HUMANITY AND PAPER BALLOONS is one of the greatest revelations of the home video age... I just went through my annual Yamanaka fest, just last week, watching the three films in succession.

I could never stop thanking you and Craig for bringing this masterpiece to us here in the west on such a beautifully subbed edition. Along with Grem, another perplexing passover by CC, despite getting Richie to record a full length commentary for HPB. A no brainer for Eclipse- the 3 films which all survive in fine shape- if they dont feel like straining to dig up extras, not easy. Or maybe a bare bones cc with a commentary or two and maybe a short doco.

Nick actually hinted (I think) last year that they're working on Tange Sazen so that would just leave one more Yamanaka for someone to release.

Yeah, Kochiyama is for me the big emergency here, as the subs attached to the copy most of us who have the film have acquired from back channels are pretty terrible. Despite owning the very nicely produced TANGE (Nikkatsu?)Dvd, which is very wel subbed and even provides a deleted scene or two, I'd still greedily grab an MOC, especially for the extras which I'm sure would be very good.

It is up on their Hulu page, so hopefully something is in the works to come out soon...

Regarding Yamanaka -
I would say "KOCHIYAMA Soshun" has not survived in what I would call "fine" shape. The other two films seem to have fared better.

I've been campaigning for these forever (since 2001 0r 2002)

Not to go deep into the jungles of OT ville, but these images look ' fine' to me.. Maybe not ' like new' or ' stunning' shape, but I feel comfortable running with ' fine', considering the following are from a greatly compressed avi of the dvd source:

I would say the Nikkatsu DVD of KS is mostly passable -- but some bits fare a bit worse -- and the sound often seems a bit muffled (or something) -- compared to the other two survivors. It deserves a properly subbed release -- no matter what...

..anyhow, I was going to post in the thread for HPB this link which I saw you MK had (not surprisingly) found before me. As you noted in your comment, it gives grreat insight into Yamanaka as an individual, and as an artist viz not only his handling of source material, noting changes effected vs what was handed to him, but some interesting bits.. His favorite director being Feyder(and Pension Mimosas his favorite film), as well as his opinion viz some of Ozus films... including Yamanaka describing how HE would have handled the same source material, a la his description of how he would have handled the ending for THE ONLY SON. Great stuff.

Yes -- that was an exceptionally fine article.

My viewing of the "Kochiyama" Japanese DVD was excrutiating. The audio was so bad I needed the Japanese SDH to catch any of the dialogue, some scenes were so damaged that it was hard to see what the hell was going on.

But it was the only way to watch it, unless a better print mysteriously appears somewhere.

manicsounds --

I don't think there is any source better than that Japanese DVD, alas. The "damaged" scenes you refer were (I suspect) ones set at night -- where there was not enough contrast to see things clearly enough.

I'm frankly baffled by the above comments. I read your comments manic on bluray.com where you stated that the dvd was ' unwatchable'.. A comment that almost leaves me breathless.

Rather than the condition of the film, I think what's gnawing you is, instead of the shape that the film comes down to us today, the effect of he use of music running beneath scenes of extensive dialog, these two combining vis the primitive sound recording and mixing equipment. Some of it interferes with the clarity of the dialog on the mono track. Calling it unwatchable or excruciating is surely a hideous exaggeration, and a look squarely in the mouth of a fine gift horse. Just goes to show the dangers of growing too comfy w CC's digital presentations, which often bear little resemblance to the celluloid from which they came (unless of course CC printed back onto celluloid the post-processing digital master, a la REGLE).

I just ran the whole film on speedscan, and can't find a single spot that isn't.of the quality of my caps.. In one or two spots there are some tramlines, but this is only at the beginning or end of a reel and lasts but a second or two. I heartily.concur woth Trond at MOC who proclaims the high quality of the overall set.. He champions the restos in the set here.

The DVD of Kochiyama Soshun looks significantly better than the unofficial copy I relied on prior to the release of the DVD. ;~}

Yup, when I said "unwatchable" for the "Kochiyama" DVD, I probably should have said "Hard to watch and hard to hear because of the terrible shape of the original elements" instead...

I'll reserve the term 'unwatchable' for those "_____ Movie" titles and Sandra Bullock movies....

To make things clear on what I like to watch, I absolutely love the Kino Buster Keaton shorts Blu-ray, the Korean Film Archive "Past Unearthed" sets, Georges Melies films, and other non-pristine condition titles. I loved them for their content and as historical artifacts, but it just saddens me that they have to survive in such shape.

Having had a look at the subtitle text I am surprised nobody has ever gone to the trouble of improving on them. You wouldn't need to speak Japanese, just English. Watch the movie and edit it to make it read properly. I'd do it if I were sure there was not going to be a release any time soon. I might do it anyway once I've finished my current Epstein project (Robert Macaire) though I've only done silents before.

Blot? Or are you working on them with a brit known hereabouts as cineman?

As it so happens, just the other day I was giving some consideration to having a go at these, as I do have passable knowledge of Japanese (especially written), and there's a Japanese subtitle file out there. I'm busy this week, but I may be able to start looking into it over the weekend.

Good to hear, drop me a line if you change your mind. I have a text file of the English subs if it makes your life easier though IIRC the timings are a little out of synch as well.

No idea what Blot means... Yes, I think cineman was the name. I did the subs for the restored version of Feu Mathias Pascal, a pleasure to become so closely acquainted with that film and Cavalcanti's gorgeous sets, as it is with the Epstein, though I was somewhat nonplussed to begin with as a 3 hour comedy was not what I expected (well, comedy so far, 75% of the way through). The sidekick Bertrand is a wonderful comic character though. Macaire reminds a little too much of a more recent non-comic but I won't say who as I would not like to plant the seed in anyone else's head.

Thanks, I will do so if it ends up being too much for me to handle right now, but hopefully it will be smooth sailing. I do have that English sub file as well. There are some parts of that existing translation that are nearly incomprehensible (to me at least); hopefully I'll be able to go further in clearing things up with the Japanese text to refer to.

Okay, this ranks among my favorite films and for a long time it's been my intention to buy this. However, since I live in Finland, Amazon.co.uk isn't currently a possibility since what they're selling is actually sold by ARVOnlineSales and fulfilled by Amazon, and they don't ship internationally. (The other Marketplace seller also only delivers domestic). Do you guys know a reliable seller where I could get this at a reasonable price?

Also - this isn't going OOP, is it? Maybe it's just selling slow so that Amazon hasn't taken huge stock, but I find it strange that they're carrying it so lightly.

If you're patient enough to wait for Eureka to add it to their direct offers page (typically updated once a month), shipping is free to anywhere in the world.

Absolutely brilliant, thanks for the link! I'll wait for them to update and buy it from them directly.

You don't want to buy it from them anyway as it's not a Master of Cinema edition that they are selling. Unfortunately I discovered this from personal experience.

You mean ARVOnlineSales? What a bummer - sorry to hear that you had to find it out that way. Is the edition they're selling the one that's available on eBay for a few pounds? Link: http://tinyurl.com/dxsylw6.