DVD Spin Doctor

Massive Kurosawa set due from Criterion

Criterion will cheer fans of Japanese cinema with its December release of "AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa." 

The $400 set includes a swarm of previously released Criterion Kurosawa releases, bolstered by four new-to-region 1 titles, all made during WWII: "The Most Beautiful" (1944), "The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail" (1945), and the two "Sanshiro Sugata" movies (1943, 1945).

"Sanshiro Sugata" aka "Judo Saga" tells the story of a martial arts student who fights his way to maturity. The "Sugata"sequel (poster below) sends the hero up against American boxers. "Sanshiro Sugata" was Kurosawa's first film as a primary director. Its release on DVD was long overdue on these shores. These are clearly the best new titles.

 "Tiger's Tail" tracks a fugitive lord and his entourage as they travel in disguise through a dangerous forest. It's an hourlong film, lightly regarded. "Tiger's Tail" was banned by occupying U.S. forces.

 "The Most Beautiful" is a propaganda-like effort that profiles young women who work in an optical plant in the waning days of WWII.

"AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa" includes many classics -- such as "The Lower Depths," "Throne of Blood," "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai" -- as well as the obscure. There is "Kagemusha," but not "Ran." 

Among the other early titles are "One Wonderful Sunday" (1947) and "Scandal" (1950) two terrific entertainments from last year's "Post-War Kurosawa" box. (View the list of the new Kurosawa box set's titles.)

Note that the versions of these films in the box set are not necessarily the latest and greatest from Criterion, which has done multiple releases of many Kurosawa works.

Criterion's Kurosawa regulars Stephen Price and Donald Richie contribute to an illustrated book that comes with the linen-bound set. 

The Kurosawa box set from Criterion streets Dec. 8. 

"Throne of Blood," also included, has just been rereleased as an Essential Art House title, going for about $14 on Amazon. This is the master at his best. Also, "Kagemusha" hit Blu-ray last month with stunning visuals.

Other upcoming Criterion issues of note are "Wings of Desire" (Nov. 3), "Z" (Oct. 27) and the recent "A Christmas Tale," with Catherine Deneuve (Dec. 1). 

Buy "AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa" at Amazon for only $299.

Blu-ray review: Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha'

Criterion's Blu-ray of Akira Kurosawa's late-period masterpiece "Kagemusha" merits a table-pounding call for owners of the previous DVD to upgrade. It's that work of alchemy we've been waiting for since the classics label got into the HD game.

Purists who hated Kurosawa's move from soulful black and white into color will find plenty of aggravation here. The colors are amazingly saturated -- almost to the point where you wonder about the authenticity. Compared with the standard definition DVD of 2005, it's like watching another movie. An even more exciting movie.

The Blu-ray's 4.0 audio adds to the myriad visual pleasures. Shinichiro Ikebe's score comes across strong, with vivid separation across the three front speakers. The taiko drums roll out just like thunder while the rush of hooves fills the listener's room.

All of this comes together in the opening scene, in which a messenger runs past the colorful banners and uniforms of various companies of soldiers on his way to headquarters. By the time he gets to the purple gang, you know you're in for something special with this Blu-ray presentation.

The Criterion Collection has rereleased "Kageusha" on Blu-ray in a single-disc version that includes the thick booklet that came with the DVD (missing about an inch of width). The aspect ratio remains 1.8:5 and the running time is three hours, the full Japanese version.

The 1970s film stock retained a fair amount of grain, but that texture feels naturalistic -- it comes to us honestly and is rendered harmless by the raging colors, anyway. Contrasts are remarkably strong and there is a good dimensional pop in spots. There is some softness throughout. Wear has been banished.

"Kagemusha" offers more of a curious tale of adventure than an emotional experience on the level of Kurosawa's greatest dramas. The director deliberately keeps his characters at a distance. The movie tells of a thief who is pressed into service as a double after a great warlord dies. He grows into the job, but not nearly enough to save the mountain clan. ("Kagemusha's" cool subtitle is "The Shadow Warrior.")

