Akira Kurosawa on DVD and Blu-ray

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Akira Kurosawa on DVD and Blu-ray

#1 Post by zedz » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:47 pm

Ran (Kurosawa) & A.K.(Marker)

Can anybody who has picked up the Australian Ran / A.K. double-disc set comment on the quality of the transfers? i.e. Is there any good reason not to pick it up? I've been half-waiting for a Beaver comparison before committing, but no such luck.

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Keaton
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#2 Post by Keaton » Sun Jan 09, 2005 7:08 pm

zedz wrote:Ran (Kurosawa) & A.K.(Marker)

Can anybody who has picked up the Australian Ran / A.K. double-disc set comment on the quality of the transfers?
I own two versions of the film, the Masterworks edition for the audio commentaries and the Universal for the movie and the doc. The R4 has a very good transfer, here you can see a comparison between the uk, the german and the Masterworks r1 edition (the german is the same disk as the australian, from Universal too). I read somewhere the Universal has far better subtitles, and bought it because of that (instead of the uk), but I cant remember where I read it... But if you already own the uk Disk from Warner, there is, in my opinion, no real need to buy the Universal disk.

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kortik
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#3 Post by kortik » Fri Jan 14, 2005 2:47 am

zedz wrote: I've been half-waiting for a Beaver comparison before committing, but no such luck.
DVD Beaver

Anonymous

Dersu Uzala

#4 Post by Anonymous » Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:17 am

Could anybody recommend a good version of Dersu Uzala? I would really like to get it on DVD, but I don't want a crappy version. Is there any chance Criterion could release it? Any help would be great, thanks.

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Lino
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#5 Post by Lino » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:00 pm

tigerarmy13 wrote:Could anybody recommend a good version of Dersu Uzala?
Take your pick. However, I do agree that this one needs a definitive edition. It's among my favorites of his. Maybe MoC will rise to the occasion one day...

Anonymous

#6 Post by Anonymous » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:16 pm

Lino wrote:Take your pick.
I don't really like either of them. I think this movie deserves a better treatment. Could Criterion ever release this?

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Subbuteo
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#7 Post by Subbuteo » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:45 pm

tigerarmy13 wrote:
Lino wrote:Take your pick.
I don't really like either of them. I think this movie deserves a better treatment. Could Criterion ever release this?
Dersu Uzala will be released in May by Arrow Film Distributors (R2-UK). Quality can't be any worse than the two compared on the Beaver. Well lets hope anyway!

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solaris72
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#8 Post by solaris72 » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:44 pm

the Soviet film stock Kurosawa was forced to use has gone the way of all things pre-1989 Russkie. A similar thought crossed my mind recently when watching the Kino DVD release of Tarkovsky's "Mirror", that even Hi-Def couldn't improve such shoddy material
I'm not convinced that the film elements for Tarkovsky's films are in such bad shape. The 35mm print of Solaris I saw a couple of years ago was beautiful, and I think The Mirror (and maybe Dersu Uzala) suffers more from Kino's ineptitude/apathy towards the quality of their transfers (though they have been getting somewhat better recently) than of the print condition. The prints employed on Ruscico DVDs of Tarkovsy's films look just fine (though Ruscico generally doesn't do so well at transferring either).

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#9 Post by atcolomb » Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:10 am

Criterion did release Dersu Uzala on laserdisc about 10 years ago and doing my own comparison the laserdisc is the same print Kino used on their dvd. My problem with the Ruscico dvd is that it is not a sharp as the Kino dvd and there is too much shimering on the image.

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Michael Kerpan
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#10 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:47 pm

Wait for the BFI.
Masters of Cinema? ;~}

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Michael Kerpan
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#11 Post by Michael Kerpan » Mon Aug 08, 2005 7:56 pm

Very much looking forward to the two MOC Kurosawa releases. (But STILLl waiting on my seemingly lost-in-transit "Humanity aand Paper Balloons").

bergelson
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#12 Post by bergelson » Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:26 am

Hi,

I just bought a copy of Dedeska-Den (in Israel) and I wondered if the this DVD, which is in 4:3 aspect ratio in faithful to the original ratio.

Thanks.

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HerrSchreck
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#13 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:43 am

bergelson wrote:I just bought a copy of Dedeska-Den (in Israel) and I wondered if the this DVD, which is in 4:3 aspect ratio in faithful to the original ratio.
I believe it's one of the more square-sh widescreens, like 1.78 or 1.66/1. The old Janus VHS was-- I think-- 1.66/1

Hashi
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#14 Post by Hashi » Wed Apr 26, 2006 11:00 am

HerrSchreck wrote:
bergelson wrote:I just bought a copy of Dedeska-Den (in Israel) and I wondered if the this DVD, which is in 4:3 aspect ratio in faithful to the original ratio.
I believe it's one of the more square-sh widescreens, like 1.78 or 1.66/1. The old Janus VHS was-- I think-- 1.66/1
Japanese DVD (from Toho) is 1.33:1. I'd take their word for gospel. I don't remember having seen it in any other ratio.

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HerrSchreck
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#15 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Apr 26, 2006 11:38 am

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Letterboxed, November 15, 2005
Reviewer: Scott (Spokane, WA USA) - See all my reviews
It doesn't say it in the Amazon description or the video box, but the film is letterboxed to about 1.66:1 (which appears to be the original aspect ratio).

Since Kurosawa was a master of using the whole frame, this is very good news. I was prepared to live with a pan-and-scan edition; finding that it was letterboxed was a very nice surprise. From Amazon, user review from the Janus/HVe vhs of dodeskaden

Hashi
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#16 Post by Hashi » Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:05 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Letterboxed, November 15, 2005
Reviewer: Scott (Spokane, WA USA) - See all my reviews
It doesn't say it in the Amazon description or the video box, but the film is letterboxed to about 1.66:1 (which appears to be the original aspect ratio).

