Kurosawa DVDs from Blue Laser

On February 1, DVDFile.com posted a link to Blue Laser which featured a number of Kurosawa films on DVD. I'm interested in placing an order, but first I've got a few questions:

* anyone in a position to comment about the quality of the transfers?
* what about the subtitling?
* anyone order from Blue Laser before? What was your experience?

Cheers, and thanks,
D. Lanier (suw@mediaone.net)

[jb523]

I just ordered Stray Dog (I'm going to wait on the others until I see the quality of this title). I have a feeling that they are in-house Blue-Laser productions, duped from laserdisc. Could be wrong. In any case, they probably suck. I will post whenever I receive the disc. I figured that Stray Dog is the title most likely to look the best.

The disc is shipping from Connecticut, and I'm in Upstate New York, so I don't know how long it will take.

They're on a label called "Mei Ah", does that mean anything to you? One poster I found through Dejanews.com (Kurosawa DVD search), said the Sanshiro Sugata was quite good, but I haven't seen any of them yet. They do have English titles as an option. As to being dupes of lasers, I think many of the earlier titles never have been on LD, but who knows...
Obviously these things are a gamble, but in sending the info to the DVD file editor, I didn't expect the rather snooty attitude he took towards the whole thing today. I'm just passing on the fact that some great movies that may take a decade to be released by Criterion/Voyager are out there for the adventurous! Then we can all bitch about the discs when we get them, so everyone else can either avoid them or seek them out.

[clortho]

Obviously these things are a gamble, but in sending the info to the DVD file editor, I didn't expect the rather snooty attitude he took towards the whole thing today. I'm just passing on the fact that some great movies that may take a decade to be released by Criterion/Voyager are out there for the adventurous!

Where did you see any snooty attitudes? I sure didn't see any. What I saw was a legitimate DVD news/review/etc site (and a damned good one at that) saying they would not endorse bootlegged DVDs. How is that snooty? That completely makes sense, because if they had continued to give out such information, they could find themselves in the middle of a lawsuit in which they are accused of endorsing/promoting piracy. A legitimate site cannot do that. So where's the Phantom attitude in that?

Clortho

------------------
I am the Keymaster
clortho@hotmail.com

[jb523]

I agree. I wouldn't consider the attitude snooty, per se, but I don't think he would get in too much trouble endorsing bootlegs. In fact, I think it was a little wimpy (unless he himself takes moral issue with bootlegs, which he very well might), but perfectly understandable. Personally, I have no problem with bootlegs, and I endorse them wholeheartedly, particularly bootlegs of catalogue films that have not been released (likewise with bootlegs of concerts or old LP's that have never been released on CD). Bootlegs fill a niche in the market, and insofar as I can tell, do almost no damage to the industry itself. The only major exceptions would be video bootlegs released while the film is still circulating the theaters, and perhaps mp3's. However, I don't think that the RIAA or the Studios are under any real threat from these, but I imagine it does reduce revenue to some extent. But I digress. . .

As for LD. One Wonderful Sunday came out recently on VHS, remastered, with the source material in pristine condition as far as I could tell (on VHS). I imagine a laserdisc may also have been done. I'm surprised Criterion didn't do a dvd, since it was a Home Vision Cinema title (or whatever their name is) that usually does the VHS version of older Criterion titles. I believe there was a Criterion version of Drunken Angel (which I would love to see, as the VHS is shit), and Stray Dog. I don't know about the other titles. All of them are wonderful titles, but I think they are LD->DVD dupes (god forbid that they would be VHS->DVD dupes!). I'll let you know what Stray Dog is like when and if I get it.