The film covers the chaotic years of 1573-75, in which clans battled for control of Japan. The samurai who once fought with swords picked up rifles, a sudden advance in the art of war that led to the infamous slaughter at Nagashima and eventually to the unification of Japan. This is the world of "Kagemusha."

Akira Kurosawa "always had a great story to tell," says director George Lucas, who along with Francis Ford Coppola executive produced the film after Kurosawa struggled with financing. They brought clout and money, essentially allowing the film to be made.

The master director had feared the film would never be made and had set about telling the story via his incredibly detailed storyboards. (Some of the more dramatic storyboards reappear on the Blu-ray in a split-screen comparison with finished scenes.)

Criterion's extras from the 2005 double-disc DVD have been ported over. You can read about them in this DVD blog's review of the previous Criterion "Kagemusha." There are no additional bonus features for this high definition edition, which is fine given the generous collection already assembled. There was backstage drama to burn on this production, and it's all there in the extras.

More Kurosawa DVD reviews
High and Low
Ran & Throne of Blood

Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha': a work of art

"Kagemusha" almost wasn't made. As Akira Kurosawa despaired over his inability to find financing for his medieval samurai film, he painted.

Already famed for his elaborate storyboards, Kurosawa painted dark and bold scenes from his narrative, thinking these canvases might be the only record of the story. "I thought another script of mine would vanish into the void," the aging director recalled years later.

The American directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola came to the rescue of their hero, bringing clout and money as executive producers, and "Kagemusha" went into production in 1979.

Some of those glorious paintings now are on display at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences building in Beverly Hills, where the Academy screened a new Fox print of the warlord epic Friday night. Seeing those hand-painted images and that film in one place added up to an amazing experience.

The Fox print, which came from the original transfer negative used for the international version of "Kagemusha," looked quite good, although the grain and deterioration from age were evident. I did miss the smarter subtitles from the DVD restoration. And this was the shorter version, at 163 minutes, rather than the full three-hour Japanese version. Who could complain, though, with those images dancing across that big screen as Kurosawa unfurled his tale of a thief who stands in for a mighty warlord.

The Criterion Collection's "Kagemusha" (two discs, 2005) remains best in market and an outstanding presentation. "Kagemusha" and "Ran" have seen their reputations grow in recent years, thanks to their fine Criterion releases. The films had alienated some Kurosawa purists who basically objected to the master working in color.

Of the two, I slightly prefer "Ran," which the Academy is unspooling Saturday at its Hollywood screening theater as part of the Salute to Kurosawa. (Six of his Oscar-nominated films will screen by the end of the series on Oct. 4.)

The film Academy's Kurosawa exhibition at the Wilshire building is simply remarkable. On the ground floor gallery are a generous collection of his larger paintings, photos and many classic film posters.

On the fourth floor, "Akira Kurosawa: Film Artist" continues with items as important as the original shooting scripts for "Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon," with notes and mini-storyboards penciled in by the master. Costumes, more paintings, props, painting and calligraphy tools, his trademark sunglasses and of all things the Kurosawa house slippers.

Don't miss the Kurosawa exhibition if you're in L.A. -- and if you're a major fan consider flying in.

KUROSAWA DVD REVIEWS
High and Low
Ran
Throne of Blood

DVD review: Kurosawa's 'High and Low'

Akira Kurosawa wasn't known for film noir or crime thrillers, but he did do a genre drive-by back in 1963. Of course, it's killer.

The Criterion Collection has reissued "High and Low," the Japanese master's tale of a hardworking corporate overlord whose life is ruined after his son is targeted by kidnappers. Toshiro Mifune plays shoe executive Kingo Gondo, in another nuanced powerhouse performance.

In Japan, the movie was more descriptively called "Heaven and Hell" -- heaven being the exec's life of comfort atop a mansion on a hill; hell, the lot of the post-war poor who swelter below his air conditioned digs.

"The kidnapper's right," one cop says, as he stalks the villains through the heat and garbage. "That house gets on your nerves."

