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Zumpano wrote:Do you mean this one, Finch? 53% off on AmazonUS.

No, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity a three part sequel, Bunta Sugawara plays a different character.

feckless boy wrote:

Zumpano wrote:Do you mean this one, Finch? 53% off on AmazonUS.

No, New Battles Without Honor and Humanity a three part sequel, Bunta Sugawara plays a different character.

Ahhhh

Appreciate you trying to help, Zumpano. Might still get the original films as HVE's boxset is still available (and not too expensive either!)

It's a lovely set, Finch. I highly recommend not missing out if you're interested. In relation to seeing Fukasaku enter the Criterion Collection, I would absolutely fall head-over-heels to see Under the Flag of the Rising Sun or If You Were Young: Rage pick up a special edition treatment - and as out of the question as it is, I would be even happier to see The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 2 - Deadly Fight in Hiroshima earn a spine number as this ranks as my favourite of all Fukasaku's Oeuvre, let alone from the Battles series.

bigP, if you don't have Sympathy for the Underdog yet and are interested in the film, you better act quick. I paid up to £30 for my copy from Amazon.com but it arrived in pristine condition yesterday, and the film is a total riot. Even in a smaller part, Wakayama steals every scene he is in and kicks all sorts of ass (I have the Yakuza set on my next-to-buy list). Agree on your other Fukasaku suggestions: they'd make for a nice Eclipse set at the very least.

Cash Flagg wrote:Released a few months ago as part of Universal's Vault Series here in the US.

Finch wrote:We actually discussed the Universal release on page 2 of this thread

Thank you guys! And thank you Finch for the links and screeshots!

Is this one, right - http://amzn.to/dwplIK" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ? Does it have english subs?

Finch, I agree with you on your Fukasaku suggestions. All those Home Vision releases: Blackmail Is My Life, Fall Guy, Graveyard of Honor, If You Were Young: Rage, Street Mobster, Sympathy For the Underdog, Under the Flag of the Rising Sun and that fantastic Yakuza Papers 6 disc edition (I have the one that came in the metal box...not sure if that is still available anymore?) are all great, great fun. I don't know if Criterion ever had anything to do with these releases...but I'm hard pressed to see how Criterion could improve on many of them.

I've seen all the HVE Fukasaku's and except for the interlaced Fall Guy, none of them could really use an improvement. The transfers are all excellent and are among the best I've seen on DVD six years after they put out the films. The Battles Without Honor set is probably my most prized DVD set and it already has a whole disc devoted to discussions on Fukasaku, trailers and an old interview with him.

I've heard that Toei is one of the most incredibly difficult companies to deal with when it comes to licensing films and I'm almost a hundred percent sure Criterion hasn't ever licensed from Toei before, so getting films from Fukasaku's peak in the seventies might be difficult. If they could get some films from Toei, I wouldn't want it to be New Battles Without Honor and Humanity. I always thought it was incredibly disappointing in comparison with the first five. I think Hokuriku Proxy War, Doberman Cop, the incredibly dated but fun Message from Space, Battle Royale and Triple Cross would make excellent releases if Criterion were to release them, but they are all Toei. The only Fukasaku that I can see Criterion bothering to get would be Black Lizard as it has a tremendous cult following, it has a script and cameo by Yukio Mishima and I'm almost certain it's Shochiku.

Fukasaku it's up there among my favorite directors and I think he's ready for some serious re-evaluation, but aside from Battle Royale, he seems to be incredibly neglected. Thanks to Criterion, a whole new generation is getting exposed to the greatest films by Nagisa Oshima, but so many fantastic Japanese directors could certainly use it. What I would personally love from Criterion would be either a Stray Cat Rock set or a Yasaharu Hasebe box set. Hasabe just passed away last year and is begging to be re-discovered. HVE released a nice edition of Bloody Territories and Image released Black Tight Killers in the early days of DVD, albeit with an incredibly mediocre transfer and burned-in subtitles full of errors. Plus Hasabe has that Nikkatsu branding which seems to have been pretty successful for Criterion recently.

Finch wrote:bigP, if you don't have Sympathy for the Underdog yet and are interested in the film, you better act quick

Cheers Finch, I have this and positively love it. Couldn't agree more about Wakayama - this is (outside of Lone Wolf and Cub) my favourite Wakayama role along with his brilliant turn in The Tale of Zatoichi Continues.

Don't forget his turn in the sixth film, Chest of Gold, where he plays Zatoichi's final opponent (and one of his worthiest).

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:What I would personally love from Criterion would be either a Stray Cat Rock set or a Yasaharu Hasebe box set. Hasabe just passed away last year and is begging to be re-discovered. HVE released a nice edition of Bloody Territories and Image released Black Tight Killers in the early days of DVD, albeit with an incredibly mediocre transfer and burned-in subtitles full of errors. Plus Hasabe has that Nikkatsu branding which seems to have been pretty successful for Criterion recently.

HVe also brought out Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter, the third in the series, at the same time as Bloody Territories. And more recently Mondo Macabro has released the upsettingly notorious Assault! Jack The Ripper

colinr0380 wrote:

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:What I would personally love from Criterion would be either a Stray Cat Rock set or a Yasaharu Hasebe box set. Hasabe just passed away last year and is begging to be re-discovered. HVE released a nice edition of Bloody Territories and Image released Black Tight Killers in the early days of DVD, albeit with an incredibly mediocre transfer and burned-in subtitles full of errors. Plus Hasabe has that Nikkatsu branding which seems to have been pretty successful for Criterion recently.

