The 36th Chamber of Shaolin Blu-ray Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

Arrow's master makes an immediate impression via its color, saturating school uniforms, red blood, and keeping the flesh tones natural. Primaries appear elevated but not digitally skewed. This looks natural to the original film stock.

Also generous, the contrast and black levels. Exteriors display superb, organic brightness without clipping concerns. Indoors, shadows hit pure black, dense, rich, and solid. 36th Chamber of Shaolin has plenty of life on this disc.

The scan itself shows a clean, unobstructed film stock as the source. Of the grindhouse aesthetic this is not. Grain appears shallow, even suspiciously light in the first reels, and it's likely light filtering was utilized. The slightest smoothing produces waxy skin, but so negligibly, little detail is lost. Aside from the fluctuating cinematography (often veering out of focus), texture looks stable and consistent. Around 25-minutes, the quality notably jumps. Grain becomes firm, texture defines better, and forest areas show exceptional definition.

Audio

Mandarin, Cantonese, and English tracks utilize DTS-HD. There's expected coarseness to the dialog, and flatness to the score regardless of the chosen track. When peaked though, the music sounds surprisingly stable, whether drums or horn sections. Instrumentation wobbles only slightly.