I first saw this lesser-known Kurosawa film in the big Egyptian theater in Hollywood, a rare treat since "High and Low" makes dramatic, carefully crafted use of the widescreen format. (Martin Scorsese has said the film greatly affected his compositions.) Much is lost on smaller screens, but Criterion's new presentation has plenty of impact.

Kurosawa lovers who own the old DVD should update without hesitation. (The previous version came barebones, with a booklet and a just-OK video presentation that wasn't anamorphic.)

Criterion's new "High and Low" comes with a 37-minute docu on the film, from the fine Toho series "Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create" (someone needs to release all of those in a box). Most of the cast and crew's recollections are about the demands for perfection from Kurosawa, who was just coming off the highs of "Sanjuro" and "Yojimbo."

Kurosawa deliberately infected his cast and crew with tension as he engineered two long, unforgiving one-shots -- in the exec's living room and on a speeding train. No one dared screw up. Mifune later said he couldn't properly loop the train scene because he'd nervously raced through his lines as it was shot. The production-wide jitters carried over to the screen, as the director planned.

The DVD's detailed commentary comes from Stephen Prince (author of the Kurosawa book "The Warrior's Camera"), who did equally fine talks on "Ran" and "Kagemusha." He reads his material and tends to over-explain things, but the talk richly rewards those who stick with it.

Prince spends a lot of time on the camera angles and other optical considerations. "This is one of the all-time great examples of widescreen filmmaking," he says. "It redefines the look of all later Kurosawa (films)."

Images are in the original 2.35:1 (Tohoscope, go figure), with the widescreen enhancement and no window-boxing. Some incidental damage remains on the video, such as flashing and minor scratches ... nothing to worry about. The original four-track Japanese audio is strong and clear (as stereo).

The movie is based on a 1959 Ed McBain book, "King's Ransom," one of the lesser 87th Precinct tales. Kurosawa, not surprisingly, neutered some of the Rambo elements. He retained the plot basics: the kidnapping plot goes haywire as the crooks mistakenly grab the chauffeur's kid. The rich exec then must decide if he'll pay the ransom for his servant's child, ensuring the collapse of his own personal and professional life.

The moral of the "High and Low" story is, in fact, the opposite of McBain's. Prince notes that Kurosawa was "rejecting and remaking (the book's) core values."

The black-and-white film's first half plays like a stage play, the drama contained within Gondo's modern living room. Gondo's rivals in a takeover battle come and go, along with the cops. The second half gets down to street level, where we shadow police detectives as they work the highly publicized case. The trail leads through the slums, G.I. bars, whorehouses and dope-shooting galleries.

In addition to the film's (quite obvious) 50/50 structure, there are the traditional three acts: the kidnapping, the rescue attempts and then the hardcore manhunt.

Much of the film is a cracker-jack police procedural. (It supposedly still is used as training material for Tokyo police.)

Two key performances come from Tatsuya Nakadai (terrific as the modern chief detective) and Kenjiro Ishiyama (playing a bald, old-school bulldog of a lawman). Kurosawa rode Ishiyama mercilessly, ultimately getting a great performance from an average actor. Again, Kurosawa overrules McBain, as the Japanese lawmen become dedicated to saving the suffering executive instead of victimizing him.

Kurosawa's layers of complexity and sensitivity do nothing to filter the hardcore truths at the story's core.

The director took up the project partly because of a series of horrific Japanese kidnappings in the early '60s that resulted the murders of children. "High and Low" inspired legislation that greatly increased penalties for ransom crimes.

There can be no mistaking the warning issued in the chilling final frames, as the steel slams shut.

* * * * *

Viewers should set aside time for the bonus chat-show footage with Mifune, first broadcast about the time of "Shogun." The TV show feels like fluff but the content is terrific.

The stylish hostess calls him "the pride of Japan," but notes that he "cleans his own production office." The great actor replies, "Poor men have no leisure."

Mifune tells his audience that the foreign filmmakers with which he'd been working ("Shogun," "Inchon") had some "funny ideas about Japan" and had to be set straight.

