NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Criterion Blu-ray (February 2022): Criterion have transferred Ann Hui's Boat People to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Ann Hui". The 1080P image looks adept - texture, rich colors and some depth. The film has a heavy look and this is exported well by the HD transfer. The cinematography, credited to David Chung, Zong Ji Huang and Chung Kay Wong, comes through effectively in this 4K restoration BD transfer.

NOTE: We have added 44 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original Cantonese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and some English languages. Boat People has aggressive moments as well as rain and other external sounds that come through authentically flat with a touch of depth. The score is by Wing-Fai Law (A Simple Life) and a highlight of the film is Édith Piaf's La Vie en Rose. It sounds very pleasing while supporting the film's occasionally harrowing sequences adding further to the viewing experience. Criterion offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' / 'B' Blu-ray.

The Criterion Blu-ray offers hours of extras. There is a new 27-minute conversation, recorded in Hong Kong in August 2021 by Criterion, with director Ann Hui and assistant director Stanley Kwan as they discuss their longstanding friendship, the state of filmmaking past and present, and the collaboration early in their careers on the cherished landmark of the Hong Kong New Wave Boat People. Keep Rolling a, 2-hour, 2020 documentary, the directorial debut of Ann Hui's longtime production designer and art director Man Lim-chung. It is an intimate and candid portrait of Hui's astonishing life and prolific career. It combines rare archival photographs and footage with interviews with Hui and such other towering figures of Asian cinema as Tsui Hark, Fruit Chan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Jia Zhangke. As Time Goes By is a rarely seen hour-long video piece. It is a deeply personal work of nonfiction by Ann Hui, made at the beginning of Hong Kong's handover from colonial British rule to Mainland China in 1997, a year of unprecedented transformations. In it, Hui discusses her peripatetic childhood, her formative years in school, and her family, and shows how her past and present coalesce to form her uniquely humanist approach to filmmaking. The film was produced by Peggy Chiao. There is a 1/2 hour press conference from the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival. Although it was a domestic critical and box-office success and has since come to be regarded as a preeminent example of the Hong Kong New Wave, Boat People was initially given a mixed critical reception abroad. Its international premiere at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival was fraught with controversy: in alignment with France's political allegiance to the Vietnamese government and, under mounting pressure from left-wing sympathizers and protesters, the festival unexpectedly took the film out of the competition lineup before its first screening. This press conference footage is a historical document of the initial misunderstandings and controversies that surrounded the film overseas, and of director Ann Hui and actor George Lam's spirited defense of their work. The package has a liner notes booklet with essays by film critic Justin Chang and scholar Vinh Nguyen.

Ann Hui's Boat People won awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Performer, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. In 2005, Boat People was ranked 8th in the list of 103 best Chinese-language films in the past 100 years at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards. It's a masterwork - very impacting - as the last film in Hui's "Vietnam trilogy" ("Boy from Vietnam" from 1978 and 1981's "The Story of Woo Viet".) Boat People portrays the plight of the Vietnamese people post the communist takeover (following the Fall of Saigon.) It was the first Hong Kong movie filmed in Communist China and remains historically relevant. The, 4K restored, director approved, Criterion Blu-ray a/v and the 4-hours of supplements, plus the booklet essays, make it a must-own for cinephiles. What a fabulously complete package. Strongly recommended!

Gary Tooze