Seijun Suzuki

[HerrSchreck]

I second Annie's opinion. And it's not Gary's private beef with Kino alone, as the Twitchfilm review shows.
And how would YOU call a company, that states 2 out of 3 wrong aspect ratios, and an anamorphic transfer that isn't. Careless?
And besides, does anyone remember the announcements Kimstim made last fall?

Are you kidding? Go thru CC's reviews on the Beev & count the number of OAR's (and similar errors & subtitling problems, etc) completely goofed out on CC cover & site specs. And this is at just about at the highest price point bar none.

Calling Kino Not A "Real DVD Company" is absolutely fucking absurd. They put themselves so much farther out on the line with their catalog they exhibit the balls of a bull elephant compared to CC, who stick with known classics & almost never touch pre WW2 German or silent material.

Anyone whose gone thru most of the Beaver reviews knows he hates Kino for a reason somewhat exaggerated. Every cineaste has a love-hate relationship with KINO... this goes without saying owing to technical issues at times... but has great great, g r e a t love for them for their balls releasing stuff CC wouldn't dampen their mitts on. The Kino catalog is a masterpiece of cinematic insight & interpretaive flexibility.

And they've got an enormous inventory which is admittedly probably too big & should get a thorough OOP'ing.

[Ashirg]

Kino is only distributing these titles. They were produced by kimstim.

[Steven H]

Guys, regardless of Gary's shtick with Kino, you'll have to admit that the set leaves a lot to be desired on the video department. Frankly, I was expecting a little more. If not a lot more on this case based on those DVDTalk reviews.

I would say that yes, Kimstim is a bit careless, and I have no clue whether or not Gary has a beef with KINO (though didn't he rave about the Kieslowski collection last year?) I still think, weighing the pros and cons, I'll be picking up the set... even with some reservations. There are things that disappoint, and there are things that make me look somewhere else (incorrect running times, severe aspect ratio problems, dubbing only, mediocre subtitles, horrible transfers) and while this set leaves *much* to be desired, it also will probably be watchable, and the films are worth it (and worth better treatment, of course, maybe from a UK company?).

I would rather Gary had said, "we recommend this set, but with some serious qualifications." Then again, it's his website and I should mind my own business (maybe start up another called "DVDSquirrel"?) I know you think "why throw away your dollar votes?", but I think the damage has been done. I don't foresee KINO going after other prints (or arguing with their licensor) to work on the ingrained subtitles (the biggest crime). I don't see the outrage pouring in to change the release like what we saw with MGM's Bergman issue, but if there's a big Suzuki fan with organizational skills that wants to get support for a boycott, I'll rethink the purchase. I, like Charlie Brown, can be wishy washy.

[Napier]

I watched all three of these yesterday on my 42in. plasma.They are indeed very watchable,and excellent films.The colors are a little soft but not deplorable.My only reservation would be the $79.95 pricetag.But I'm not complaining because I only paid $14.00 for it.

[Cinéslob]

Calling Kino Not A "Real DVD Company" is absolutely fucking absurd. They put themselves so much farther out on the line with their catalog they exhibit the balls of a bull elephant compared to CC, who stick with known classics & almost never touch pre WW2 German or silent material.

Anyone whose gone thru most of the Beaver reviews knows he hates Kino for a reason somewhat exaggerated. Every cineaste has a love-hate relationship with KINO... this goes without saying owing to technical issues at times... but has great great, g r e a t love for them for their balls releasing stuff CC wouldn't dampen their mitts on. The Kino catalog is a masterpiece of cinematic insight & interpretaive flexibility.

And they've got an enormous inventory which is admittedly probably too big & should get a thorough OOP'ing.

What you seem to forget is that DVD Beaver only judges DVDs in a technical capacity; you can rant and rave about Kino's catalogue all you like, but the fact of the matter is, their releases are, on the whole, inadequate. In fact, they're not even 'inadequate'; they're generally appalling, with only Facets springing to my mind as a worse producer.

As for Gary Tooze holding an esoteric vendetta against Kino, well, 'bunkum' is all that can be said of that - if anything, Gary is too lenient on sodding Kino.

