The cornucopia of film treasures finding their way into our homes – on high-definition discs, on streaming services – has many of us not just spoiled for choice, but even expecting the audiovisual clarity that comes from painstaking restoration. Such is the volume of projects running through specialist labs as archives, museums, rights owners and distributors initiate digital restoration to bring new life to movies under their care. But it’s the cinema experience that these films were conceived for, and once again Udine Far East Film Festival is highlighting leading-edge restorations on the big screen. Eleven works make up the Restored Classics sidebar this year, with films hailing from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
The Korean Film Archive is continuing to apply its 4K restoration setup to a prolific slate of projects, intervening film by film to address materials’ deterioration and get works back into public view. Last year FEFF screened Bong Joon-ho’s debut feature Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), for which owner CJ Entertainment had the Korean Film Archive handle high-resolution 4K digital scanning and colour grading. Screening this time is the CJ title Push! Push! (1997), directed by Park Chul-soo and shown in Berlin Panorama after original local release. The black comedy, set in an OB-GYN hospital, underwent its remastering process at the request of FEFF and entirely within the Archive. The film was also re-subtitled in a new translation and is screening in Udine for the restoration’s world premiere.
FEFF is also screening Park Kwang-su’s landmark social drama Chilsu and Mansu (1988) in fond remembrance of its star Ahn Sung-ki, who passed away in January. Chilsu and Mansu was among the Korean Film Archive’s earlier restoration projects, given its fame as a work that pushed toward greater freedom of expression, and the Archive has now prepared for Udine a new DCP copy of the 2014 restoration with the added benefit of revised subtitles.
Similarly busy with a slate of restoration projects is the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, whose work has also been shown regularly in Udine. This year three of its new restorations are in the programme, all as world premieres. Among them are two films from the TFAI’s efforts to celebrate this year’s 70th anniversary of Taiyupian – Taiwanese-language films made from the 1950s to ’70s. About 1,100 such films were made and only about 200 are known to still exist, making preservation of the remaining ones a priority.
Lee Hsing’s comedy Good Neighbors (1962), following two families with adjoining clinics and crossing languages, and Shao Lo-hui’s Love Never Ceases (1962), featuring “King of Taiwanese Songs” Hong Yi-feng, are representing that initiative. Both benefited from the TFAI’s in-house workflows – processes the Institute has been carrying out since it began digital film restoration in 2008 and started acquiring the required hardware and software in 2015. Also showing in a TFAI restoration is Connection by Fate (1998), directed by Wan Jen. Last year’s new Taiwan film A Foggy Tale (see main competition) spurred renewed discussion around Wan’s “Super Trilogy”, for which the Venice-screened social and political drama Connection by Fate was the final entry.
Another anniversary has been marked for lovers of kaiju films – in particular those with a certain fire-breathing giant turtle. Kadokawa Corporation had the first three Gamera films restored in 4K as part of a Gamera 60th anniversary project, and the Udine audience can see the 2025 restoration of Yuasa Noriaki’s Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) in its international festival premiere. Restoration from the negatives was carried out at Imagica Entertainment Media Services under the supervision of Shin Godzilla (2016) director Higuchi Shinji and seasoned restoration specialist Ogura Shunichi.
Also screening is Hula Girls, the beloved 2006 comedy from Lee Sang-il (now of Kokuho fame) in which coal-mining town women get dancing. Rights holder J Cinequanon restored the film from the original film negative at a lab in Japan, completing work in mid-2024. Hula Girls is returning to Udine (it was a 2007 FEFF selection) in the restoration’s European premiere.
In Hong Kong, the M+ museum of contemporary visual culture is pushing ahead with its essential M+ Restored initiative, helping to fill huge gaps in the restoration of Hong Kong movies. Last year M+’s cleaned-up version of Peter Yung’s 1979 crime film The System found a new audience in Udine, and this year FEFF is showing two even more anticipated titles: Patrick Tam’s Love Massacre (1981) and Jacob Cheung’s Cageman (1992).
M+ had Love Massacre, a Hong Kong New Wave classic that lives up to the brutal title, restored using the original 35mm picture negative found in 2025, a 35mm workprint kept at the Hong Kong Film Archive and a 35mm release print held by the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The Cantonese soundtrack meanwhile came from DVCAM tapes provided by director Tam (the subject of a huge retrospective in the 2007 FEFF). US-based Colorlab handled film restoration, colour correction was done at Digit Digit in Hong Kong with guidance from the film’s cinematographer Brian Lai, and Audio Mechanics completed audio restoration in the US. The outcome reflects the director’s cut shown on Hong Kong release in 1981 and is at the intended 1.66:1 aspect ratio, and is playing FEFF in its European premiere.
Cageman, an acclaimed community drama set in a decrepit flat filled with tiny bedspaces, has been restored to follow the original cut premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. (Twenty minutes had been dropped for cinema release.) The M+ restoration was carried out at Bologna-headquartered L’Immagine Ritrovata, drawing on the original 35mm picture, edit-out and optical sound negatives being looked after by the Hong Kong Film Archive. The restored Cageman is having its international premiere at FEFF after an unveiling in Hong Kong early this April.
Philippine cinema is represented with two classics brought back into circulation in striking 4K copies. Having restored celebrated director Lino Brocka’s Bona (1980), screened in Udine last year, distributors Kani Releasing and Carlotta Films completed their 2025 restoration of Brocka’s Macho Dancer (1988). The gay drama about a village boy forced into stripping and sex work was restored and colour graded by the Cité de Mémoire lab in Paris from a scan of the 35mm print (held by producers Viva Films) made at Manila’s Central Digital Lab. Sound was synchronised and restored by L.E. Diapason in Paris.
True-crime drama In the Wink of an Eye (1981) is also screening, in memory of master director Mike de Leon who passed away last August. The film’s restoration was completed in 2020, courtesy of Union Bank of the Philippines, Mike de Leon and Carlotta Films, with use of the incomplete original camera negative, a positive print and the optical soundtrack negative from the Asian Film Archive in Singapore. Vinegar syndrome and its irreversible decay had heavily impacted the camera negative, meaning the positive print was also required when L’Immagine Ritrovata scanned and digitally restored the film at 4K resolution. De Leon supervised colour grading and audio restoration in Manila’s Wildsound Studios. The screenings in Udine of this and Macho Dancer are Italian premieres.
The rescue of In the Wink of an Eye before its negative endured any further degradation reflects the urgency that can come into play with film restoration. It’s not only about ensuring picture and sound are as close to the original forms as possible, and whether the director’s cut can be presented. For some films it’s also a race against time to stabilise surviving elements, helping preserve cinematic heritage for future generations of film lovers.
Tim Youngs