Seven Samurai

[nicolas]

The BFI eagle has landed…





For the record, FiM is credited in the booklet, HDR/DV on disc, BD-100 and DTS-HD 1.0 audio at 0.8 Mbps.

I have the Toho UHD as well which is a BD-100, SDR and has PCM 2.0 mono and 2.0 surround audio.

The Toho UHD presents the master heavily filtered in addition to compression, so the difference to the BFI and Criterion 4Ks (judging from fkid’s caps) is enormous. BFI also restored all the grain and detail Toho wiped away. It looks fantastic, although the grain tends to ebb and flow a bit in a couple of static sequences - not a problem of the encode but the master was definitely worked on ever so slightly but thanks to these two 4Ks it’s hardly bothersome.

BFI’s HDR/DV grade is very subtle, nuanced and gently enhances the image rather than doing anything drastically altering. Of course, the SDR presentation is also just fine and suitable on its own as I’ve compared among the releases I own, including the Criterion BD.

Caps will likely reveal which edition has more nuances in highlights but don’t expect anything revelatory (between BFI and Criterion). Regarding more dirt and damage cleanup: The BFI looks good to me but tram lines and the occasional marks are definitely there. Static scenes are generally less busy whereas rapidly edited shots and camera movements show quite a bit of damage.

However, unfortunately I have to bring bad news when it comes to audio. If you know my posts, I’m often stating that I’m not the biggest pro when it comes to audio, so I can only observe what I’m listening to. The Criterion BD’s track is the worst I’ve heard, slightly better is the BFI 4K’s, but it’s almost as muted, filtered and anemic as Criterion’s. Finally, the best of the bunch is an *excellent* dual mono track on the Toho UHD and an interesting surround mix that considerably widens the soundscape but I’m not confident in stating whether this is original or a remix and whether it’s done well.

I wish I knew whether the excellent mix shown by blah-ray (https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/la ... 954%29?m=0) is on the Toho UHD. Just as I looked at his article, I’ve seen that this great mix was/is actually available via BFI player, so it seems fair to assume that this mix would’ve been in the purview of BFI’s disc producers unless their streaming and disc operations are all separated or legal matters stood in the way.

Subtitles: Take this with a grain of salt as I only sampled the discs today and am no expert in the different translations and what’s more correct but brace for disappointment re. BFI’s subs. Most of the time, punctuation is missing (question marks and … are there) and I’ve seen at least one instance where a comma was omitted. Please point me to specific lines and approximate time stamps if you want me to check translations but yeah, I don’t think these will satisfy many.

Right now, an imaginary best edition would likely be comprised of the BFI (or Criterion depending on damage cleanup) for video, Toho 4K audio and Criterion subs.

The Jokers also have a 4K of the film out soon in France but obviously without English subs.

[tenia]

Subtitles: Take this with a grain of salt as I only sampled the discs today and am no expert in the different translations and what’s more correct but brace for disappointment re. BFI’s subs. Most of the time, punctuation is missing (question marks and … are there) and I’ve seen at least one instance where a comma was omitted. Please point me to specific lines and approximate time stamps if you want me to check translations but yeah, I don’t think these will satisfy many.

I do hope these aren't too numerous, because that'd be disappointing. Also : I hate the lack of punctuation. A few French subtitles houses do that, it really looks bad to read (to me).

[Finch]

Disappointing to hear about the subs. I'll see if Orbit will swap my BFI order for the Criterion.

[nicolas]

Subtitles: Take this with a grain of salt as I only sampled the discs today and am no expert in the different translations and what’s more correct but brace for disappointment re. BFI’s subs. Most of the time, punctuation is missing (question marks and … are there) and I’ve seen at least one instance where a comma was omitted. Please point me to specific lines and approximate time stamps if you want me to check translations but yeah, I don’t think these will satisfy many.

I do hope these aren't too numerous, because that'd be disappointing. Also : I hate the lack of punctuation. A few French subtitles houses do that, it really looks bad to read (to me).

I’m afraid they’re numerous. I also don’t like this at all, besides interrupting reading flow, it evokes sloppy working.

[yoloswegmaster]

Is the audio track on the BFI 4K the same as the Criterion 4K?

EDIT: nevermind, it looks like you don't have the Criterion release

[Finch]

Now I'm glad I hadn't preordered Stray Dog yet. Those subs are a deal breaker.

[EddieLarkin]

You'd think the BFI would know to be wary of audio coming from the Japanese studios following the Ozu release they added a secondary track to. Just check blah-ray for the craic and go from there, it ain't hard.

[nicolas]

Strangely, subtitles on the extra disc are better. I briefly checked the Oshima-Kurosawa interview and it has proper punctuation.

[therewillbeblus]

That's a shame about the subs, especially with the delayed street date. I thought BFI were typically very careful about their subtitle work? Do they have a track history of correcting their errors and offering replacement discs in situations like these?

[dwk]

The Toho UHD presents the master heavily filtered in addition to compression, so the difference to the BFI and Criterion 4Ks (judging from fkid’s caps) is enormous. BFI also restored all the grain and detail Toho wiped away. It looks fantastic, although the grain tends to ebb and flow a bit in a couple of static sequences - not a problem of the encode but the master was definitely worked on ever so slightly but thanks to these two 4Ks it’s hardly bothersome.

It sounds like Toho did most of the heavy filtering for their disc and not at the restoration stage?

