Akira Kurosawa R3 DVDs Quality

[byronsp]

Hi

Does anyone know what the quality of the R3 Kirosawa films is. Very interested in getting the rare ones as missed out on the season at the NFT?

However very worried that the quality is poor compared to the R1 equivalents (if indeed there are some)

any help gladly appreciated

cheers

Steve

[Noel M]

The quality is very poor indeed. I have three Mei Ah disks, <i>Hidden Fortress, Record of A Living Being</i> and <i>Red Beard</i>. The quality is poor enough, but the subtitles are so bad as to make the films look dumb, which is doing them a great disservice indeed. The best of Kurosawa is gradually making its way onto R1 or R2, ('Stray Dog' is on the way soon from BFI for the first time), so I'd recommend waiting.

[Noel M]

I found a post I made on another Kurosawa thread on what Kurosawa DVD are currently available, which I'll paste here:

<b>Seven Samurai</b>
R2 BFI version only has a commentary for selected scenes. The Criterion has a full and excellent commentary track.

<b>Yojimbo</b>
On the other hand, the R2 BFI of this DVD has a full commentary track, while the Criterion has none at all. Neither release has an entirely satisfactory picture. Both are non-anamorphic.

<b>Sanjuro</b>
Only available from Criterion, I think. Picture quality isn’t great, but is certainly adequate. Non-anamorphic. Good film, rather underrated. Easily as good as his other samurai films and I personally prefer it to Yojimbo.

<b>High And Low</b>
Only available from Criterion, but it is a good non-anamorphic disc and an excellent film

<b>Throne of Blood</b>
Only available from BFI. Superb film, one of Kurosawa’s best and a decent DVD release by all accounts

<b>Hidden Fortress</b>
The Criterion collection edition of this is superb. Great print, anamorphic and great film.

<b>Dersu Uzala</b>
R1 Kino release is not anamorphic, but has an English dub and optional English subtitles. Not Kurosawa’s best film, but still worth a look for the beautiful widescreen photography.

<b>Ran</b>
A lacklustre Fox Lorber is all that is/was available. The film is marvellous, but I wouldn’t go for this release. There are doubts about it being in the correct aspect ratio, but overall it is not really all that bad. There was talk of a new release long ago, but nothing seems to have materialised.

<b>Rhapsody in August</b>
R2 release of this was very poor. Pan and Scan, fixed subtitles. It’s a good latter Kurosawa film, but avoid this release.

<b>Madadayo</b>
Another Fox Lorber release, this one is actually very good quality, although it is not anamorphic. The film is best forgotten about though. Wouldn’t recommend this as an introduction to Kurosawa. It’s like the funeral wake scene in Ikiru, which, regardless of how successful you think that scene is, is very wearing when extended to a whole film.

<b>R3 releases</b>
Many of Kurosawa’s films are available from Hong Kong label Mei Ah, especially early films that are never distributed here. I have seen their <b>Hidden Fortress, Record Of A Living Being</b>, and <b>Red Beard</b> and they are all really terrible. Smeary prints with loads of artefacting and unintelligible subtitles. If I didn’t have Donald Ritchie’s book on Kurosawa to explain the plots, I wouldn’t know what was going on in these films. Avoid.

<b>French releases</b>
There are a number of French Kurosawa releases, which are reported to be of excellent quality. I haven’t seen any of them, but I believe they don’t have English subtitles.

[byronsp]

thanks guys.
Looks like I should start scouring for some great deals on BFI and Criterions...

[bradavon]

Ran is getting a re-issue/re-master sometime this year and Yojimbo R1 has an odd framing problem so go for the R2.

Lastly as said before the R3's suck and also have a DD5.1 remix which of course sounds terrible.

[Michael Brooke]

I'd hold off on <I>Dersu Uzala</I> until Ruscico's version gets released - at the very least you can expect a good anamorphic transfer from the best available materials.

I second the negative opinion of the Mei Ah discs - <I>The Bad Sleep Well</I> is not only awful but a flipper to boot.

Fox Lorber's <I>Ran</I> <U>is</U> in the correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio (trust me on this, Noel - I used to show rep cinema screenings of this on a regular basis for years: the IMDB is just plain wrong*!), but it's otherwise an awful transfer that should be avoided.

(*I was born in 1967, but apparently made a film in 1941 - that's how wrong the IMDB can be!)

[Matthew]

To give you a taste of the appalling quality of the subtitles, here are the opening lines (spelling mistakes and punctuation, or lack of it, are as on the DVD) of "The Hidden Fortress" from the Region 3 version:

Get away, you are of cropse smell.

Why you are so angry. We are the same.

You are smelly, I wan to vomit.

How can a worm know. What do you say?

You are a worm, ****. Said wars could boom the business.

What's funny, crazy?

All is funny. Not in time for wars. Slaves are forced to collect cropses. Escaped, but being hungry.

Is it too much to ask that when people get employed to write subtitles, they can actually speak the language they're writing in? Apparently so.

[bradavon]

LOL, that makes me laugh and angry at the same time.

I wouldn't be surprised if they took the Japanese diaglogue and
ran it through a language converter and then left it at that.

[StuNew]

I've held the French Kurosawa releases in my expectant (but then disappointed) hands and can confirm that they do not have EN subs.

No idea of picture quality, but I've heard it's good.