MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

News on Eureka and Masters of Cinema.
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Calvin
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4326 Post by Calvin » Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:46 pm

rapta wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:05 pm
It's funny, some of their audience seem more excited by the HK titles whereas others seem far more interested in the earlier announcements (Zulawski, Imai etc). Truly polarising announcements, these!
I'm sure that there will be some exceptions, but it's probably as simple as a divide between Eureka/MoC's pre-2019 legacy audience and their new fans who have gravitated towards them purely because they're releasing HK titles.

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What A Disgrace
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4327 Post by What A Disgrace » Sun Jan 01, 2023 1:27 pm

The way I see it, Eureka is just making up for a decade's worth of disc producers NOT releasing Hong Kong genre films on video, and I find these releases much more interesting and welcome than their previous focus on old Hollywood films of varied quality that had, more often than not, already been released on video stateside.

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rapta
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4328 Post by rapta » Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:23 pm

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:45 pm
I’m excited about the Imai and Gosha too. Arrow had so many Japanese releases in 2021, but slowed down considerably last year. Glad Eureka will be releasing Japanese films too. Gosha is still tremendously under-represented too and it makes me sad that Criterion will probably never release the films they own of his outside of streaming.
Yes, I'm definitely as excited about the Imai and Gosha titles as much as the Zulawski ones, and these all feel like things Arrow probably would've attempted a few years ago but didn't for whatever reason (and might not now as their purview seems to be Shaw Bros, 90's US blockbusters, and the occasional surprise of a Japanese or European auteur).

You're right that Criterion probably won't release their Gosha titles on Blu-ray, unless the studios restore them (or they randomly decide the masters are worthy of upgrading to HD). Perhaps if these kinds of things do well for UK labels then they'll consider just that. A UK label may beat them to it at this rate! I do wonder if after all these Toei deals popping up whether Eureka and/or Radiance will also try to set up deals with Kadokawa Daiei, or other big studios like Shochiku and Nikkatsu.

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Cash Flagg
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4329 Post by Cash Flagg » Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:51 pm

Calvin wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:46 pm
I'm sure that there will be some exceptions, but it's probably as simple as a divide between Eureka/MoC's pre-2019 legacy audience and their new fans who have gravitated towards them purely because they're releasing HK titles.
I certainly fall into the former category. They were the main reason I first bought a region-free DVD player back in 2004 - exciting, heady days where they’d be introducing me to a Dreyer, Humanity and Paper Balloons, The Face of Another, or Naruse seemingly every month. Now? They’re completely unrecognizable to me, and I don’t even really follow their announcements any more. They’re basically an entirety different label with an entirely different fan base. It’s sad, really.

Calvin
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4330 Post by Calvin » Sun Jan 01, 2023 3:03 pm

Cash Flagg wrote:
Calvin wrote:
Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:46 pm
I'm sure that there will be some exceptions, but it's probably as simple as a divide between Eureka/MoC's pre-2019 legacy audience and their new fans who have gravitated towards them purely because they're releasing HK titles.
I certainly fall into the former category. They were the main reason I first bought a region-free DVD player back in 2004 - exciting, heady days where they’d be introducing me to a Dreyer, Humanity and Paper Balloons, The Face of Another, or Naruse seemingly every month. Now? They’re completely unrecognizable to me, and I don’t even really follow their announcements any more. They’re basically an entirety different label with an entirely different fan base. It’s sad, really.
I do think it's a Ship of Theseus situation; while there's still the occasional release I'm interested in, Craig Keller and Nick Wrigley both left years ago, Ron Benson sadly died, and they seem to have a very different focus. While they have the same name, they do feel like a different label.

