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I'm pretty tough on these things and I found the BFI image quality perfectly acceptable. But it's overpriced and it wouldn't be hard for AnimEigo to improve.

AnimEigo: Not yet in this list, mostly Anime titles but announced are Revenge of a Kabuki Actor & The Wolves

According to Amazon.com, Animeigo's next release is going to be "Father of the Kamikaze" which is going to be released on the 13th of January 2009. No further details are available. (like director, stars etc.)

This means that there are no releases in November and December. Very disappointing.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:According to Amazon.com, Animeigo's next release is going to be "Father of the Kamikaze" which is going to be released on the 13th of January 2009. No further details are available. (like director, stars etc.)

It's a 1974 film directed by Kosaku Yamashita and starring Koji Tsuruta, Bunta Sugawara and Akira Kobayashi.

I did a review of the film for my independent publication Film Monitor. The quality of the picture is not bad at all. While extras are pretty limited (except for some detailed footnotes), my only complain is the yellow and green subtitles.

Have any of the other regular posters in this thread watched The Wolves yet? (I'm looking at you, StevenH, as a fellow Gosha fan.) The slow pace of the movie caught me totally off guard, since the other five Gosha films I've seen move at a pretty fast clip. It's the kind of movie I really need to watch again, now that I know what's going on in it. Nakadai is fine as always, and Gosha injects some wonderful touches here and there -- like the pair of female assassins. And I thought that, apart from the hiss on the soundtrack (which is similar to, though less distracting than, what was wrong with the soundtrack for Battle of Okinawa), the A/V quality was very high. Seems like Animeigo keeps getting better at this as they go along.

Revenge of A Kabuki Actor compared to the BFI by Beaver.

As we all know, AnimEigo is not a big company and it releases only one film per month but nevertheless quite a lot of their films are very worthwhile. And there are not many companies in R1 land that specialize and release only Japanese films.

Animeigo is planning for 2009 and have just been announced in their website. Certain dates we only have for Father of the Kamikaze in January, for Hideo Gosha's The Geisha in February and for the third Sninobi No Mono film in March.

After that, the exact dates are not known but Animeigo is planning to release Chushingura (Watanabe's 1958 version) with Shintaro Katsu, Raizo Ichikawa, Machiko Kyo and Wakao Ayako. (Sounds very interesting. I already have 3 adaptations of this story and I want as many as possible).

Then it mentions The Samurai I Loved. It is a 2005 film. I don't know a lot of things about it except that the story is based on a novel by Shuhei Fujisawa. The three Samurai films of Yoji Yamada were also based on short stories by this author so I will definately keep a watch for this.

Finally, their website mentions that they intend to release the first four Sleepy Eyes of Death with Raizo Ichikawa. I have not seen any of them but I have read a review of the first one in Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves and it appeared interesting. If the box set is not as expensive as their Lone Wolf and Cub box set I will probably buy it.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote: If the box set is not as expensive as their Lone Wolf and Cub box set I will probably buy it.

But the LWAC set is totally worth the price.Those films are great.I have gotten so many years of enjoyment from that box on my shelf. If I want to turn people onto Japanese cinema I might start them off on this because it's funny, entertaining and full of action.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:As we all know, AnimEigo is not a big company and it releases only one film per month but nevertheless quite a lot of their films are very worthwhile. And there are not many companies in R1 land that specialize and release only Japanese films.

I'm very exited about Animeigo's upcoming titles. I have about 8 film versions of Chushingura and will definitely get the one directed by Watanabe. I already have Nemuri Kyoshiro (Sleepy Eyes of Death) #1-4, and 8-12 in a high-quality bootleg, but will probably buy Animeigo's as well.

Mark Metcalf wrote:I'm very exited about Animeigo's upcoming titles. I have about 8 film versions of Chushingura and will definitely get the one directed by Watanabe. I already have Nemuri Kyoshiro (Sleepy Eyes of Death) #1-4, and 8-12 in a high-quality bootleg, but will probably buy Animeigo's as well.

The 1958 version of Chushingura with Shintaro Katsu and Raizo Ichikawa just got a release date. It is going to be released on the 7th of April, according to Amazon.

Yesterday I saw Animeigo's Father of the Kamikaze. It was a very interesting film / docudrama. Anybody who is interested in Japanese or WWII history should see it. It is like Japan's Longest Day but told from the other side. That is, from the side of the admirals and generals who did not want to surrender on the 15th of August.

According to Animeigo's website, they are going to release Imamura's Black Rain sometime in September. I have to say that I am surprised by this. I expected Criterion, who owns Image's catalogue, to release a special edition of this film. Let's hope that Animeigo will do a decent job at least with the transfer. [-o<

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:According to Animeigo's website, they are going to release Imamura's Black Rain sometime in September. I have to say that I am surprised by this. I expected Criterion, who owns Image's catalogue, to release a special edition of this film. Let's hope that Animeigo will do a decent job at least with the transfer.

