Nice to hear such an encouraging report (and welcome, fred).

Agreed. I too have the Straub/Huillet DVDs along with some other DVDs from Kinokuniya, they are all excellent, Kinokuniya "is the best DVD company in the world" in my humble opinion.

I see where Madman in Oz has begun release of several Mizoguchis. I'm particularly interested in Loyal 47 Ronin and hoping against the odds that the transfer/source material is at least acceptable. The only Australian review website I seem able to locate is Michaels - which may or may not review at some point. Perhaps some of the Forum's Aussie correspondents have received word on this disc's quality? Thanks -

David, I have been unable to find this disc anywhere, but I assumed (perhaps wrongly) it would have been a port of the Carlotta disc from a couple of years ago which was, while not HD quality, as good a restoration as one could have expected. (It certainly stimulated me to look at the film again with new eyes.) But it would have required subtitling of course.

Why don't you PM John Stivatkis at MichaelDVD? He seem to be keeping up with these, or even our own RufusTFirefly?

For what it's worth there is a DVD of the 1962 Inagaki version out here - maybe this was what it was all along?

Australian site ezydvd have Mizoguchi's 47 Ronin for sale: http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/806999 - a 2 disk set unlike Inagaki's. I'm sure I'll buy this within a week - so if you don't hear anything from more reputable sources I'll let you know how it went quality wise.

John Chaos is a lot cheaper than ezy!!

Just ordered from Chaos - I'm not crazy. Looking to see if Ezydvd had it in stock was just habit from when they were half decent. When it comes to actually spending money my habits have far less sway.

David H and John -

Thanks - if a Carlotta port, that sounds promising. John, don't want to put you in a position of being the canary in the mineshaft, so I'll probably order from Chaos on a blind buy (transfer-wise at any rate). Won't be the first time.

Oh just wait, my order has already been placed. They've already sent me an email saying they've dispatched - so hopefully I'll receive it tomorrow and I'll post a lazy VLC image capture then. Even if the visuals are crap I've wanted to see this film for so long.

Sadly however, your message has reminded me of my biggest fear for this DVD, that Madman will once again make the subtitles a bright canary yellow.

Madman stuff never seems to be in the stores on the release date - in my experience it's often the following week. 47 was only due to be released yesterday (21/4) after many delays. Definitely not in either of the JB Sydney city stores today. However I've ordered it from JB online - cheaper than Chaos even, despite JB's excessive postage charges. AFAIK MichaelDVD has not received a review copy yet.

Rufe do you have the Carlotta disc to compare it with? Impressions/capos would be very welcome. I am certain I put up a few Carlotta caps way back when on the caps thread.

47 Ronins is not Carlotta, but MK2. Which can be not that good. They have their lot of bad releases (like Derzou Ouzala, for exemple).

No. And the Madman is on back-order, so I won't see it for a week or two I guess.

Mine's arrived, and after a quick peak I have no regrets. Happily, Madman didn't do anything egregiously stupid: it's split over 2 DVD9s, and the subtitles aren't a hideous canary yellow. The image is sometimes a bit soft, but surprisingly little print damage - closer in quality to MOC's Humanity and Paper Balloons than their Mizoguchi releases.

Canya chuck us a cuppla quick piccies?

Of course, I just grabbed some then. However, I have no idea how upload pictures to this board for posting. Ahhh screw it that's what horrible free sites are for.

Beaudy Mate!

It does indeed look like a port of the MK2!

Is it a definite improvement over the old Image DVD? Also, who owns the UK rights?

The copyright holder is Shochiku so it's up for grabs.

Madman were very clever to put out the first English subbed version.

Well that's an easy yes. Here's a comp w the first cap:




I'd imagine that Image put out the first eng-subbed edition way back when. But it's clearly outdated nowadays.

Cripes!

Didnt even know there was a prior Image...

to be perfctly honest there aint that much difference. Certainy the MK2 is quite "soupy", blanched contrast, etc..

Schreckoroo you constantly confound me!

Neither did I! I've been subsisting on that awful Korean edition with the Vogon subtitles. I paid £30 for it (four years ago).

Arse.

That Image disc isn't so bad given that it's almost ten years old now. The main problem there was indeed the print quality, but that goes for practically all Japanese films from the 40s. But of course there is no doubt that the new edition here is superior in general image quality; I'm just not fully sure that it is improved so much that I should double-dip.

Here's the Beaver comparison for the Image and the Korean disc.

Yeah I'm surprised you guys didn't know about that Image disc-- an english subbed edition of 47 Ro's was quite an important thing back in the early days of DVD... this prior to Mizo's real bigtime "rediscovery" in the younger cinephile community (as opposed to critics in the know who've been hip to works like Sansho and Ugetsu Monogatari for decades), especially as CC started bringing the best known titles out in premium editions.

It's faults-- especially versus the fully restored editions of today from best possible archive elements-- beyond five years ago didn't come anywhere near overwhelming its pluses.

As for the differences, despite the soupy look of the MK2, you can see them clearly in the clothing and face details, especially of the ronin's master who is being restrained after his attack.

Ah... Looking at the Beaver comparison reminded me why I didn't get the Image disc a few years ago. It was selling for about £100 or more. I was confused earlier because both that and the Korean version are now available quite cheaply. Anyway, I'm so glad this is coming out in a respectable edition - probably my favourite Mizoguchi - and hope US/UK editions will follow soon.