[htdm]

Getting back to Suzuki, it appears that Operetta Tanuki Goten (Princess Raccoon) is getting a Hong Kong release (R0, NTSC) with English subs. Look for it on the 23rd of this month.

[HerrSchreck]

What you seem to forget is that DVD Beaver only judges DVDs in a technical capacity; you can rant and rave about Kino's catalogue all you like, but the fact of the matter is, their releases are, on the whole, inadequate. In fact, they're not even 'inadequate'; they're generally appalling, with only Facets springing to my mind as a worse producer.

As for Gary Tooze holding an esoteric vendetta against Kino, well, 'bunkum' is all that can be said of that - if anything, Gary is too lenient on sodding Kino.

Silly, silly Toughie Routine. I didn't seem to forget anything. I understand that Gary judges from a technical capacity... as in my first comment on the subject when I wrote

Gary has a longstanding beef with Kino, which I partly understand, being he measures everything against technically perfect presentations... .

Too lenient on Kino? How could he be any more severe? He hasn't reviewed more than 2 or 3% of their catalog-- therefore knows nothing of their fabulous silent catalog & rescuing of obscure titles like THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, WAXWORKS, talkies like DEMENTIA, THE LITTLE FUGITIVE (the unknown heart of the French New Wave), ALIBI, THEY MADE ME A FUGITIVE, all that Stroeheim, the 1912 RICHARD III... I mean really, the list can go on and on.

A love hate relationship is A LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP. If you have a Hate/Hate relationship with them, well then that's just you. How Gary could be any harder on them (they're no different than IMage in their treatment of classic films and are often better, especially with silents, but I don't hear him daring to suggest Image--cc's distrib-- isn't real DVD co; I suspect kino doesn't send him review copies or something)... what would you like to see said or done if he's not nasty enough now?

...and I'm going to throw a potentially incendiary comment out there: you wouldn't see films like ARMAGEDDON, ZISSOU, KICKING & SCREAMING & DAZED AND CONFUSED in the Kino catalog.

The truth is the 2 cos complement each other perfectly. I've been cutting more slack for Kino lately (I wrote missives like yours a few months ago over on the Kino thread I believe)... but there's just nothing one can do. They just don't make the money that CC does, and their reels arent house-packers on the cinema circuit. Imagine where CC would be if the majority of their catalog were BY-BRAKHAGE-type titles... Kino clearly gets stuck in positions where-- in this bizarrely ameboid, shifting market-- they have to choose between decent-to-good production values... as opposed to excellent.. or not releasing the most obscure, mind-blowing titles beloved by the true blue hardest hardcore-- and decide that getting it out there is the way to go. I still salute what they do and can't abandon them because CC has been spoiling me.

[HerrSchreck]

Talk about nuts... read the quote:

Although some 'trailing' is exhibited this looks well-above standard for tube viewing. There is some contrast boosting no doubt (minor edge enhancement). Strong grey-scale and detail give a good balance to the image.

Then view the image on the just-added Beev review-- which is Renoirs WOMAN ON THE BEACH. This image (obviously an analog vhs, then boosted) is far worse than even HOUSE BY THE RIVER which was used as a whipping rod over Kino. This is getting nuts.
Sorry for the OT... just had to get that offa my chest. I just caught that review, which is at
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... review.htm

He even makes room for (same co as WOMAN/BEACH, Montparnasse, on another review, this time for THEY LIVED BY NIGHT) for the classic Kino dilemma:

its just a shame the image quality doesn't match - but I get the feeling it is the best material they could obtain and may be the reason there is no sign of it in Region 1.

[BrightEyes23]

this part of the discussion should PROBABLY be put into a seperate thread...I was tempted to start one, but I'm not sure if it'd get shut down if all of this is just eventually moved to a new one...anyway...

Yeah, Gary at the Beaver seems to have a major qualm with Kino...there's tons of evidence for that, and it also seems he's got a R2 bias when it comes to something thats available in both regions...but like its been said before, it IS his own website and he's more than welcome to post his own views...dvdbeaver isn't gospel. I don't even read the reviews anymore, I just take a look at the screen caps to get an idea of how the picture is.

