Yoji Yamada on DVD

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analoguezombie · #1 Post by **analoguezombie** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:36 am

Kakushi-ken: Oni No Tsume 2004

Munezo, a warrior in the rapidly changing period at the end of the Edo era, finds himself entangled in a dispute that leads him to confront a former friend. In the process, he falls for Kie -- a gentle love that transcends the barriers of social class.

twitchfilm review

Slant Magazine review

The film made its US debut at the "Shochiku at 110" retrospective in NYC during the NYFF recently, and Tartan has plans to release the dvd stateside.

I'm really excited to see this, especially after Twilight Samurai. The reviews have been mixed so far, with a lot of talk centering on its relationship to Yamada's last movie. Now that Tartan has entered the US market, and has a dedication to emerging Asian cinema, I'm very hopeful of things to come.

#2 Post by **kinjitsu** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:20 pm

Mark Shilling's review in Japan Times.

Harold Gervais · #3 Post by **Harold Gervais** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:29 pm

I wish Tartan had released Twilight Samurai here. The version we have looks terrible. Anyone have any recommendations for editions from other regions?
Hopefully we can get our one arthouse back up and running here in New Orleans so I have a chance of seeing Hidden Blade on something close to a big screen.

analoguezombie · #4 Post by **analoguezombie** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 6:28 am

I think Tartan is looking for a spring 2006 theatrical release, witht he dvd soon to follow. Hopefully, by that time you'll be back up and running in the Big Easy.

Michael Kerpan · #5 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:18 am

Harold Gervais wrote:I wish Tartan had released Twilight Samurai here. The version we have looks terrible. Anyone have any recommendations for editions from other regions?

The Japanese DVD looks great -- and has good English subs.

ape · #6 Post by **ape** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:33 pm

HK DVD info.

#7 Post by **kinjitsu** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:18 am

Bushi no ichibun

Michael Kerpan · #8 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:48 pm

Yoji Yamada: widescreen vs. pan & scan

I compare Panorama's pan and scan version of Yoji Yamada's Haruka naru yama no yobigoe (1980) with Shochiku's digitaly-restored 2.35:1 format version:

Morandi · #9 Post by **Morandi** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:41 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:I compare Panorama's pan and scan version of Yoji Yamada's Haruka naru yama no yobigoe (1980) with Shochiku's digitaly-restored 2.35:1 format version:

thanks michael, this comparison almost blew me away. i bought the panorama disk some time ago, and it was a big disappointment in terms of colors, sharpness etc, but i could not imagine how bad it is cropped. it's a shame, cause it's such a good movie. i gave the cropped version 9/10 at imdb!

Michael Kerpan · #10 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:14 am

Morandi wrote:thanks michael, this comparison almost blew me away. i bought the panorama disk some time ago, and it was a big disappointment in terms of colors, sharpness etc, but i could not imagine how bad it is cropped. it's a shame, cause it's such a good movie. i gave the cropped version 9/10 at imdb!

Definitely one of Yamada's most wonderful early films -- along with Kokyo (Home From the Sea -- fairly decent Panorama DVD) and Kazoku (Only Japanese DVD -- no subs).

Morandi · #11 Post by **Morandi** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:23 am

Michael Kerpan wrote:Definitely one of Yamada's most wonderful early films -- along with Kokyo (Home From the Sea -- fairly decent Panorama DVD) and Kazoku (Only Japanese DVD -- no subs).

unfortunately i havent seen those ... lets see, probably i'll try one of those sooner or later, its panorama which makes the decision so difficult. and i dont think that in the near future those movies will get a proper dvd-treatment (with subtitles).

i have musuko (aka my sons), thats a good movie as well. but the panorama dvd is bad: very dark, a lot of "mosquito noise" etc at least it doesnt seem to be cropped. its really pity.

Michael Kerpan · #12 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:10 am

I am grateful for the Panorama series --- and to be fair, Shochiku often only gave them second-rate (or worse) source materials.

Most of these releases are "passable" (given their price) -- even if very far from ideal -- including the "Musuko" DVD --- but the bad ones ARE truly awful. ;~{

I would say there is absolutely ZERO chance of a good quality subbed release of any of these early Yamada films.

#13 Post by **kinjitsu** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:18 pm

Midnight Eye reviews Love and Honor

zombeaner · #14 Post by **zombeaner** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:37 pm

I saw the North American premiere of Love and Honor last night at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, and I thought it was excellent. It builds on the foundation formed by Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. The plot structure is very similar as well and the films fit together very well as a trilogy. As usual, beautifully shot.

Michael Kerpan · #15 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:32 pm

zombeaner wrote:I saw the North American premiere of Love and Honor last night at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, and I thought it was excellent. It builds on the foundation formed by Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. The plot structure is very similar as well and the films fit together very well as a trilogy. As usual, beautifully shot.

My review of Love and Honor, with some pictures.