Mifune talks about how he left the army with "two blankets and 1 yen" before finding a job at Toho. He tried out for acting work, refusing to smile in auditions because there wasn't much to smile about: "I was accepted as an oddball, out of mercy."

The double-DVD set also contains an interview with the edgy actor who played the kidnapper; trailers from the East and West; and a decent but overwritten essay in a thick handsome booklet.

New DVDs: 'A Dirty Carnival' for Korean gangs

"A Dirty Carnival" has drawn comparisons with the American gangster films of Martin Scorsese -- quite a stretch but also a compliment to the makers of this sturdy Korean action film.

"Dirty Carnival" (2006), just released here on DVD by Genius Entertainment, tells of a Seoul hoodlum who faces various crises as he turns 30: his family faces eviction; his mother suffers from a terminal disease, he's under the thumb of a miserly midlevel crime boss; and he's sweet on a goodie-goodie bookstore clerk who hates hoods.

The charming antihero, played by Adam Sandler-esque TV actor Jo In-Seong, sucks up to an elegant crime lord in a bid to find the money for his family's needs. It's a devil's bargain: To rise in the organization he has to murder a crooked prosecutor, a shocking crime even to these lowlifes.

Meanwhile, an old pal turned film director turns up, bent on getting the lowdown on gangster life for his next project. The script follows life too closely, with tragic results. The buddy story is a good one, one of several strong B-stories.

"A Dirty Carnival" (Biyeolhan Geori) checks in at something like 2 1/2 hours, but doesn't feel particularly long. Director Yoo Ha, a poet, deftly interweaves and paces his narratives (he's also known here for "Once Upon a Time in High School").

The acting is surprisingly good, with few clunker characters, although the romance flirts with the yucky sentimentality common to Asian gangster films.

The Scorsese comparisons come in reaction to the lowdown action scenes, which bring to mind the brutality of Kinji Fukasaku's seminal "The Yakuza Papers" instead of the bullet-ballets of John Woo. (If I had to desert-island two Asian gangster films, they would be "Yakuza" and "Infernal Affairs."

While star Jo In-Seong spent eight months in martial arts training, there are few high-flying kicks or superhuman moves. Mostly, gangs take to each other with baseball bats until no bones are left unbroken. Some of the fight sequences, such as the muddy river brawl, are truly spectacular in their grubby way.

The Genius DVD includes a breakdown of the fight sequences and eight rough-cut deleted scenes. The fight featurette details the production's real-life injuries brought on by breaking glass and hurling bodies, including a production-halting accident involving the star. Anyone with an interest in action films should get a look at this docu. Unfortunately, a half dozen extra features found on the region 3 DVD aren't included here.

The good-looking film comes in widescreen, with the 16x9 enhancement. The (Korean) 5.1 audio is surprisingly good; don't open the door when someone knocks onscreen.

(Genius has imported quite a few South Korean films.)

Also circling the DVD blog's players this week are the two George Romero zombie films "Diary of the Dead" (2007) and the original "Night of the Living Dead," both from Dimension Extreme. From Criterion comes "The Delirious Fictions of William Klein." MGM swings back to the late '60s with an attractive trio: Blake Edwards' "What Did You Do In The War, Daddy," William Friedkin's "The Night They Raided Minsky's" and the frothy "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium."

New and notable:
Company (Image Entertainment)
Diary of the Dead (Dimension Extreme)
Night of the Living Dead (Weinstein Co./Genius Products)
A Dirty Carnival (Genius Products)
The Delirious Fictions of William Klein (The Criterion Collection)
Exes & Ohs (Paramount)
The Flock (Weinstein/Genius)
Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C, season 4 (Paramount)
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (MGM)
The Night They Raided Minsky's (MGM)
What Did You Do In The War, Daddy (MGM)
Jeff Corwin Experience, season 2 (Animal Planet/Genius Products)
The Muppet Show, season 3 (Disney)
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets (Disney)
Penn and Teller Bullshit, season 5 (Paramount)
Robot Chicken: Star Wars (Warner)
Strange Wilderness (Paramount)
Tom Selleck Western Collection (Warner)
24 Season One Special Edition (Fox)

Complete list of this week's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Kon Ichikawa dies; war films on Criterion

Kon Ichikawa, the Japanese director who died a few days ago, was largely unknown in the West -- at least compared with his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu.

