Goro's Asian Movies and Stuff Blog

$450 TOP GUN DVD available (US)

Seriously.  Come on, you know you love the movie, so pony up the $450 (Y49800) to buy the uber deluxe special gargantuan edition of TOP GUN from Japan.  The specs:

Digitally remasted. Comes with a bonus disc containing interview with young Tom Cruise, and more. This limited edition comes with a Helmet Bag (Height: 500mm, Width 480mm, Handle: 70mm) and a MA-1 (Flight Jacket - Length: 672mm, Width: 648mm) manufactured by ALPHA. A 16-page booklet included.

It's the TOP GUN dvd, bonus disc, Helmet Bag, and Flight Jacket?!  Really takes Special Editions to a new level.  Only 5000 of them made so get it now... frankly, I'd rather buy 1/2 of the GODZILLA Head set!

Here's the link, though for the insane people.[link]

 

new DVDs listed at DVDAsian

Some cool new titles are listed at DVDAsian for purchase.  I'm still holding off as, although I'm nearing the end of my to-watch shelf, I'm still a bit underfunded (Mercedes needed new brakes, donated $1000 to Ballet Arizona, paid tuition, ... ) so I'm waiting until the end of the month, but taking note of what I want to buy, lest I forget...

The BOW (KOR) New Kim Ki-Duk
Rules of Dating
The Aggressives
Blood Rain
Initial D
Kung Fu Mahjong
36 Quai de Orfevres

Hopefully abda will get these so as to temper my need.

Amazon US DVD rental getting closer (US)

It's just a matter of time.  We all knew that Amazon was gearing up for it.  Heck, if you've checked Amazon's UK site in the past YEAR, you've seen that they've already implemented a rental scheme there (it seems kinda cool).

I've given up on Netflix for ABDA a while back but for people who don't know about ABDA or don't have the ability to use them, amazon could be a nice alternative.  The key being (a) distro centers/turnaround time, (b) price, (c) catalog.  For me, (c) is the more important as I'd like to be able to rent all those Asian films that they list for sale.

Anyway, here's the Wired story that has spurred this entry [link].  Most notable is that perhaps Amazon could join with Blockbuster!  *shudder*

TOHO and TOEI join BluRay (JPN)

BluRay and HD-DVD is going to be an interesting, if painful, format war for a while.  Already we know that the studios have fallen in line and to me, it looks like BluRay has the better of that lineup with Columbia TriStar, MGM, Fox, and Disney/Pixar.  HD-DVD has Paramount, WB, Universal.  With Dreamworks still in limbo.

Now, furthering my interest in BluRay is that TOHO and TOEI are backing BluRay.  It also seems that Pony Canyon (who produce many Japanese DVDs) is also backing BluRay.

Press Release:

Toho Co., Ltd., the same company that unleashed Godzilla on the world back in 1954 and one of Japan's most prominent movie studios, is among the latest companies to join the Blu-ray Disc Association. As a leading production house and distributor of Japanese movies, Toho has amassed a library of more than 2,500 titles.

Also joining the association is Toei Video Company, well-known in Japan for its production of movies as well as sales of DVDs and other packaged media. Toei Video generates a steady stream of release titles from its parent company, Toei Company Ltd., including Japanese films, animation and independent films.

Both companies appreciate the fact that adoption of the high-definition format is further along in Japan than in the United States. By making leading Japanese titles available in the Blu-ray format, Toho and Toei Video are capable of gaining market share among those who are traditionally early adopters.

The addition of movie studios like Toei Video and Toho underscores the broad range of industries supporting the development of the Blu-ray format.

My first impulse is to NOT be an early adopter.  No. no. no.  But, I do notice that DVDs don't necessarily look that great on my 50" DLP and if the BluRay players are (say) $500 or so and the discs are <$30, then there's a good chance I'll bite.  ESPECIALLY if there is a good catalog of Japanese DVDs as well as Korean ones.  I'm also interested in what the Copy Prot schemes as well as the region coding schemes are.  Hopefully, they'll realize that Region Coding is useless/pointless and stupid.

I hate to support Sony b/c it is an Evil Empire, but (for now) BluRay seems like the better option.