The structure is a bit similar -- but not unduly so. Each of the three films has a quite distinctive emotional tone.

malcolm1980 · #16 Post by **malcolm1980** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:43 pm

I thought Love and Honor was excellent (***1/2 out of **** for me). I saw it in the recent CineManila Film Festival.

manicsounds · #17 Post by **manicsounds** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:10 pm

Tora-San (Otoko Wa Tsuraiyo) Remastered w/English subs

48 Movies, 54 discs, limited edition suitcase with serial number.
48 replica posters (B3 size), replica press sheets, Tora-san lucky charm case

Disc 1-48: The 48 Films
Disc 49: (Bonus Disc with ???)
Disc 50: Tora-San TV Series

Bonus disc 1: A Look back at Otoko Wa Tsuraiyo, 80 min documentary
Bonus disc 2: Tora-San guide DVD, with all 48 theatrical trailers and a guide to the various places Tora-San has gone to.
Bonus Disc 3: a 50 minute documentary from 1971 with Yoji Yamada and Kiyoshi Azumi on maing Tora-San
Bonus Disc 4: "Hey! Tora-San, the 26th year of Tora San" making of 1992 (42 min), "The last making of diary" making of 1997 (46 min)

All with Japanese and English subtitles on the main films
Region Free
Short 4-8 minute making of featurettes on each title.

All for the hefty price of 199,500 Yen, (about $2000 US) out 10/29/2008

Steven H · #18 Post by **Steven H** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 7:02 am

Wow. What is up with Shochiku and why didn't it happen five years ago? Still... this definitely gives me new hope that when they get around to releasing early Shinoda and/or more early Golden age stuff, it'll have english subs.

sidehacker · #19 Post by **sidehacker** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:48 am

This is actually making me a bit worried. Don't get me wrong, it's great news. But I hope Shochiku isn't placing too much hope in this boxset. I have a hard time believing that people will be willing to buy a 50 disc boxset. On the other hand, I'm glad that Yoji Yamada is getting this kind of attention.

Sanjuro · #20 Post by **Sanjuro** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:32 pm

Once again "Barrier-Free" meaning it has subtitles for the hard of hearing (and non-Japanese) as opposed to to region-free. Unless it's stated as region-free someplace else?

I'm pretty sure Shochiku do very well on Tora-san sales and rentals. If not from the box-set then from the individual discs which are coming out in 4 batches in August, September, October, December. Having said that, it doesn't seem that long ago a Tora-san suitcase came out. Not HD remastered of course. I wonder how die-hard the Tora-san fans are, and how many will just wait a bit for the Blu-Ray?

edit: According to Shochiku's website, they'll be showing all the remastered Tora-san films at "Every cinema in the country" starting in September. Or perhaps it means "Cinemas in every part of the country". All good anyhow.

Also playing in Paris, London, New York, Toronto, Berkeley, Berlin, Koln and Hong Kong from June 2008 - May 2009

manicsounds · #21 Post by **manicsounds** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 7:00 pm

Barrier Free, on the site, so I guess it's region 2 NTSC, but I'm pretty sure no one has a problem with region coding these days.

Shochiku knows that there are die-hard Tora fans who are willing to put up a morgage just to have all the films. But then again, Tora-san's target audience is 60, 70 plus years old men, who don't have DVD players and are probably just happy having their VHS copies.

$2000 is too steep for any boxset. But then again, it's Japan. They're 5 times overpriced. $500 for that Tora-San boxset would be the limit for me.

Sanjuro · #22 Post by **Sanjuro** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 9:30 pm

There's another suitcase which also has all 48 movies which is slightly cheaper at a "reasonable" $1500.　And of course Amazon has the limited set at $1500 and the cheaper set at about $1000.

Individual DVDs are $40 each (full price) and there's 54 discs in the set.

"Overpriced" is kind of relative though, isn't it? They're no more expensive than any other DVD in Japan. And pretty much every box set in Japan sells at cost per disc with very little, if any, discount. Yes, a different system would be much better but you'd have to look at the DVD market as a whole. Shochiku's simply following the usual plan.

I'd like to see some business models from Japanese distribution companies to show how they arrive at the rrp. I don't imagine that they're really making 5 times the profits of DVD companies overseas, are they?

tsetse27 · #23 Post by **tsetse27** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:52 am

Is there there any review about this set?

I am not 60 plus man but actually temp to get it...

(hopefully Yen vs US$ exchange rate will will come down soon. It would definitely help as I try to import to US...)

Sanjuro · #24 Post by **Sanjuro** » Mon May 11, 2009 8:03 pm

I rented the first few of the remasters. They all look very nice with good readable subtitles.

Actually the translation comes across a bit 'simple' at times, but I guess that's the same for any subtitled film.

Of course, the plot starts to get VERY familiar after the first couple (although, that's a selling point rather than a dissapointment over here), so I'm not sure I'd recommend the whole $1500 suitcase to anyone. I might work my way through the lot (the first several are in my rental queue) in the hope that there's a hidden gem somewhere around number 25 or so.

BB · #25 Post by BB » Tue May 12, 2009 11:23 pm

Man, I love Tora-san...although around the late 1970's the quality of the series starts to get pretty damn thin. I'm thinking about buying the second film since it's probably my personal fave.

Does anyone know if the subtitles are significantly better than the Panorama discs? Has anyone compared them? I have all the Panorama dvds and their subs range from mostly serviceable to incomprehensible.

Sanjuro, when you say the subs are "simple", you mean they leave out the local flavor/slang/culture of the spoken dialog. right?