The Image Entertainment DVD of Black Rain originated from Angelika Films. New Yorkers may be familiar with the Angelika Film center, who distributed a handful of films in the 80s and 90s. The Image DVD has been out of print for many years now.

I also hope that Animeigo does a good job with this one. It was my first Imamura film, and it blew me away when I saw it in Little Tokyo in L.A. The novel is moving, but I think Imamura adds something unique to the film with his conscious nod toward the Ozu family drama.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:Let's hope that Animeigo will do a decent job at least with the transfer. [-o<

If their Ballad of Narayama is anything to go by, no worries.

AnimEigo is honored to be releasing a special 4-film box set of Tora-san (“Otoko wa Tsurai yo”) films this fall. Featuring ATSUMI Kiyoshi as the lovable loser KURUMA Torajiro, the 48-film Tora-san series is by far the longest-running film series in Japanese history, and the second-longest overall.

In a typical story-line from the series, Tora-san visits a different part of Japan where he meets a beautiful young woman, and tells her if she ever needs help, she should come visit him in his small hometown of Shibamata. After returning home to his disapproving family, the damsel in distress shows up, and Tora-san falls in love. Alas, his attempts to help her, and win her heart, invariably cause her to fall for someone else!

Included in the set are the first four films of the series, “It's Tough being a Man”, “Tora-san's Cherished Mother”, “Tora-san, His Tender Love”, and “Tora-san's Grand Scheme”.

I'm guessing that they will be using the recently remastered in HD materials from Japan, and also including the newly translated official subtitles, of with Shochiku went to extremely great lengths to translate the jokes, colloqualisms, and wordplay within the films.

Just watched the first two films in their Sleepy Eyes of Death boxset - very nice transfers and their usual superb subtitles.
If this is any indication, I look forward to the Shinobi no mono box in September and hope that they actually put out all of each series this time.

Regarding Black Rain, I wondered who had the rights. Criterion denied ownership several times on this.

According to HKFlix, the Animeigo "Black Rain" will have the extras from the Japanese DVD.

Animeigo announced their next two releases, for November and December.

So, in November we 'll have Hideo Gosha's Onimasa from 1982.
I have not seen it but it sounds very interesting and it gathered many Japanese Academy Award nominations back in '82. Besides, I like every Gosha film that I 've seen so far.

Then, in December they are going to release Tadashi Imai 's Bushido from 1963.
Now, I am very excited about this release since I 've only seen one Imai film so far (Panorama's War and Youth) and I want to see as many of his films as possible.

So, great news!!!!

I am a big fan of Imai's films, but found Bushido rather disappointing (a bit too sprawling and unfocuised) -- especially when compared to the much more impressive Revenge (which I much prefer to the Kobayashi films dealing with similar material, even though the raw acting talent is much more modest).

That's disappointing about the Imai film. Better than nothing, I suppose. Looks like AnimEigo is also releasing a four-disc boxset of the first four Tora-san films.

sidehacker wrote:Looks like AnimEigo is also releasing a four-disc boxset of the first four Tora-san films.

I wonder if they will get to use the new restored materials -- if they have to use the crud that Shochiku made available to Panorama, forget it. ;~{

Hopefully they understand that'd be pointless, and that anybody who'd settle for the Panorama transfers probably has 'em already.

Huh. I was under the impression Yamada Yoji directed all 48 films of the Tora-san series... Apparently I was wrong, as the 3rd and 4th are directed by two other dudes. Anyone know whether there was a step up or down in quality without Yamada at the helm?
I enjoyed the first two, 'tho most of the jokes were probably lost in translate.

I wonder if they will get to use the new restored materials -- if they have to use the crud that Shochiku made available to Panorama, forget it. ;~{

I believe these are clones of Shochiku's HD/16:9 masters released to region 2 last year. Those had perfectly good subtitles, but AnimEigo has gone the extra mile fine-tuning and annotating them in their usual manner.

As their pub department has already mentioned this to a colleague, I think it's okay for me to add that I've done an audio commentary track (which includes personal messages from director Yamada and the surviving cast, etc., and which was edited and co-produced by Steve Ryfle), and the set also includes a booklet with a guide to some of the verbal humor, and essays by Donald Richie, Alexander Jacoby, Michael Jeck, Kevin Thomas, and myself.

I mention all this because I really love these movies but also realize that with the DVD market tanking a specialty title like this is a hard-sell in many respects, and that fact that AnimEigo has never done a title quite like the Tora-san series, and I want to do what I can to help it get off to a good start.

All I can say is, literally everyone I know who has seen one wants to see more, usually the rest of this wonderful series.