On August 16, the China Film Archive, Douyin, and Volcano Engine held a press conference on "Renewing Time - Restoration of Classic Hong Kong Movies" in Beijing. At the meeting, Zhang Xiaoguang, deputy curator of China Film Archive, director Chen Jiashang, vice president of Douyin Chen Duye, and director of video cloud technical architecture of Volcano Engine Wang Yue jointly launched the "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project", and planned to convert 100 films in the next year. A classic Hong Kong movie restored to 4K version.
On the same day, the 4K restored version of "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier" was screened for the first time at the Art Theater of the China Film Archive. It is also reported that the first batch of 22 restored movies such as "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier", "Project A" and "Shushan: New Shushan Swordsman" have been launched on Douyin and Watermelon Video. In the coming year, the 4K restored versions of other movies will also be broadcast on Douyin and Xigua Video.
The "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project" was officially launched.
The restored films focus on the 1970s to 1990s
Zhang Xiaoguang, deputy director of the China Film Archive, said that film restoration is a worldwide issue. Its original intention is to save endangered films and is an important measure to protect film heritage. "China's film restoration industry is booming, and new restoration forces are emerging. Restoration technology continues to break through and restoration results are presented on a large scale. The China Film Archive hopes to have more continuous and in-depth cooperation with Douyin and Volcano Engine. More and better public cultural products.”
The Hong Kong films planned to be restored this time cover the works of many well-known directors and actors such as Tsui Hark, Jackie Chan, and Stephen Chow. The production time is concentrated from the 1970s to the 1990s. Chen Jiashang said in his speech that "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier" is a very important work of his own. "It is difficult for me to describe the excitement when I stood on the Great Wall and watched the gang of beggars run. By making this movie, I am more A good understanding of Chinese culture can be said to give me a reassurance that I can be a director, and I finally fulfilled my promise at the time."
Chen Jiashang
Classic Hong Kong movies have shown great vitality on Douyin. Chen Duye said that in 2023, among the top 1,000 movies played by TikTok II Chuang, classic Hong Kong movies will account for as much as 30%, and half of the users who watch these contents are young people under the age of 30. "Douyin has helped classic old movies become popular again and won the love of young people." Chen Duye said, "We hope to restore these classic images through technology to meet the current audio-visual requirements, so that they can be accepted by more audiences. appreciate."
The 4K restored version of "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier" is the first work of this "Classic Hong Kong Film Restoration Project". The restoration of this film is also the first cooperation between China Film Archive, Douyin and Volcano Engine. Li Tao, Director of the Production Department of the China Film Archive, said that in the restoration of "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier", the restorers not only solved physical problems such as mildew and scratches, but also referred to Hu Jinquan, Zhang Che It analyzes the color aesthetics of Hong Kong films, and restores the artistic style of Hong Kong films of the year to the greatest extent. "We also invited the director of the film, Chen Jiashang, to participate deeply in the restoration, so that the restored film is more in line with the viewing habits of current audiences."
In recent years, AI technology has made it possible to greatly improve the quality and efficiency of old film restoration. Wang Yue, Director of Video Cloud Technology Architecture of Volcano Engine, said that participating in the restoration plan is the first time that Volcano Engine has applied a large visual model to an old film restoration scene, achieving an all-round improvement in restoration effects. "Limited to the equipment and technology of the filming period, early Hong Kong movies would have many goofy shots, such as wire lines appearing on the screen. In the past, this situation could only be eliminated frame by frame manually. AI algorithms can automatically identify the location of wires. and erase."
According to reports. In 2022, Volcano Engine has joined hands with Xigua Video and Douyin respectively to complete the 4K restoration of 100 domestic classic animations and Beyond classic concerts. This time, Volcano Engine introduced the AIGC large-scale visual model into the restoration of old movies for the first time. AIGC (Generative Artificial Intelligence) has received widespread attention due to the stunning effects of applications such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. According to Wang Yue, for old film restoration scenarios, the Volcano Engine optimizes the generation quality, video tasks, and efficiency of the AIGC large visual model, so that the large visual model can output content more stably, high-quality, and efficiently in video scenes.
Restoration gives new life and meaning to classic film
At the press conference, director Chen Jiashang, film producer and screenwriter Jiao Xiongping, screenwriter and director Zhang Xiaobei, researcher Zhao Shijie of the Volcanic Engine Multimedia Laboratory, and Douyin creator Bu Yi also discussed "Reappearance and Re-watching of the Golden Age of Hong Kong Films" . Zuo Heng, director and researcher of the Film Culture Research Department of China Film Archive (China Film Art Research Center), presided over the forum.
Forum site
Chen Jiashang shared his creation experience of "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier". He said that making a movie is an opportunity for the director to communicate with the audience. "I have filmed a few films with Zhou Xingchi before, basically there is no script, and they are all based on concepts. When I was going to shoot "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier", there was no so-called urban middle-class comedy, and everyone had a common goal. We want to write something about the country and nation. We also want to try it, after all, this is the first time we have come across the subject of the country and nation, and there was no such opportunity in Hong Kong in the past.”
Chen Jiashang defined "Wu Zhuangyuan Su Qier" as an ancient costume martial arts movie in his mind. He said with a smile that most of the mainland viewers probably watched the video tapes back then. "For me, there is only one definition of a movie. Everyone is locked in a hall, surrounded by darkness, and a group of people sit obediently in front of the big screen to watch a movie. I hope that through this restoration, children or young people will have the opportunity to see the movie. Watch it a few times in theaters, and then you'll see it's very different."
In his speech, Jiao Xiongping believed that in the 1970s and 1980s, a group of very remarkable creators appeared in Hong Kong films, showing new concepts, new narratives, and new rhythms at that time. "New wave directors such as Tsui Hark, Kwan Jinpeng, Chen Jiashang, etc. have emerged. Director Jiashang has also cultivated Zhou Xingchi. At the same time, Hong Kong films themselves have a very strong commercial system in them, so even if there are new waves or so-called new films , it has basically not broken with the past Chinese films in terms of film language or cultural genes."
"I believe that Hong Kong films at this stage are very unique. They have influenced many later film creators in the Mainland, Taiwan, and even South Korea and Japan. What is even more powerful is that they were cultivated during this period, whether it was in the 1970s or not. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Wu Yusen, and Wong Kar Wai later, they started to go out to the world, and they all had an impact on the film language of the world. Nowadays, almost all European and American action films seem to be untenable if they don’t put a little bit of punching and kicking.” Jiao Xiongping said.
"Film copy restoration can make a movie a palpable memory, which is very important." Zhang Xiaobei believes that old movie restoration can give classic movies a new life and meaning, and can also inherit the feeling of light and shadow. "Now movies There is no difference between one hard drive and another hard drive, but the copy is different. The copy is heavy in the hand. When you look through the light, you can see the painstaking efforts, emotions, and memories of many people. I think this is the restoration of film. where the meaning lies."
"How to restore the old as before" is where Zhao Shijie thinks more about technology. "If the grain of the film is removed, the movie will not look like something from the last century, but there are many difficulties in the algorithm to restore the picture while retaining the grain." Zhao Shijie and his team have explored two ways , "One is to use an algorithm to distinguish between what you want to keep on the film and the noise or blemishes on the background; the other is to try to remove it first, and then return it back."
Detective Commoner made it clear that film and television experts and second-generation experts have a particular preference for Hong Kong films. "I have made several classic Hong Kong movies myself, all of which have tens of millions of views." He said that the masters on Douyin actually absorbed a lot of nutrients from Hong Kong classic movies, and then regenerated new flowers and blossomed. New results will feed back new content to more new audiences.