HVe also brought out Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter, the third in the series, at the same time as Bloody Territories. And more recently Mondo Macabro has released the upsettingly notorious Assault! Jack The Ripper

I have that same release and it is the best in the whole series, but it would still be nice to have legitimate releases of the other four in the US. The first one is particularly fantastic and features the tomboyish and attractive Akiko Wada riding a motorcycle. Each film is worth watching just for the soundtracks and the great performance by Japanese bands of the early-seventies.

I haven't seen Assault! Jack the Ripper, but I have seen some of his other pink films and they were the most part incredibly disturbing. Usually I have a pretty high tolerance for obscenity and lunacy, but they went a bit too far for my taste (which is my fault for trusting film called Rape! 25th Hour).

Is there a chance of Les Idoles getting Criterion treatment?

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Hasabe just passed away last year and is begging to be re-discovered

Name a non-Kurosawa Japanese director that isn't.

Just a few more days and, hopefully, Antichrist will be announced! I'm squirming with excitement.

So, I suppose they are waiting until Monday the 16th? I had my fingers crossed all day!

aox wrote:So, I suppose they are waiting until Monday the 16th? I had my fingers crossed all day!

That's what Criterion has posted on their Facebook page... Monday will be the announcements.

I wonder if Criterion might have picked up Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson)?

The Sony dvd is out of print. The film appears to be owned by a now defunct production company called Rysher Entertainment. According to their wiki : Rysher Entertainment is the owner of TV and film programming content, primarily distributed around the world by CBS Television Distribution and CBS/ Paramount Pictures. Select rights are also distributed by Warner Bros., Universal, Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company, Fox, Columbia Pictures, MGM and other entertainment distribution companies around the world.

Hard Eight was released theatrically by MGM but by Sony on dvd. I wonder if Sony let the rights lapse or another company outbid them when they came up for renewal? According to the wiki, Rysher is currently owned by some company called Qualia Capital, LLC

They may have just discontinued the release due to low sales too. Still, I would keep an eye out for new dvd/blu solicits from a new distributor.

EDIT: I just looked on Amazon.com and the "video on demand" release of Hard Eight is courtesy of Paramount. Oh well, maybe Criterion will grab it whenever they license a bunch more Paramount titles. With Paramoutn discontinuing discs left and right, not expecting a new edition from them.

agnamaracs wrote:

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Hasabe just passed away last year and is begging to be re-discovered

Name a non-Kurosawa Japanese director that isn't.

Ozu?

Miyazaki? (the list is probably very huge)

I could've sworn there used to be an HVE thread in the Criterion Rumors and News section. Anyway, the following are Janus properties that were released under The Classic Collection tag with HVE back in the day (or that instead have a Janus logo on the box) and have not been released by Criterion or Eclipse. This isn't exhaustive. I don't know if Janus, and by extension Criterion, still has the rights to these:

La Ceremonie (Chabrol, 1995)
Ronin Gai (Kuroki, 1990)
The Snare (Masumura, 1973)
Who's Got the Gold? (Inouye, 1974)
Sword of Justice (Misumi, 1972)
Zero Focus (Nomura, 1961)
Seance On a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1964)
Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Fukasaku, 1972)
La Balance (Swaim, 1982)
Mr. Klein (Losey, 1976)
Un Deux Trois Soleil (Blier, 1993)
The Cars That Ate Paris (Weir, 1975)
La Cienaga (Martel, 2001)
La Valle (Schroeder, 1972)
Sada (Obayashi, 1998)
Masques (Chabrol, 1987)
Plucking the Daisy (Allegret, 1956)
Time Without Pity (Losey, 1957)
Man of Aran (Flaherty, 1934)
More (Schroeder, 1969)
Rendez-vous (Techine, 1985)
Tomorrow (Anthony, 1972)
I See a Dark Stranger (Launder, 1946)
Cure (K. Kurosawa, 2001)
Fall Guy (Fukasaku, 1982)
Victim (Dearden, 1961)
Story of Women (Chabrol, 1988)
The Demon (Nomura, 1978)
The Rocking Horse Winner (Pelissier, 1950)
Don Juan (Or if Don Juan were a Woman) (Vadim, 1973)
The Night Heaven Fell (Vadim, 1958)
The Tale of Zatoichi (Misumi, 1962)

Tribe wrote:I could've sworn there used to be an HVE thread in the Criterion Rumors and News section.

Here it is in Boutique Labels. I think we put it there when Image bought HVE. The thread doesn't show up in a search here, but Google found it. Since your list is of films that are Janus properties and will eventually revert to them, I suppose it has as much business in this thread as that one anyway.

Can we pretend like the announcements are this afternoon?

The November releases and more or less the whole year make me think that Criterion is coming back to their old form. With the Rossellini and Sternberg sets, the Oshima and Kurosawa Eclipses, the Powell re-releases and now with "Night of the Hunter", "Antichrist" and "Modern Times", this must be the strongest year since a long time. Very pleasantly surprised.