Ichikawa was best known here for two works from the 1950s that were released to DVD about a year ago by the Criterion Collection: "The Burmese Harp" (1956) and "Fires on the Plain" (1959). Critics felt that Ichikawa failed to keep up with the evolution of cinema in following decades. In any case, after these masterful films the man had nothing left to prove.

"The Burmese Harp" is an elegaic WWII movie about a Japanese soldier who goes native while on duty in Burma. It has a fine hypnotic quality that props up its simple yet well-told story. It begins as an oddball service musical and ends in mystical territory, somehow making the transition look easy. Many of Japan's antiwar films from the 1950s feel forced or amateurish -- here is a pleasing and intriguing work of art.

Ichikawa discusses the film in the extras, which run about a half hour.

"Fires on the Plain" is Ichikawa’s hard-core look at the war, this time set in the horrific final days of the Philippines conflicts. It has a documentary feel and is regarded as one of the great Japanese war films.

Ichikawa again is interviewed in the extras. The Japanese film expert Donald Richie does a video introduction.

Can't go wrong with either of these first-rate Criterion titles.

New DVDs: 'Mr. Bean,' Kurosawa, 'Waitress'

Pick of the week: Waitress
Dog of the week: I Know Who Killed Me

Not a lot of product this week as we see the DVD blizzard of '07 subside. Some interesting titles are popping up for the first quarter -- stay tuned for a report.

Call me weird, but I liked the underdog comedy release "Mr. Bean's Holiday." ("Mr. Hulot's Holiday" bores the hell out of me, go figure.) The Bean story has heart, lots of laughs and serves up one of the best restaurant gross-out scenes on film. (You know what they say about the first man to eat an oyster?)

Bean wins a freebie vacation, deplanes in Paris and makes his way to Cannes, on the Riviera. Along the way he teams up with a cool kid and a sweet French actress. The bad guy, a hack film director played by a crazed Willem Defoe, meets his match at the film festival as Bean (Rowan Atkinson) proves an unlikely auteur. Not much in the way of extras on this Universal DVD, probably for the best. Hey, we all have our guilty pleasures.

The Criterion Collection makes it two sweet weeks in a row with the release of "Drunken Angel," Akira Kurosawa's first film with Toshiro Mifune.

The 1948 movie, about a doctor and a gangster, is more of a historical marker than a classic, but it's fascinating to see the roots of such an epic collaboration. Extras include another episode of the Toho series "Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create" and a piece on Kurosawa vs. the occupation's censors. Kurosawa expert Donald Richie does the commentary.

Circling the DVD blog's players are Sony's anime adventure "Paprika" and Fox's indie dramadie "Waitress." (Readers of this blog probably know the backstory on Adrienne Shelly's movie about pie baking. If you don't, see the movie before learning about that talented writer-director-actress.)

New and notable:
Drunken Angel (The Criterion Collection)
First Snow (Sony)
Futurama: Bender's Big Score (Fox)
Happy Days: The Third Season (Paramount)
Hot Rod (Paramount, also HD DVD)
I Know Who Killed Me (Sony, also Blu-ray)
Laverne & Shirley: The Third Season (Paramount)
Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal, also HD DVD)
Mork & Mindy: The Third Season (Paramount)
The Namesake (Fox)
Paprika (Sony, also BR)
Peter Pan in Return to Never Land (Disney)
Spice World (Sony)
Vitus (Sony)
Waitress (Fox)

Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Deja Vu review: Kurosawa's 'Kagemusha'

The recent round of deep reflections on master film directors brought memories as well of Akira Kurosawa, for me the greatest of them all. It's both curious and gratifying that the highest-trafficked review in this DVD blog's short history is of Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and "Ran."