2 Ghibli (Takahata) R1 DVDs release next week (JPN)

Ghibli is NOT just Miyazaki.  Takahata Isao is the other master there and his films have a dynamically different flavor to them.  Next week sees two more of them released onto US soil:  MY NEIGHBORS THE YAMADAS and POM POKO.  YAMADAS is like watching a Japanese FoxTrot serial made into a single movie.  While POM POKO is about the war between the Tanukis (Raccoons) and the humans.  I just wonder about how Disney has handled the scenes regarding the Tanukis' genitals....!  (hard to explain.  you sorta have to just see it).

each is $21 at Amazon.

More DVDs watched

I watched a few more Asian films this weekend.  Hopefully by the end of the month, when new Japanese DVDs like TONY TAKITANI, FANTASTIPO, and LORELEI come out I'll be able to buy them.

BE WITH YOU (JPN) - I've been interested in this movie since I heard that Jennifer Garner wanted to do the remake.  Finally got to watch it.  Absolutely amazing.  Almost painfully tender and beautiful.  Both acting and direction are handled with a gentle hand makes this very effective.  Like a cross between GHOST and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE with a touch of OVERBOARD... kind of.  It's been a year since his wife died from some disease and he and his son have been living on.  It's the rainy season and she's come back to them, but she has no memory.  She has only until the rainy season ends before she has to return and in that time, she, he, and their son fall in love with each other all over again.  The beauty is in the delicacy in which its handled and that it manages to give equal weight to wife-husband love, first love, father-son love, mother-son love.  The coda is especially beautiful.  I can only imagine how Garner will botch this nearly perfect film...

ANTARCTIC JOURNAL (KOR) - In some ways reminiscent of the Kurosawa vignette in DREAMS with the snowbound explorers.  It's a drama and a horror story of sorts.  6 men are on an Antarctic expedition to get to the POI, a point reached only by one other set of explorers.  Along the way, in addition to the natural dangers (like crevasses and storms), mysterious, perhaps supernatural, things happen and one-by-one the men are killed and the mental health of the remaining men falls into question. Visually stunning and interesting with great acting, but ultimately a somewhat pointless exercise.  In this it's comparable to teh Korean horror movie RED EYE; it has much in its favor but the single drawback is that there's no point to the story, which ultimately leaves the movie with a rather empty feeling.

BLIND SHAFT (CHI) - Documentary-style movie about a two conmen.  They have a scheme where they befriend a person, have him pretend to be a relative, and then go work as coalminers.  When the time is right, they kill the person, cause a cave-in, and demand a payoff.  On their latest scheme, the boy they befriend is naive and sweet and one of the men begins to feel compassionate for him which leads to complications.  It's an interesting movie, but ultimately unfolds about as you'd imagine and the movie is mostly about watching it unfold.  The biggest drawback is the naive boy, played by the actor in A WORLD WITHOUT THIEVES playing almost the same character.  This boy is so painfully naive that it borders on retarded, lapsing beyond sympathetic to pathetic.  At times, I was hoping the two guys would just go ahead and kill him.  Fortunately the movie is relatively short and to the point, but I couldn't help but feel like (as in AJ above) there was little point to the story. 

TEMPTATION OF THE WOLVES (KOR) - Painful teeny rom melodrama with echoes of Romeo and Juliet.  She's a new girl, just moved to the city from the country.  The handsome leaders of rival gangs each fall for her and proceed to battle for her affections in painfully predictable and derivative fashion. 

JIANG-HU (HK) - The HK underworld.  Mr. Hung and Lefty are the best-friend bosses of a Triad.  Word gets out that someone's been hired to kill Mr. Hung.  Two young boys working their way up the Triads and one of them has been selected to do the assassination.  The story follows the parallel stories of best friends at the top and best friends working their way up.  Final sequence is absolutely beautiful and is a perfect conclusion to the story.  Intense and interesting paced with an economy of storytelling at under 90min.  Well worth watching.

4 Samurai Criterion DVDs coming in Oct (JPN)

Still checking out the Criterion coming soon website [link] and there are four notable Japanese chambara films coming out in October (in addition to the already noted HARAKIRI due out this month).

SAMURAI REBELLION [link] msrp $29.95

Toshiro Mifune stars as Isaburo, an aging swordsman living a quiet life until his clan lord orders that his son marry the lord’s mistress, who has recently displeased the ruler. Reluctantly, father and son take in the woman, and, to the family’s surprise, the young couple fall in love. But the lord soon reverses his decision and demands the mistress’s return. Against all expectations, Isaburo and his son refuse, risking the destruction of their entire family. Director Masaki Kobayashi’s Samurai Rebellion is a gripping story of a peaceful man who finally decides to take a stand against injustice.

