One of these (list from Annie Mall) will be released:


Mmm... wild guesses.

If I had a DVD company I woult put out (other than every Ozu film) Page of Madness, some Shimizu (maybe Arigato San and/or Children of the Beehive... anything, I must see this man's films), maybe some 30s or 50s Mizoguchi, all the Naruse I could find (from Wife be like A Rose! up), Hani, Imamura (specifically A Man Vanishes), and the other two Yamanakas. There's some Japanese for ya! Now I'm all excited.

Of the more recent stuff, I'd like to see Jun Ichikawa's Tokyo Siblings and Dying at a Hospital.

So far, the best of the Shimizu films I've seen have been "Japanese Girls at the Harbor", "Notes of an Itinerant Performer", "Arigato-san" and "Ornamental Hairpin". Of these, I love, the last best -- but all are wonderful -- and worthy of DVD release.

The other two Yamanaka's are both quite good -- but belong to a different company (Nikkatsu).

Naruse's masterpieces start even before "Wife Be Like a Rose" with "Nightly Dreams" and "Apart from You" . There are at least 20 films by Naruse that should be available on DVD.

Imamura's early work is still missing in (subtitled DVD) action -- and should not be. "Pigs and Battlerships", "Insect Woman" and "Intentions of Murder" are all great.

I just saw my first Hani (He and She) and was impressed at its quirky blend of Naruse and French New Wave.

So, the following have been eliminated:
Sadao Yamanaka's The Million Ryo Pot and Soshun Kochiyama
Hiroshi Teshigahara's Man without a Map and Summer Soldiers
Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses

The Shindos have got to comprise at least part of the "Japanese Summer". I'm praying for some Shohei Imamura, which hasn't been denied in the old MoC thread. Of all possible Imamura films, the ones Kerpan mentions would seem to be the most likely. I'm praying for The Insect Woman, at least...

Awesome, awesome news.

Speaking of Shindo makes me realize we don't have any Masumura DVDs in R2 (Europe) !
It would be so great to see titles like RED ANGEL, IREZUMI or SEISAKU'S WIFE on DVD...

I can see this is really going to be the "amuse peerpee" thread. Anyways, I don't really have any speculation to contribute, except that I'm excited.

Please grant me my wish and release Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition Trilogy in decent transfers (I refuse to buy the Image discs).

Either that or his own Hara-Kiri would be just fine!

Well, for peerpee's amusement, I'll speculate that we'll see a MoC release of Shinoda's Pale Flower seeing as Eureka have been promoting the Wild Japan Festival that is screening it, and Onibaba (one of the other festival titles) already being on the cards.

You're right. In fact I was going to mention this yesterday but somehow forgot. Here's a link:

http://www.wildjapan.co.uk/films.php

I can only hope that the Wild Japan festival offers an indication of upcoming Japanese titles. Seeing the ultra-rare School of the Holy Beast and Woman with Red Hair on MoC DVD would amazing. I guess Pale Flower is more likely though...

We really need a DVD of Page of Madness and MoC seem like the folks to to do it right.

Hi,

According to the MoC site:

The Idiot [Hakuchi]
(Kurosawa, 1951) Eureka/MoC R2 UK

Naked Island
(Shindo, 1960) Eureka/MoC R2 UK

Vengeance is Mine
(Imamura, 1979) Eureka/MoC R2 UK

All listed for June.

Regards,

Dennis

Bingo! Well spotted....can't wait to see the extras they have lined up for these titles...especially Vengeance is Mine...

I wonder if there's any chance of the following:
Imamura commentary.
An English-subtitled version of Shohei Imamura - Le libre penseur, the 60 minute French TV documentary by Portuguese director Paulo Rocha.
A liner notes contribution by Takashi Miike (in many respects Imamura's protege).

JUNE
MoC #12 - NAKED ISLAND (Shindo, 1960)
MoC #16 - THE IDIOT (Kurosawa, 1951)
MoC #17 - VENGEANCE IS MINE (Imamura, 1979)


More to come in July, August, and September.

More Japanese?

I hope that Shochiku lets MOC use the newest and nicest restored versions -- because the Panorama versions of "Idiot" and "Vengeance" (welcome as they were) clearly were not based on the highest quality sources.

I hope so !
June would be too short a summer !

We can expect Onibaba and Kuroneko in August/September, for sure...

Is The Idiot going to be the 265min original version? Is that even possible? I'm not sure if prints of this exist or not (not up to snuff on my Kurosawa knowledge). Great slate though... Vengence is Mine is easily one my personal favorite films and a world classic (can't wait to see the cover).

I don't think Shochiku saved any of the material it chopped out of Kurosawa's original version of "the Idiot". Maybe one of the Abes pulled the thrown away bits out of the trash? ;~}

MEK

On a side note, it's a pity MoC wasn't able to include this wonderful documentary on any of the two Teshigahara titles:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110601/

It would have made perfect sense. What happened peerpee?

I think this qualifies as Random Speculation but it's also very likely that we'll see some of these titles added to the series in the coming months and years.

http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/de/03-01- ... ion-1.html

Don't forget that the MoC site has confirmed some from that list already:

I wonder where this leaves Murnau's City Girl/Our Daily Bread? Only later Murnau not on DVD, I think (and I'm sure I read somewhere last year that it had been restored). According to imdb.com there're 77min. (short talkie?), 90min., and 120min versions (silent?). MoC or Criterion, this needs a release.

Annie, the projects were halfway through when we chased this up, and we didn't receive any response to our enquiries. We shall continue pursuing it though.

I'm not fishing for hints of future releases, but I'm assuming there's a good chance you'll be releasing another film with a score by Toru Takemitsu at some point in the future. The documentary is not tied to the Teshigahara releases as the only possible films on which it could be an extra...right?