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MichaelB
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4331 Post by MichaelB » Sun Jan 01, 2023 3:19 pm

I'm trying to think of labels who've had substantially the same people involved since their inception. Second Run's an obvious one, as Mehelli Modi has been the primary decision-maker from day one. Ditto Indicator with Sam Dunn, who's also unusually hands-on for a label owner, and while people have joined the team as the label expanded, they haven't lost anyone since mid-2017. And while there've been more personnel changes at the BFI (with both Sam Dunn and James Blackford moving to Indicator), Ben Stoddart has been there since 2008 and producer Upekha Bandaranayake for several years longer than that - in fact, she may be one of the longest-serving veterans in the same job in the entire boutique-label industry.

But Arrow's production team is (I think) pretty much entirely different now to what it was six or seven years ago (Fran Simeoni and Ewan Cant were the last pre-2016 holdouts, and they left a few months ago) and Eureka's changes have already been discussed - although Jon Robertson (Narshty of this parish) has notched up at least a decade there, so that's quite a bit of continuity).

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What A Disgrace
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4332 Post by What A Disgrace » Sun Jan 01, 2023 3:46 pm

I think the change in MoC is a bit over-stated. This year we got an obscure John Ford film, two German silent films, a Dreyer film, a super obscure Asian art house classic, some Johnnie To, a 50s Hollywood western, a Buster Keaton film, a 30s horror film and a Hollywood silent epic (to name just the items on my shelf, which are not their entire output). There's precedence for all of these, many of them right back to the founding of the label. Execution in Autumn in particular is PRECISELY the sort of thing that would have gotten me giddy back in 2004. I think the real change is that, over the past 20 or so years, our knowledge of cinema has expanded so much that it's just harder to surprise, and harder to release new things; the well for those is simply running dry. Of all the films I mentioned above, how many of them, despite being perfectly in MoC's old school establishment wheelhouse, are even new to disc? Since Masters of Cinema first manifested itself, many of the titles they released that made the label so exciting and new have gone on to be released again, by others and even by themselves, in superior editions.

I consider the days of spines 70-150 or so to be a truly dark time for the label; it really seemed to me at the time that they dropped off in quality. Lots of relatively well known and widely available Hollywood fare, with little to distinguish the releases from their US counterparts besides a booklet (some of these, like May's A New Leaf, have since had released which surpassed MoC's release mightily). It seems a lot more colorful to me since, and with more effort put into the releases.

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4333 Post by yoloswegmaster » Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:30 pm

Irongod revealed that he is working a new box set that should be announced soon.

Orlac
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4334 Post by Orlac » Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:43 pm

I wonder if its the rumoured 2nd Joseph Kuo set.


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rapta
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4336 Post by rapta » Tue Jan 24, 2023 4:09 pm

Apparently this is for House of Horrors (1946) starring Rondo Hatton, so probably another Universal horror mini-set. Some have surmised it'll be a Hatton-themed set, a bit like the Karloff and Chaney Jr ones before, but we'll have to see.

EDIT: okay, Eureka posted another image from Horror Island (1941) so guess it's a general Universal horror set...guess they're working their way through the same titles Shout Factory covered in their Universal Horror Collection sets.

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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4337 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:02 am

SpoilerShow
Bullet Train
is one of the titles, according to Amazon.

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4338 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:24 pm

Another Amazon leak, this time it's for a set called Creeping Horror and will most likely contain the following films:

Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Horror Island (1941)
Night Monster (1942)
House of Horrors (1946)

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What A Disgrace
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4339 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:55 pm

I was going to skip this set entirely but if they drop Murders in the Zoo, I guess I'm in. But that's a Paramount acquisition; surely they wouldn't release it in a Universal themed horror set?

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reaky
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4340 Post by reaky » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:08 pm

Shout did. After this bunch, the only decent Universal left is The Mad Ghoul, I think.

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4341 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:10 pm

What A Disgrace wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:55 pm
I was going to skip this set entirely but if they drop Murders in the Zoo, I guess I'm in. But that's a Paramount acquisition; surely they wouldn't release it in a Universal themed horror set?
It could be possible that they are licensing it from Universal and decided to add it in with the other films since there are a few Paramount titles that are under the control of Universal (the Marx Brothers films come to mind).