Since Kurosawa was a master of using the whole frame, this is very good news. I was prepared to live with a pan-and-scan edition; finding that it was letterboxed was a very nice surprise. From Amazon, user review from the Janus/HVe vhs of dodeskaden
Interesting. But I'd still like to take that with a grain of salt. The film is Toho production, the Japanese DVD is released by Toho (sourced from their own masters/prints/etc.) in the Kurosawa Masterworks -line. See the official Toho Kurosawa DVD-site, and Dodesuka-den.

Any other recollections, opinions?

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HerrSchreck
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#17 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:08 pm

Hashi wrote:Interesting. But I'd still like to take that with a grain of salt. The film is Toho production, the Japanese DVD is released by Toho (sourced from their own masters/prints/etc.) in the Kurosawa Masterworks -line. See the official Toho Kurosawa DVD-site, and Dodesuka-den.

Any other recollections, opinions?
Toho is a disgrace when it comes to film preservation-- and this was a Four Kings production, independant, maybe Toho distributed it, but those slobs are lucky that they even remember it was in color. I wouldn't trust them to properly produce a blank piece of leader-film to thread a projector with.

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Michael Kerpan
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#18 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:14 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:Toho is a disgrace when it comes to film preservation-- and this was a Four Kings production, independant, maybe Toho distributed it, but those slobs are lucky that they even remember it was in color. I wouldn't trust them to properly produce a blank piece of leader-film to thread a projector with.
I think you have gone way way overboard here.

In any event, Toho is by far the best Japanese studio in terms of preservation of its vintage film sources.

Hashi
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#19 Post by Hashi » Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:51 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:I think you have gone way way overboard here.

In any event, Toho is by far the best Japanese studio in terms of preservation of its vintage film sources.
Ok, stand corrected about production, did remember something about independent funding but the Toho logo seems to be stuck in my recollections. In any case, companies seem to base their discs on Toho masters (Criterion included) so I don't think they can se that shite.

kekid
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#20 Post by kekid » Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:25 pm

Hashi wrote:Ok, stand corrected about production, did remember something about independent funding but the Toho logo seems to be stuck in my recollections. In any case, companies seem to base their discs on Toho masters (Criterion included) so I don't think they can se that shite.
The Criterion Laserdisc has an aspect ratio of 1.66.

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Rufus T. Firefly
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#21 Post by Rufus T. Firefly » Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:49 am

kekid wrote:The Criterion Laserdisc has an aspect ratio of 1.66.
According to Stuart Galbraith's The Emperor and the Wolf the film was released in standard size and "some US home video editions are incorrectly cropped to 1.66:1".

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manicsounds
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#22 Post by manicsounds » Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:38 am

In any event, Toho is by far the best Japanese studio in terms of preservation of its vintage film sources.
Maybe so, but I watched the Toho DVD of Kurosawa's Stray Dog, and compared to the Criterion DVD, it certainly looked worse, and also had a lot of missing frames where the screen would totally go black for an instant. Black levels were too high and Whites were too bright.....
that might be cuz i saw it on 2 different sets, but regardless the missing frames and quality, Criterion totally outshined them.

Plus Toho and other Japanese DVD companies overcharge an incredible amout.....

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feihong
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#23 Post by feihong » Sun Apr 30, 2006 7:10 pm

davidhare wrote:
Rufus T. Firefly wrote:According to Stuart Galbraith's The Emperor and the Wolf the film was released in standard size and "some US home video editions are incorrectly cropped to 1.66:1".
This is bizarre! I remember seeing the Oz prem of Do'deska'den at the SFF in the sixties and it was definitely widescreen. At least masked. Definitely. (Be still my rotting brain!)
The movie is full-frame, 1.33:1. This was quite common for independent Japanese productions and experimental films from that era.

Most likely those who have seen it in theaters watched it cropped. Often theaters will end up projecting the film in the incorrect aspect ratio if they don't have the proper projection lens for it (1.33:1 takes a different lens than any of the more rectangular ratios, and most theatres don't have this lens anymore--apparently, in Japan they still have it, as there are still movies released in 1.33:1 format).

I recently went to a screening of CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING at UCLA's archive, and even there, they projected the film at 1.85:1 (when they realized that the subtitles were being cut off they remasked to the proper 1.33:1 aspect ratio).

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HerrSchreck
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#24 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon May 01, 2006 12:54 am

davidhare wrote:This is bizarre! I remember seeing the Oz prem of Do'deska'den at the SFF in the sixties and it was definitely widescreen. At least masked. Definitely. (Be still my rotting brain!)
I couldn't imagine that a theater likely to project DODESKA'DEN would not have a 1/1.37 lens. Even suburban multiplexes in the USA have them, and use them here & there at least for Van Sant (and notoriously fuck them up on foreign DVDs I hear.

These are going to be arthouse theaters specializing in old films-- unless the owner's from the nuthouse he'd get himself the Secret Mystery Film Fest Lenspack if he expects to do much business projecting vintage films.

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#25 Post by Brian Oblivious » Fri May 05, 2006 9:13 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:I couldn't imagine that a theater likely to project DODESKA'DEN would not have a 1/1.37 lens.
I'm 99% sure I saw it at the Harvard Film Archive in 1.33:1 or thereabouts when I was visiting Boston last year.

I really ought to keep notes on these things though, to erase seeds of doubt in my mind.

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