SWORD OF THE BEAST [link] msrp $29.95

Legendary swordplay filmmaker Hideo Gosha’s Sword of the Beast chronicles the flight of retainer Gennosuke, who kills one of his clan’s ministers as part of a reform plot. He is pursued by his former comrades, and the betrayal so shakes his sense of honor that he decides to live in the wild, like an animal. There he encounters a motley group who are illegally mining the shogun’s gold and, with the aid of another master swordsman, gets a chance not just at survival but to recover his name and honor.

SAMURAI SPY [link] msrp $29.95

Years of warfare end in a Japan unified under the Tokugawa shogunate, and samurai spy Sasuke Sarutobi, tired of conflict, longs for peace. When a high-ranking spy named Koriyama defects from the shogun to a rival clan, however, the world of the swordsmen is thrown into turmoil. After he is unwittingly drawn into the conflict, Sarutobi tracks Koriyama, while a mysterious, white-hooded figure seems to hunt them both. By tale’s end, no one is who they seemed to be, and the truth is far more personal than anyone suspected. Director Masahiro Shinoda’s Samurai Spy, filled with clan intrigue, ninja spies, and multiple double crosses, marks a bold stylistic departure from swordplay film convention.

KILL! [link] msrp $29.95

In this pitch-black action comedy by Kihachi Okamoto, a pair of down-on-their-luck swordsmen arrive in a dusty, windblown town, where they become involved in a local clan dispute. One, previously a farmer, longs to become a noble samurai. The other, a former samurai haunted by his past, prefers living anonymously with gangsters. But when both men discover the wrongdoings of the nefarious clan leader, they side with a band of rebels who are under siege at a remote mountain cabin. Based on the same source novel as Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro, Kill! playfully tweaks samurai film convention, mixing in elements from Italian westerns and established chanbara classics alike.

These are available separately or together in a single boxset called REBEL SAMURAI: SIXTIES SWORDPLAY CLASSICS [link] msrp $99.95

LE SAMOURAI Criterion DVD coming Oct (FRA)

On the Criterion website [link], they list Jean Pierre Melville's masterpiece LE SAMOURAI as due out in October.  This is a french film and, despite the title, is not about a Samurai, but rather a hitman.  Of course, this is a monumental film, not just because it is so cool and stars the always amazing Alain Delon, but because this is the acknowledged source for John Woo's seminal masterpiece THE KILLER.

Here's the synopsis from the Criterion website:

In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays blue-eyed Jef Costello, a fedora- and trench-coat-wearing contract killer with samurai instincts. When Jef assassinates a nightclub owner, he finds himself confronted by a series of witnesses, who drop his perfect world into the hands of a persistent police investigator and Jef’s shadowy employer, both of whom are determined to put an end to the smooth criminal. A razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology—maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterpiece Le samouraï defines cool.

Not yet [properly] listed at Amazon, so keep your eyes open.

LORELEI R2 DVD coming 8/19 (JPN)

Japanese supernatural submarine movie LORELEI is releasing on DVD in a couple of weeks.  CDJapan has it for sale in two forms, one a standard edition, one a special edition with 2 extra discs AND UMD (but what if we don't have a PSP yet?!)

Standard Edition : 3800Y [link]
Special Edition : 7900Y [link]

ZATOICHI TV series R1 DVDs coming 11/29 (JPN)

Excellent.  just what I've been waiting for (among other things). 

From DigitalBits [link]:

Media Blasters has set Zatoichi: The TV Series - Volume 1 for release on 11/29 (SRP $29.95). The 2-disc set will include the first four episodes of the series in full frame video with Japanese Dolby Digital mono audio (with English subtitles). For the record, the episodes to be included are: A Challenge of Chance  (original airdate 10/3/74, directed by Kazuo Mori), The Flower that Bloomed with the Lullaby (10/10/74, directed by Yoshiyuki Kuroda), A Memorial Day and The Bell of Life (10/17/74, directed by Shintaro Katsu) and The Kannon Statue That Was Tied  (10/24/74, directed by Kenji Misumi).