gathers the package of director Ann Hui, actress Siqin Gaowa and composer Joe Hisaishi (of Ghibli fame), interviewed separately. Hui touches upon the irony of the movie title, Chow Yun-Fat's thorough preparation for the role, meaning of the film and other casting choices like Vicky Zhao. Siqin Gaowa has plenty to say about her character and themes of the film while our Japanese composer briefly talks of his collaboration with Ann Hui. An unnamed interview subject appears very briefly (is it possibly writer Li Quang?) and while fun info pops up, too many movie clips disrupts the opportunity to bring extensive info out of the interviewees. Brief behind the scenes footage of shooting and scoring pops up but we get plenty more of that in Highlight (44 minutes, 26 seconds).

Loosely edited together footage rather than structure is the name of the tune here but that's fine because the glimpses of costume fitting (a particular woe for Siqin Gaowa), make-up tests and set footage is usually fun to watch. Chow Yun-Fat is the star of the show here, giving weight to the fact that he is as charming and funny as people have described him. Playful with the film crew and the documentary crew even!




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