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Andrian Film Revival wrote:Has anyone yet seen the Yume Madadayo? I am reluctant to buy it blindly based on the poor quality of the previous dvd editions?

I'd avoid Yume's Madadayo like the plague. Based on comparisons made to screenshots of the other edition(s) posted on dvdbeaver, the Yume is marginally stronger in colour, but still remains very flat, very soft, suffers from heavy bouts of combing and ghosting and is clouded by a nasty green haze...oh and it's not in it's (IMDB stated) OAR either. It's a shame that this may be the best version of the film thats so far been put on to dvd (and i've even seen some positive reviews for the dvd's quality which i can't quite fathom...if i remember where, i'll post the reviews), although there is an R4 Madman Films dvd release that may possibly be a forerunner (although, their quality also depends, it would seem, on where they buy their prints for example; Madman's Kiarostami collection provided by MK2 is excellent, whilst their SNC purchased dvd of Pasolini's Medea is atrocious).

Personally, unless the need to see the film outweighs the cost of what will most likely be replaced in a year or two, i'd give this a miss. Hope i was of some help. If I can get my computer-illiterate A into G this weekend, I'll post some screen shots in the appropriate section of the forum.

That was pretty much what I was expecting, but thanks! Certainly will not be paying £20 for this!

I haven't seen the Yume disc of Madadayo but I've read at akirakurosawa.info that it has the same Winstar transfer minus the extras (storyboards).

However, I have the Madman R4 version. The transfer is certainly not exceptional (skin colour in particular is not very good. It is too "green-yellow".) but it appears better from the R1. At least this is what I can gather looking at the screenshots from the R1 at dvdbeaver.

Additionally, on the back it says that it is anamorphic but since I don't have a widescreen TV I can not confirm it.
By the way, it has no extras whatsoever. It only includes a trailer reel that shows other Madman releases.

I love Madadayo and am still waiting for the Weinstein Co. to produce their edition. I hope it's still coming one day--it was mentioned a long time back as being one of their planned releases.

Lets hope the Weinstein's have the decency to leave the movie in it's original form. I'm having flashes of the Harvey's name replacing Kurosawa's in the directors seat, and finding the movie is down to 87 minutes with overdubs and a new score by The Edge.

However, saying that, I feel they would have respect enough to release a comparatively decent transfer of such an important film, and that they would be knowledgeable enough to know that they would face an angry mob at the slightest tampering of a Kurosawa masterpiece.

Well, yes, I'm still smarting over various Weinstein movie-mutilations.

The Dragon Dynasty label seems to be treating its films the right way (just judging by the reviews I've read of Come Drink With Me.)

StevenJ0001 wrote:The Dragon Dynasty label seems to be treating its films the right way (just judging by the reviews I've read of Come Drink With Me.)

In terms of images and extras, certainly. In terms of subtitles, there are still issues. Three of the titles I own have noticeable typos in the subs, and Come Drink with Me has some awkward translations.

Oh good point, I did hear about the subtitle problems.

The Oshima Collection announced:

As well as this and this.

Judging by their previous Oshima releases it is best not to expect too much image wise. Night & Fog is all ready availabe from Raro of course...

Sure would be nice if Yume got one right for a change. Pleasures of the Flesh is an incredibly rare movie; even if Criterion does do some Oshima soon, this seems a much less likely candidate than the first three features or Violence at Noon.

Just got the Night and Fog in Japan in mail. And this is just another botched job from Yume. Its not even anamorphic. Letterboxed 2.35:1 badly converted ntsc to pal transfer with all its ugliness.

Welcome to the forum! There is an invaluable post from shirobamba on this very topic here.

mistix wrote:Just got the Night and Fog in Japan in mail. And this is just another botched job from Yume. Its not even anamorphic. Letterboxed 2.35:1 badly converted ntsc to pal transfer with all its ugliness.

In this case the ugliness manifests itself as frame judder every second or so - bad enough in most circumstances, but an absolute disaster with a film whose mise en scène revolves around slow panning and tracking shots.

I found it borderline unwatchable, to be brutally honest.

All of Yume's Oshima releases seem to be direct ports from RARO's "sub-optimal" releases. Screengrab comparisons in
this thread

I just noticed on Amazon.co.uk that in October Yume is going to release a film called Fencing Master. On the cover it has Kurosawa's name. Obviously it is not a film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It must be a film written by Kurosawa.

So I searched the imdb and I found two films, one by Masahiro Makino from 1950 and another by Harumi Mizuho from 1962 with Raizo Ichikawa.

I wonder which one is Yume releasing. Or maybe it is something else completely.

The 1950 version was written by Kurosawa; it was remade in 1962, but Kurosawa had no direct involvement in that. Madman recently gave the remake an R4 release, so that's probably what Yume will put out as well. Not sure why they didn't put out the original, which Kurosawa actually wrote -- the two versions are owned by different studios, so rights considerations were likely involved.

Hi,

Has anyone seen Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh? Is it poor (quality wise of course) as the other Yume's releases?

Thanks.

bergelson wrote:Has anyone seen Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh? Is it poor (quality wise of course) as the other Yume's releases?

According to Sidehacker in the Oshima thread: yes!

As expected, Yume's release of Pleasures of the Flesh is rather awful. A level above a VHS, but that's it. The French DVD is much, much better.

For those interested in the handful of Yume releases that are decent, Amazon UK has most of Yume's catalog at 70% off right now.

Any idea where the Yume website went?

Anybody feel like commenting on the quality of Yume's release of Nugroho's Opera Jawa? I've only come across reviews of the First Run's Release of Opera Jawa - reviews which are pretty damning. As a result I'm leaning towards Yume by default.