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A view on Blu-ray by Gary W. Tooze

Daughter Of The Nile aka 'Ni luo he nu er' [Blu-ray]

 

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/direct-chair/hou.htm, 1987)

 

 

Review by Gary Tooze

 

Production:

Theatrical: Fu-Film

Video: Eureka - Masters of Cinema - Spine #165

 

Disc:

Region: 'B'-locked (as verified by the Oppo Blu-ray player)

Runtime: 1:32:44.183

Disc Size: 32,210,528,274 bytes

Feature Size: 27,195,453,120 bytes

Video Bitrate: 35.02 Mbps

Chapters: 10

Case: Standard Blu-ray case

Release date: May 29th, 2017

 

Video:

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps

Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video

 

Audio:

LPCM Audio Mandarin 1152 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 1152 kbps / 24-bit

 

Subtitles:

English, none

 

Extras:

A new interview with Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns (42:00)
Theatrical Trailer (1:05)
PLUS: A booklet featuring new and archival writing

DVD included

 

Bitrate:

 

 

Description: Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien (The Assassin, Three Times, Flight of the Red Balloon) followed up his highly acclaimed Coming of Age trilogy of films with Daughter of the Nile, a rich and poignant drama about a young woman struggling to support her family amidst the violent and neon-soaked milieu of 1980's Taipei.

Lin (Lin Hsiao-yang) works as a waitress in a fried chicken restaurant, attends night school and pines after her brother s friend, local gigolo Ah-sang (Fan Yang). Increasingly constrained by the casual brutality of the world around her, Lin finds escape imagining herself as the titular Daughter of the Nile, a character from her favourite manga series.

Based on the personal experiences of screenwriter, Chu Tien-wen (Millennium Mambo; Goodbye South, Goodbye; City of Sadness) Daughter of the Nile is a profoundly moving observation of marginalised youth. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the film from a new 4K restoration, available for the first time on Blu-ray and DVD in a new Dual-Format edition.

 

 

The Film:

At first sight, you wouldn't clock this as a film from the director of A Summer at Grandpa's and The Time to Live and the Time to Die. But despite the shift from his usual rural settings to the extremely mean streets of present-day Taipei, this is another of Hou's haunting accounts of the joys and terrors of adolescence. The central character is a young woman struggling to keep her father and elder brother (cop and thief respectively) from each other's throats, while nursing a distant crush on one of her brother's friends, a too-pretty gigolo who gets into trouble when he starts dating a gangster's moll. The tangled relationships resolve themselves into a mesh of disappointments and frustrations, but despite the downbeat mood there are charming eruptions of humour, and the sheer eloquence of Hou's mellow visual style makes the film a lot more life-enhancing than most.

Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

Boiled down to its essence, Daughter of the Nile is the poignant story of unrequited love set amidst a world of young people, some of whom are petty gangsters, much like the group in Martin Scorsese’s visceral Mean Streets (1973). Lin Hsiao-yang (Taiwanese pop star Lin Yang) is, as the movie begins, a sensitive 19-year-old student working part time in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Taipei and pining for petty thug Ah-sang (Fan Yang), the best friend of her older brother Lin Hsaio-fang (Jack Kao), who is also involved in shady dealings. Daughter of the Nile (a reference to an ancient Egyptian-themed manga she is fond of reading) tells her story, which she narrates after the fact of the life-altering events in the movie – the film itself often seems like a dream-like fable of a time long ago – while offering a panoramic, subtly scathing portrait of a culture that has abandoned tradition and has lost the ability to make the human connections many of us take for granted. (The late Taiwanese director Edward Yang, who was a friend of Hou’s, approached his characters in a completely different way in his masterful, joyous Taipei-set Yi Yi (2000). In Yi Yi, they try to connect between themselves and often succeed, but Yang’s colourful, appealing Taipei is not the indifferent, even cold and forbidding city that Hou casts it as in his earlier film, beautifully shot by Chen Huai-en.).

Excerpt from Critics at Large located HERE

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

Daughter of the Nile is comes to Blu-ray from The Masters of Cinema group in the UK and is advertised as a "New 4K restoration". It's a dual-layered transfer with a max'ed out bitrate. Hou go-to cinematographer Huai-en Chen frames consistent, introspective, mid-range shots.  The image quality carries a richness in the colors with a thick film-like presence. The interiors are dark but detail visible and expressive. There is not much depth in the heavy image - transferred in the 1.85: aspect ratio. This Blu-ray, a function of the source, probably represents a very authentic presentation of this lesser-seen Hou film.

 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio :

The audio is transferred via a linear PCM 1.0 mono track at 1152 kbps (24-bit). The film's score is credited to A score is credited to Hung-Yi Chang (Stanley Kwan's Full Moon in New York with Maggie Cheung) and Ch'en Cihyuan (only film credit) and there is some pop music when in the club and at the beach. It's flat with some minor sync issues but is clean and audible. There are optional English subtitles and my Oppo has identified it as being a region 'B'-locked.

 

 

Extras :

We are treated to a new interview with Asian cinema expert Tony Rayns running almost 3/4 of an hour discussing Hou and much more. It was highly interesting and gives the Blu-ray significant value. There is also a theatrical trailer and the package has both a liner notes booklet, featuring new and archival writing, and a second disc DVD.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
Daughter of the Nile is an extremely rare Hou film. It's a bit of an odd duck when looking at his oeuvre (less festive-esque - slightly more mainstream narrative) but some signature telltale signs announce it as Hou - very character-centered visuals with less dialogue, family-unit influenced by a, corrupt, external world. Hou casts Taiwanese singer Yang Lin in the main role as Lin Hsiao-yang, a conflicted young woman who attends school in for half the day while also working at KFC. It's certainly, an unjustly, neglected piece of cinema and another great choice for MoC to release on Blu-ray. The 1080P presentation offers a rich presentation and the package with Rayns, extensive booklet, etc. makes it a must-own for Cinephiles. Very strongly recommended! 

Gary Tooze

May 27th, 2017

 

About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 3500 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.

Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction.

Gary's Home Theatre:

60-Inch Class (59.58” Diagonal) 1080p Pioneer KURO Plasma Flat Panel HDTV PDP6020-FD

Oppo Digital BDP-83 Universal Region FREE Blu-ray/SACD Player
Momitsu - BDP-899 Region FREE Blu-ray player
Marantz SA8001 Super Audio CD Player
Marantz SR7002 THX Select2 Surround Receiver
Tannoy DC6-T (fronts) + Energy (centre, rear, subwoofer) speakers (5.1)

APC AV 1.5 kVA H Type Power Conditioner 120V

Gary W. Tooze

 

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