OK, "snooty" was perhaps ungenerous, I'm just a little surprised that what started out as a bit of information passed on about some great films that we would all hope would get the best in video treatments (fingers crossed!),
gets slammed with an accusation of piracy, sight unseen. Frankly, I was amazed to see such stuff come out of Hong Kong's DVD offerings, which previously seemed to be either porn or HK action genre stuff. If they turn out to be pirated let's damn them to hell, but let's at least wait until a disc or two shows up, and then let the accusations fly. I'm curious what DVD File's source for the piracy accusation was for, considering the paucity of information about these discs are all around.
I suppose in the best of all possible worlds, Criterion would have all of this stuff out already (Janus films has just about all of it) and we would only be griping about paying $40 for some of them.
As I recall, in addition to the DVDs we all know about, Criterion has put out LDs of "Stray Dog" and "The Bad Sleep Well",
"Ikiru" ,"Red Beard", "Throne of Blood", and "Rashomon", and have promised "Hidden Fortress" on DVD, but I don't think they have ever done "Drunken Angel" or "One Wonderful Sunday".
These and many others were run from Janus prints in Turner Classic Movies fantastic Kurosawa festival a few months ago. They even showed his last film, "Madadayo", which has never recieved either a theatrical or video release in the US!
Neal

I have ordered from Blue Laser on many occassions. I highly recommend them. Mei Ah is a legit LD and DVD studio(producer?) in HK, I have over 100 Mei Ah titles and they vary wildly in terms of quality. It really depends on the source material-which is usually pretty bad. I have not ordered the Kurasowa titles yet. If I had to guess they are probably licensed for sale in HK and someone here may own the video rights. Calling them bootlegs is a little rough- I would call them a gray market item

[This message has been edited by Drunken Master (edited 02-04-2000).]

About Kurosawa films on DVD. Check out dvdworld.co.uk/. They have Seven Samurais for$32. It's reg 2. Do you want to modify your player? Contact dvdirect.net and they can probably help you out. Good luck!

[jb523]

That's sort of silly (if you're in America that is. Seven Samurai is available region 1 from Criterion.

I just recieved Sanshiro Sugata 1 & 2, No Regrets for Our Youth and Drunken Angel from AsiaCD.com. They don't have the whole series, but these are $20 ea.
I would say the pick of the lot is Sanshiro Suagata 1, which looks quite nice. Good black level, good detail even if it is fairly scratchy, and it does looks better than the Janus print run on TCM a few months back (my SVHS dupes from DSS are my basis of comparison here), much brighter (but not as washed out) and more detailed. As I predicted, the English translation is pretty bad, but followable. The sequel is a bit scratchier, but I don't believe I've ever seen a video of this here on any format.
"No Regrets" is about the same as my copy of the Janus print, which is to say fairly battered, with fluctuating brightness at times. But this has a less washed out look than the Janus (actually I'm not sure this was Janus on TCM -- it used to be on a Connaisseur VHS tape).
"Drunken Angel" is again comparable to the Janus print, but is somewhat poorly framed, with some information cropped from the top and right side of the frame. There's a blueish tinge to the print, so I turned the color down on my TV and it looked fine. This is the one case where I would say the Janus is better, but even this is far better than the public domain tapes I used to rent.
So -- I'm sure that if Criterion worked their magic on the Janus source material, they would equal or better these editions (and certainly the subtitles would contain less clinkers!), but I would say those who can't wait (and the wait may be a long one), I don't think you will feel your money was wasted on these. Just remember the existing source material is fairly battered on these particular films. I think I'll venture on to some of the later titles and see how they are. By the way, I'm not sure if "The Bad Sleep" well or "Red Beard" are letterboxed, so those may not be desirable.
Happy hunting!
Nea

[jb523]

I just received Stray Dog. It's pretty bad. It's better than, say Caligula, but the image is incredibly soft, with flickering and a shakey image. The source print has clearly not been worked on too much, and the transfer is not very hot. I can only believe that the dvd was taken directly from a laserdisc (it does look better than VHS). My conclusion: the title is watchable, but the image quality is distracting. If you have a regular television (i.e. trinitron), the image will look fine, except for the occasional instability of the image.

jb523
Have you seen the LD? If so, how does it compare?

[jb523]

I haven't seen the laserdisc. I've never had a player (I'm only 21). But it is the only explanation that I can come up with for the remarkable softness of the dvd transfer.

[Dominik Pfleghaar]

I had no idea you had to be older than 21 to be allowed to own a LD player

[jb523]

I'm just saying that by the time I got at all into home theater, Laserdisc was on its way out. I guess it doesn't make too much sense, as my parents could have had a laserdisc player, but if you knew my parents, then you would know that this wasn't really possible.