bumping this thread for the first time in awhile to answer myself..yes I finally did get to this set again...
After Life's transfer is pretty weak compared to the Criterion. I don't think the BFI had access to the original elements and so it does suffer a bit, being a 16mm film and such. Tara Judah's insights are decent but there's
so much dead space on the commentary. Linda Ehrlich's commentary on the Criterion disc is absolutely incredible though, so please don't miss that. sorry to entirely downvote this disc for
After Life but I'm glad it keeps it accessible for UK folk as its a tremendous film.
there is no way on earth
Nobody Knows should be this teal. Gary has not reviewed the Japanese disc (I can't find anyone who has) but he has posted the
old DVDs and the color scheme is drastically different. I have the Korean disc on order (I liked the artwork, and I'm a Kore-eda completionist) and will likely get the Japanese one and compare. this equally incredible film still has no region A release, and I'm just waiting on Criterion to get to it, as it's still held by IFC over here. hopefully like After Life they remedy the issues. but I do have finally something positive to say about this set - Kenta McGrath's commentary on this movie is excellent. I was fully braced to come on here and say I would like Criterion to enlist Ehrlich again (and maybe they still should, she's great), but McGrath delivers a really insightful scholarly commentary and for the most part keeps things running well over the 140 minute runtime. good job sir, I learned to look at a film I've loved for years a bit differently in many ways. I've never heard McGrath contribute to anything else but I'd love to see him enlisted in the future, assuming his expertise is Japanese cinema but he does reference
Dogtooth early on, so anything is welcome.
I will still get to the Still Walking commentary (I don't do well with the reductivist comparisons Kore-eda gets to Ozu - yes it's there, but that's so lazy to me) and will be revisiting Maborosi (since it's been so long and my girlfriend wants to watch it) to comment on the transfer. I've basically accepted I'll be importing the Japanese editions of all four films, plus
Distance and
Hana which got left by the wayside of course. I'm definitely glad the BFI released this set, and if you aren't a superfan of Kore-eda like I am it certainly does the job, but there's for sure better out there. Maborosi is frustrating as the disc with good commentary has a bad transfer, the disc with a decent transfer has a bad commentary, both have bland/pedestrian art, and the Japanese edition with the original poster cover obviously is a fortune to import. After Life and Still Walking I'm perfectly happy with my Criterion editions. and then Nobody Knows...yeah, I can't believe I didn't see anyone else mention how it looks. again, I do hope Criterion release this and bring in Kore-eda (as they did with After Life, and he naiiled it) to get this right. but again, just glad these films got out there in solid editions.