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dustybooks
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4342 Post by dustybooks » Wed Jan 25, 2023 1:42 pm

I believe that nearly all pre-1948 Paramount titles (except the silents) are owned by Universal.

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What A Disgrace
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4343 Post by What A Disgrace » Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:26 pm

I know the film is owned by Universal, but I guess I assumed that Eureka's Universal horror releases would not include Paramount titles that Universal acquired. But Shout included it in one of their Universal horror boxes, so I guess I am wrong.

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swo17
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4344 Post by swo17 » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:35 pm

So to summarize:

Shout Vol. 1
The Black Cat (1934) / Eureka's Lugosi/Poe
The Raven / Eureka's Lugosi/Poe
The Invisible Ray / Eureka's Maniacal Mayhem
Black Friday / Eureka's Maniacal Mayhem

Shout Vol. 2
Murders in the Zoo / Eureka's Creeping Horror (edited for animal cruelty)
The Mad Doctor of Market Street
The Strange Case of Doctor Rx
The Mad Ghoul

Shout Vol. 3
Tower of London (1939)
Man Made Monster / Eureka's 3 Monster Tales
The Black Cat (1941)
Horror Island / Eureka's Creeping Horror

Shout Vol. 4
Night Key / Eureka's Universal Terror
Night Monster / Eureka's Creeping Horror
The Climax / Eureka's Universal Terror
House of Horrors / Eureka's Creeping Horror

Shout Vol. 5
The Monster and the Girl
Captive Wild Woman
Jungle Woman
Jungle Captive

Shout Vol. 6
The Black Castle / Eureka's Universal Terror
Cult of the Cobra
The Thing That Couldn't Die
The Shadow of the Cat / Indicator's Hammer 6: Night Shadows

Am I missing any UK boutique alternatives?

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Finch
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4345 Post by Finch » Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:30 am

Packshots & specs for the new releases:
Image
Limited Edition slipcase featuring new artwork by Tony Stella (First Print Run of 2000 copies)

1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K restoration of the original film elements

Original Japanese theatrical version and alternate dubbed International version included

Optional English subtitles

Brand new audio commentary by Jasper Sharp and Tom Mes

Brand new interview with author / critic Kim Newman

Brand new interview with Tony Rayns

Big Movie, Big Panic: Junya Sato on The Bullet Train archival featurette

Trailers

PLUS: A limited edition collectors booklet featuring a new essay by film writer Barry Forshaw (First Print Run of 2000 copies)
Image
Limited Edition Slipcase (First Print Run of 2000 copies)

1080p presentation of all three films across two Blu-ray discs

Optional English SDH

Brand new audio commentary tracks on Night Monster and House of Horrors with author Stephen Jones and author / critic Kim Newman

Brand new audio commentary tracks on Murders in the Zoo and Horror Island with Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby

Stills Galleries

Trailer for Horror Island and Night Monster

PLUS: A Limited Edition Collector's Booklet featuring new writing by Craig Ian Mann and Jon Towlson (First Print Run of 2000 copies)

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4346 Post by yoloswegmaster » Sun Jan 29, 2023 12:20 am

Frank Djeng has revealed that Eureka will be releasing Ronny Yu's The Postman Fights Back.

EDIT: Nevermind, Irongod confirmed it's not with Eureka. Most likely with 88 then.


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yoloswegmaster
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4348 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Feb 15, 2023 5:47 pm

Probably going to be a Mr. Vampire boxset that includes the first 4 titles but not the 1992 version since that is with Warner Bros. I can't think of any other scenario that this would require a re-release.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4349 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Feb 15, 2023 5:59 pm

As someone who absolutely loved the first film, should I seek out the other installments?

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tenia
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Re: MoC Forthcoming, Wishlist, and Random Speculation

#4350 Post by tenia » Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:42 am

I seem to remember them as slightly inferior to the first one but otherwise pretty much in the very same kind of result, so I'd say Yes.

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