[Lino]

Princess Raccoon gets a review at the Beaver

[feihong]

I don't have the technical know-how to do a comparison, but I have the Kimstim/Kino Taisho Trilogy discs and the Japanese Taisho Trilogy boxset, and even on my tube TV I can see a big difference.

Twice over e-mail the people behind Kimstim have assured me that they were doing "direct transfers" of the Japanese discs, and they were basically lying. The Japanese discs are truly beautiful, and they accurately reflect the presentation of the movies on film. The Kimstim discs are quite different. There is noticeable swimming of pixels throughout the Kimstim discs. The Japanese discs are much smoother. Movement of actors across the screen is also smoother on the Japanese discs--by a lot. The pixels on the Kimstim discs are much more noticeable, and this creates a slight darkening of the picture. The films are very dark to begin with, but on the Japanese discs this appears smooth and natural, while on the Kimstim discs images are harder to read.

Another thing is that the Japanese discs have chapter stops for nearly every scene, while Kimstim's discs are severly short in that regard.

Zigeunerweisen-specific: While the subtitles are very close to those I saw on the film print, there are several significant differences in translation. I don't know if the Kimstim discs are more accurate in this regard or whether "Holland Subtitling," the company that did the English subs for the film prints, is more accurate. During the humorously-dubbed card-playing scene, the American admiral invites Nakasago and the others aboard his ship. On the Kimstim discs, Nakasago says, "I'll think about it." On the film print, what he says translates as, "thanks, but I don't want to get killed." In the scene immediately following this, Naoko Otani makes a sort of an entreaty to Nakasago. On the Kimstim disc, she talks about getting married, and that she would rather marry Nakasago, but he already has a wife. This dialogue firmly establishes that in this scene she is the geisha, Koine.

On the film print, the subtitles are very different in this scene. They are quite inspecific. Otani says that she hates to be here, that she can't be without him, and Nakasago yells at her to get in bed. I'm not sure which translation is more accurate, but the effect is quite different. On the film print, there is nothing to distinguish whether the woman in the scene is Koine or Nakasago's wife. This makes the scene very ambiguous, and it further blurs the relationship between the wife and Koine.

Anyway, these are some differences. I applaud Kimstim for releasing these movies, since no other company seemed to want to release them at all, but they should have done a lot better. Direct ports of the Japanese discs with REMOVEABLE subtitles shouldn't have been too much to ask. Bootleggers are able to do this just fine, so why can't Kimstim and Kino put their heads together and get it right?

[Steven H]

I spent some time with the DVDs earlier this week, and I would like to take back my defense of KimStim altogether. The picture was even more lacking than I expected from the Beaver review, and all the other technical issues just add up to a severely deficient package. The big one, what made me really sit back and say, "screw KimStim" was their not subtitling the trailers. This really pisses me off. Going through all the trouble of releasing the DVD, adding contextual material, and not subtitling a few minutes of film just seems like salt in the wound.

Amazing films though. Easily Suzuki's best work, and I'm a fan of everything I've seen of his. The quality of the films, and the lack of care taken with the DVDs makes this a top contender for biggest dissapointment of the year.

[Lino]

Comparison between the HK Mei Ah DVD release and the JP Geneon of Princess Raccoon:

[impossiblefunky]

Looks like Superhappyfun has a few more suzukis up -- YOUNG BREASTS and MAN WITH THE HOLLOW TIP BULLETS. From VHS, so I'm not sure of the quality.

[colinr0380]

There look to be some more UK DVDs coming soon. I have just seen a full page advert by Yume Pictures, half of which advertises their current releases: Pistol Opera, Princess Raccoon, Fighting Elegy and Tokyo Drifter; while the other half of the page promotes three forthcoming discs.

Branded To Kill will be released on the 26th February, but it is the other two films that I think people will find most interesting. The Flower and the Angry Waves from 1964 and Fighting Delinquents from 1960 will be released on the 26th March (a nice birthday present for me!). The cover art is shown in the advert and both of the films seem to have been passed by the BBFC with '15' certificates.

