Hi-Def restoration of Kurosawa's Ran - How'd they do that?
 

What types of techniques do you think they used to restore Kurosawa's Ran?

Aside, from being completely blown away by the movie itself, I was amazed at the side by side clip they showed of the original film and the HD restored version. The original film looked like a bad VHS copy next to the HD restored version which had a sharpness and clarity similar to more modern movies like Crouching Tiger or The Matrix.

I thought the DVD wasn't too bad. Mostly, I enjoyed the production commentary.

Maybe they got to a point where they said, "this is going to be waaay too tedious" and just reshot it. ;)

I have both the crappy Fox Loeber DVD and the Masterworks. You are right, the restoration is amazing.

The digital restoration process usually consists of a chemical dirt removal on the original negative, a frame-by-frame scanning, a pass through a set of algorithms that deal with machine-correctable scratches, a laborious frame-by-frame removal of other flaws, like waterblotches, by humans using Photoshop-type tools, and a digital regrading ("the DP's second chance"). Probably Ran received more careful attention than many films, but almost all DVD releases of new studio films go through most of this process, including the frame-by-frame touch-up and regrading.

I'm amazed any restoration was needed. Ran isn't that old. It's absolutely criminal if they didn't have a pristine print.

Wouldn't this be called "Kurosawa's Re-Ran"?

Sorry, couldn't resist!

:-)

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions.