criterionforum.org

Couldn't find a dedicated thread for this company, although some of their titles have been discussed elsewhere.

I was curious if anyone could speak to the quality of their DVD releases of Omirbaev's "Killer" and Akerman's "Night and Day."

Rating their quality from 1 to 10 I would give them a 4. Not terrible but nowhere near great.

Having said that I do have many of their releases. A lot of old Ozu movies and others that aren't available on region 1. That's the only reason to have a Panorama disc in my opinion.

So if they are movies you really like and not availible elswhere go for it. It's better than nothing or an old VHS copy. Then chuck it in a few years when a better one is released, much like my copy of Late Spring and the 3-5 of them I can get rid of when Eclipse releases their Ozu box sometime this year.

dvdbeaver.com has several side by side comparisons that include Panorama releases. You may want to take a gander. City of God, All About Lily Chou, An Autumn Afternoon are a few.

Please tell me, are there any worthwhile Panorama releases of Japanese classics that you would consider good enough?
That could stand up to a Criterion or MOC as far as the transfer is concerned? I know that most of their releases range from mediocre to awful but are all of them like that?

For example, I was thinking about Kinoshita's Carmen comes home and A Japanese Tragedy. Has anybody seen the Panorama releases of these films?

The Beaver has reviewed A Japanese Tragedy. I'd definitely call it serviceable and there's no way telling when a better edition might come along -- it all depends on how badly you want to see the film.

Thanks, Ornette. I am amazed that I missed the dvdbeaver review.

And you are right, Japanese Tragedy looks acceptable. Furthermore, it is cheap and it is not part of the French box set. (unlike Carmen Comes Home).

Japanese Tragedy is one of Kinoshita's more interesting films. As usual, there's a lot that bothers me about this, but it is certainly very much worth seeing (and the Panorama DVD is more than adequate, given its price).

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:Please tell me, are there any worthwhile Panorama releases of Japanese classics that you would consider good enough? That could stand up to a Criterion or MOC as far as the transfer is concerned? I know that most of their releases range from mediocre to awful but are all of them like that? For example, I was thinking about Kinoshita's Carmen comes home and A Japanese Tragedy. Has anybody seen the Panorama releases of these films?

I’m less demanding than some about print quality, especially in cases of relative rarity, so the Panorama Ozu discs, for instance, are more than “good enough” for me until something better comes along. I don’t know that any of the Panorama discs I’ve seen could compare with premium releases from CC or MoC, but the Panorama edition of Dragnet Girl—one of the most stylish and satisfying gangster films in any language—comes close in terms of print quality. Panorama’s version of Carmen Comes Home, one of the few Japanese comedies from the early fifties available on DVD with English subtitles, earns a print grade of about B-, but if the edition from Mk2 is cleaner, it also lacks the subs. The Panorama disc of Teshigahara’s Rikyu is pretty mediocre, but does best the oop R1, which was severely cropped.

A dutch label announced that they will release A Japanese tragedy in the future. No date has been set. They usually port from other European labels. So there might be a European release coming.

Has anybody seen the Panorama release of Shinoda's Gonza the Spearman? Is it better than the awful R2 Artsmagic release?

I have already decided to buy Carmen Comes Home and A Japanese Tragedy, since from what I hear both releases sound at least adequate. But I can't find anything about Gonza.

Well, I just received Carmen Comes Home, Japanese Tragedy and Gonza the Spearman.

Obviously, I haven't seen anything yet but I sampled the films and my first impressions are very positive as far as Carmen Comes Home. It looks a lot better than I expected.

I am not that impressed about the transfer of Japanese Tragedy.
I expected something in the lines of AE's two Mizoguchi films but unfortunately it looks a lot worse. I hope I am mistaken because so far I have only seen about 5 minutes of it. Of course I do not regret buying it since it was so cheap and the film is not available anywhere else. Let's hope we see a Kinoshita Eclipse release in the near future.

Finally, Gonza the Spearman has the worst transfer, if we take into account that it is a 1986 film. It appears to be the same transfer as the R2. Of course I can't be certain since I don't have the R2 so what I am saying is based on the dvdbeaver review.
Again, I am not complaining since I only paid 7 euros for it.

jonah.77 wrote:I was curious if anyone could speak to the quality of their DVD releases of Omirbaev's "Killer" and Akerman's "Night and Day."

Interesting - has anyone actually seen their disc of Night and Day? Although I can't find a single review or mention online, it's got to be worth a punt at $5.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:I am not that impressed about the transfer of Japanese Tragedy.
I expected something in the lines of AE's two Mizoguchi films but unfortunately it looks a lot worse. I hope I am mistaken because so far I have only seen about 5 minutes of it. Of course I do not regret buying it since it was so cheap and the film is not available anywhere else. Let's hope we see a Kinoshita Eclipse release in the near future.

I don';t recall this Panorama DVD looking that sub-par overall.

In terms of the film, I didn't exactly _like_ it -- but thought it better than average for Kinoshita.

Interesting - has anyone actually seen their disc of Night and Day? Although I can't find a single review or mention online, it's got to be worth a punt at $5.

The Omirbaev disc is fine, but Night and Day is atrocious, with desaturated colors (Akerman intended some of that, but not this much) and a generally subpar VCD transfer. It's probably worth $5 as it's the only way to see the film right now, but you might want to wait to see if the company in Belgium that released the Chantal Akerman 70s series continues with an 80s and then a 90s box (admittedly, this could take several years).

You were right, Michael. The transfer of A Japanese Tragedy is not that bad. I saw it yesterday and and it was not as bad as I feared. It is certainly not worse that the 2 AE Mizoguchi transfers. Only the subtitles were not very good, but that is expected from a HK release.

Fan-of-Kurosawa wrote:You were right, Michael. The transfer of A Japanese Tragedy is not that bad. I saw it yesterday and and it was not as bad as I feared. It is certainly not worse that the 2 AE Mizoguchi transfers. Only the subtitles were not very good, but that is expected from a HK release.

As I recall, there are some parts that look deliberately grainy. I thought it actually looked considerably better than those AE releases. I don't recall much about the subtitles anymore. However, they certainly were not bad enough to make it onto the list of all-time worst HK translations. ;~}

Being generally pleased with the three discs I bought from Panorama I was looking at yesasia for other interesting Japanese movies and I found Shinoda's Moonlight Serenade and Imai's War and Youth.

So I was wondering, has anyone seen them?
I am not talking only about the discs, but also about the movies themselves.

I searched this forum and the internet and I can't find any reliable reviews. I have to admit that I find this somewhat strange, especially about War and Youth since it was Imai's last movie and if I am not mistaken it is the only Imai movie that is out with eng subs.

I rather liked Moonlight Serenade -- and the DVD was adequate (as I recall). I haven't gotten around to this Imai film yet -- it's on the list of DVDs I need to get however.

I would recommend checking out Yamada's Musuko (My Sons) and Kokyo (Home From the Sea) -- and Jun Ichikawa's Tokyo Rhapsody. Also, the DVD of Imamura's Eejanaika, while flawed, is watchable -- and the film itself is great.

I would not recommend the Panorama DVDs of Kokyo or Musuko. Both cropped, bleached out colors, and so on. If you're a downloader, then it is not that difficult to find custom English subtitles to add to the much better DVD releases from Shochiku. I recommend seeing Kokyo anyway you can, though, as it is a wonderful film and has great performances all over the place. I posted some screens from the Shochiku disc in the screen captures thread.

Michael, you are certainly right about the Yamada films. I 've read great things about them at dvdbeaver and in this forum and I am thinking of buying the whole boxset.

However, I 've read that two or three of them are pan and scan versions. I can certainly live with letterbox non-anamorphic versions, but I really hate pan and scan versions. On the other hand, I doubt these films will appear anywhere else with eng subs so I guess I should buy the Panorama versions.
It is better to have the Pan and Scan versions from nothing.

As for Imamura's Eijanaika, I think that I will wait for the Criterion or Eclipse version. I 've read somewhere that Janus owns the rights.

As for Imamura's Eijanaika, I think that I will wait for the Criterion or Eclipse version. I 've read somewhere that Janus owns the rights.

Indeed, Janus now owns the rights to most Imamura films, and I think it's safe to expect some action from them on this front (a few Criterions and an Eclipse set) in the next year or so.

None of the Yamada or (Jun Ichikawa) DVDs I recommended are pan and scan. (The lovely Call of Distant Mountains IS pan and scanned -- viz. my article). They ARE cropped to 1.85 or so (from 2.35) -- but the color is passable and the subtitles are okay.

I don't know why Eejanaika is written as Eijanaika in English. The title is definitely "spelled" Eejanaika in hiragana. ;~} ("eijanaika" is more correct Japanese, in the abstract -- but this wouldn't seem to matter in English).

Michael Kerpan wrote:None of the Yamada or (Jun Ichikawa) DVDs I recommended are pan and scan. (The lovely Call of Distant Mountains IS pan and scanned -- viz. my article). They ARE cropped to 1.85 or so (from 2.35) -- but the color is passable and the subtitles are okay.

I've probably just been spoiled as I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of watching the Panorama versions of any of Yamada's films. Still behind on Jun Ichikawa, but I plan to remedy that very soon.

I am very grateful to Panorama to making so much of Yamada's work available at affordable prices. It is unfortunate that Shochiku would only allow Panorama to use sub-standard source materials for so many releases (in order to protect its domestic releases from lower-priced competition).

Jun Ichikawa is wonderful -- and way too littler of his work is readily available on DVD (even unsubbed). I've liked (or loved) everything I've seen by him so far).

For those who are curious, I posted some screenshots from Shochiku's R2 disc of Yamada's Musuko in the screen captures thread.

Has anybody seen Panorama's disc of Hideo Gosha's Heat Wave (Kagero)?

I want to know if it is in the correct aspect ratio?
The OAR according to dvdrama is 2.35:1. (The French disc is in the correct aspect ratio).

The only information that Yesasia and Panorama's website provide about the aspect ratio is that it is Anamorphic Widescreen. Nothing else.

So I want to know from somebody who has the disc please. Is it 2.35:1 or is it a cropped 1.85:1 or even a 1.66:1?