"Kagemusha" (1980), sometimes subtitled "The Shadow Warrior," came roughly at the same time as "Ran," and in a similar mature colorful style. Kurosawa had despaired of making this film after Japan's film establishment refused funding in the years following his suicide attempt. American fans George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola eagerly came to the master's aid, bringing clout and money as executive producers.

The film covers the chaotic years of 1573-75, in which clans battled for control of Japan. The samurai who once fought with swords picked up rifles, a sudden advance in the art of war that led to the infamous slaughter at Nagashima and eventually to the unification of Japan.

In the fields of Nagashima, Kurosawa tracks his "beloved samurai era to the point of extinction."

The Criterion Collection's double-disc set of a few years back unspools a fine-looking uncut version of this underrated film. The DVDs include an imaginative treatment of Kurosawa's watercolor storyboards as well as a history of the troubled production.

Read the complete "Kagemusha" review.

* About "Deja Vu reviews": As in, didn't I read that before ... hmm.

Yang's 'Yi Yi' a celebration of life

Global cinema lost one of its masters last week with the death of Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang. He passed away in Beverly Hills at age 59, after a years-long struggle with cancer.

Yang, who lived his adult life in the U.S., was best known for his seventh and final film, "Yi Yi." It picked up a swarm of awards upon release in 2000, including best picture from the National Society of Film Critics and best director at the Cannes film fest.

The Criterion Collection released "Yi Yi" last July, vastly improving on what by all accounts was a botched 2001 release by Fox Lorber video. The New York Times, a champion of the film from its film festival days, wrote a case study of the DVD's resurrection and restoration.

"Yi Yi" is the only one of Yang's films I've seen (I pulled it off the shelf after reading the director's obituary). It will not be the last.

The domestic epic is built around three milestones in a modern middle-class family's life: a wedding, a birth and a funeral. In the U.S., the title refers to the jazz musician's countdown "A one and a two ... " but in Asia the title signaled "one one," a reflection of the characters' solitary paths inside and outside the family. Both make sense -- this is a rich and satisfying work with many plot lines and many possible interpretations. (I saw it in part as a film about the premature end of a boy's childhood.)

Yang uses walls, hallways and glass windows to frame his scenes, bringing to mind Antonioni and serious Woody Allen. The characters fuss about and pace in and out of view while the camera stands its ground. "Yi Yi" speaks of alienation, dysfunctional families and the pools of madness below the surface of urban life, but can be downright funny. Ultimately it's a warm and life-affirming movie. At almost 3 hours, "Yi Yi" is not for impatient viewers.

Yang and his friend Tony Rayans, a critic, did the low-key commentary in which they break down the key elements and themes. In another extra, the film critic CliffsNotes the history of Taiwanese cinema, which he says essentially came to halt in the years before this film was made. "Yi Yi" was hailed worldwide, but still hasn't been released in Taiwan.

Thompson on Hollywood has a thoughtful appreciation of the director by John Anderson.

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Shaw Brothers' kung fu classics take a bow

Hong Kong's incredibly prolific and vibrant filmmaking industry basically started in 1930 with the Shaw brothers, Run Run and Runme. Their kung fu movies kick serious ass and include many classics of the genre, notably Chang Cheh's "The One-Armed Swordsman" and Lau Kar-leung's "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin." Ask any numchuck slinger or grindhouse survivor.

The Dragon Dynasty label (Genius Products and The Weinstein Company) releases both of these kung fu adventures on Tuesday, along with "King Boxer" (aka "Five Fingers of Death") and Lau Kar-leung's "My Young Auntie." They're part of the promising "Shaw Brothers Classic Collection."

The DVDs look like first-class efforts, featuring interviews with most of the key talent. Commentators include Quentin Tarantino ("King Boxer," One-Armed Swordsman"), Elvis Mitchell ("King Boxer," "Young Auntie"), the RZA of Wu-tang Clan ("36th Chamber") and Andy Klein.

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