[feihong]

I had a disc of this with no subtitles, taken from LD. The film looks quite interesting--maybe another underrated masterpiece in the vein of KANTO WANDERER? Can't wait to see.

BRANDED TO KILL, though, could really use a good transfer w/English subtitles. In retrospect, this and Tokyo Drifter have to go down as two of Criterion's worst discs in terms of presentation of the picture. Washed-out, unrestored, poor aspect ratio accuracy, etc. Hopefully the new disc will correct this.

[Hashi]

There look to be some more UK DVDs coming soon. I have just seen a full page advert by Yume Pictures, half of which advertises their current releases: Pistol Opera, Princess Raccoon, Fighting Elegy and Tokyo Drifter; while the other half of the page promotes three forthcoming discs.

I've yet to see a good quality Yume disc, so I won't put up much hope with these upcoming Suzuki's.

[Balaji Venkataraman]

Is there a review available for the Yume Pictures DVD release of "Tokyo Drifter" and "Branded to Kill"? The cover art at least reminds one of the excellent presentation of the same from France (HK Video) sans sub-titles.

[PhilipS]

Branded to Kill is being released in R4 in May by Eastern Eye.

[colinr0380]

DVD Times review, which they say is similar to the ealier Second Sight disc.

[Sander2]

Can anybody tell me which version of Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill have the best image quality? The Criterion, Second Sight, Yume Pictures or the Eastern Eye release?

[Doctor Sunshine]

It's been a couple years but there are a few more Suzukis coming to R1 in 2009, which I will list here for prosperity's sake.

Criterion will be releasing a couple early, unnamed titles, so says Marc Walkow:

Detective Bureau 23: Go to Hell, Bastards! is coming from Kino
A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness from Cinema Epoch

Nikkatsu Action is coming to America on DVD, courtesy of The Criterion Collection! Only about a dozen Nikkatsu Action titles have ever made it to U.S. home video release, mostly films by director Seijun Suzuki. A few exceptions are out there - Image's old disc of Yasuharu Hasebe's Black Tight Killers, Home Vision discs of Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter and Bloody Territories - but for the most part, it's just Suzuki. That will change significantly in 2009, as Criterion plans at least two Eclipse box sets of Nikkatsu titles (one of them to include A Colt is My Passport), and most likely two individual, full-on Criterion Collection releases of two additional films from the genre. Four of the films came from the screening series, and I'm happy to say that I had a significant part in brokering the deal and choosing the titles. And with all luck, Criterion will be coming back to the well for more titles, if these initial ones do well enough. Rest assured that you'll have the first news here of any future title announcements or plans from them regarding these films.

[Fan-of-Kurosawa]

Just a quick update. Suzuki's Detective Bureau 23: Go to Hell, Bastards! will be released by Kino on the 19th of May 2009.

[Doctor Sunshine]

This slipped under my radar but apparently last October Suzuki pitched a new film at the Tokyo Project Gathering. Goes to show, you can't keep an 86 year old emphysemic man down. Tentatively titled A Goldfish of the Flame or, if you're willing to go by a blog comment, Mitsu no aware (蜜のあわれ) which means something completely different.

The story is said to be an erotic fantasy about an old writer who lives with his wife in Tokyo. He immerses himself in his work and enjoys watching his pet goldfish. Then one day the goldfish turns into a beautiful woman and becomes his mistress.

So, he was looking for funding about 8 months ago -- which is great in itself, that he's willing and able to do another film (unless he's only doing it on account of some bad gambling debts or something, in which case it's bittersweet) -- but Google hasn't turned up anything more recent than last October, so it's very possible the film dried up. I'd have cut him a cheque if I knew where to send it. That said, the IMDb says it's completed, however little that's worth. Maybe someone here's a little more proficient a googler? Either way, good on Suzuki.

[yaojinlong]

Suzuki's Detective Bureau 23: Go to Hell, Bastards! will be released by Kino on the 19th of May 2009.

yeah, I know that film,this film is also based on the novel by Haruhiko Oyabu who write YOUTH OF THE BEAST. But I don't think this is as good as youth.