[swo17]

Subtitles: Take this with a grain of salt as I only sampled the discs today and am no expert in the different translations and what’s more correct but brace for disappointment re. BFI’s subs. Most of the time, punctuation is missing (question marks and … are there) and I’ve seen at least one instance where a comma was omitted. Please point me to specific lines and approximate time stamps if you want me to check translations but yeah, I don’t think these will satisfy many.

So...sentences don't end with periods, and you thought one comma was missing? What was the phrase that was missing a comma?

[domino harvey]

Yeah, I’m not really following the call to arms here

[MichaelB]

Sometimes subtitles end with full stops, sometimes they don't; it depends entirely on the subtitling house style.

And sometimes the label has a consistent subtitling house style and sometimes they don't. I don't recall being especially exercised about such a thing when I was at Arrow - we farmed the subs out to professional subtitling houses and accepted what we were given (typo tweaks aside). Indicator really does have a thought-through house style, and indeed creates virtually everything in-house (and even stuff created elsewhere is extensively revised), but I can attest from daily personal experience that it takes a huge amount of work to maintain that consistency, and so I suspect they're quite unusual in this. In fact, it's because they do it in-house that they can maintain that level of control.

In the case of Seven Samurai, it wouldn't surprise me at all if there'd been a gap of several years and possibly even decades between the creation of the feature subs (since they've distributed the film in some form since way back into the 20th century) and the creation of the extras subs, and that entirely different subtitling houses were involved.

[ryannichols7]

I like the look of Criterion's subs over BFI's but that's a very negligible thing to me when picking a disc release. it's not like BFI use yellow subs or something

if anything I find the BFI's subs to be more thorough. it was revelatory that they subtitled all of the dialogue in Paisá, since Criterion bizarrely insist on not subtitling English dialogue in movies that are not predominantly in English. obviously this doesn't pertain to Seven Samurai, but I guess the general discussion.

hoping my package comes this week. I'm happy having the Criterion BD and BFI 4K for the most complete package of all extras/commentaries/quality

[Finch]

I've now read about the different subtitles and going by the sample that a BR user compared, I like Criterion's translation better. I also find their package more pleasing to look at. BFI always go for the exact same shot of Mifune and the CC cover which they luckily re-used for the 4K is pretty clever. So I'm going to go with the Criterion over the BFI even when it's not clear right now if they re-used their own BD's audio or if it's the same as the BFI 4K or if they got the track that nicholas liked on the Toho.

[therewillbeblus]

That Adrian Martin commentary is the real draw

[nicolas]

The Toho UHD presents the master heavily filtered in addition to compression, so the difference to the BFI and Criterion 4Ks (judging from fkid’s caps) is enormous. BFI also restored all the grain and detail Toho wiped away. It looks fantastic, although the grain tends to ebb and flow a bit in a couple of static sequences - not a problem of the encode but the master was definitely worked on ever so slightly but thanks to these two 4Ks it’s hardly bothersome.

It sounds like Toho did most of the heavy filtering for their disc and not at the restoration stage?

Yes, they introduced more filtering for their disc but the master isn’t fully free of tinkering. From what I’ve seen, traces of grain management are predominantly noticeable during opticals.

[nicolas]

Subtitles: Take this with a grain of salt as I only sampled the discs today and am no expert in the different translations and what’s more correct but brace for disappointment re. BFI’s subs. Most of the time, punctuation is missing (question marks and … are there) and I’ve seen at least one instance where a comma was omitted. Please point me to specific lines and approximate time stamps if you want me to check translations but yeah, I don’t think these will satisfy many.

So...sentences don't end with periods, and you thought one comma was missing? What was the phrase that was missing a comma?

It’s the line “I may be poor, but a samurai not a beggar!” at 0:11:06. After the “samurai”, there should be a comma, right?

[nicolas]

I've now read about the different subtitles and going by the sample that a BR user compared, I like Criterion's translation better. I also find their package more pleasing to look at. BFI always go for the exact same shot of Mifune and the CC cover which they luckily re-used for the 4K is pretty clever. So I'm going to go with the Criterion over the BFI even when it's not clear right now if they re-used their own BD's audio or if it's the same as the BFI 4K or if they got the track that nicholas liked on the Toho.

They definitely didn’t use the Toho 4K’s track. I just compared them again and it’s a massive difference, especially the music sounds so much richer and with more dynamic. I also like the 2.0 surround track on that disc very much as it makes the sound feel so much wider and less boxy. The BFI and Criterion ones can’t compare even if I significantly turn up my volume. (I don’t have the BFI BD).

[swo17]

It’s the line “I may be poor, but a samurai not a beggar!” at 0:11:06. After the “samurai”, there should be a comma, right?

That feels like an optional comma to me, but the phrasing might be clearer if it said "but I'm a samurai"

[hearthesilence]

For those with Oppos, you could always pop in an alternate set of subtitles via a flash drive, correct? If so, that just leaves the heavily-processed soundtrack as the only unfixable flaw on the BFI UHD.

[MichaelB]

It’s the line “I may be poor, but a samurai not a beggar!” at 0:11:06. After the “samurai”, there should be a comma, right?

This former professional copy-editor says it's optional. It's certainly not any kind of hideous, deal-breaking mistake.

Is that and the absence of full stops (a stylistic quirk encountered on many, many other discs) the sum total of these "errors"?

[nicolas]

It’s the line “I may be poor, but a samurai not a beggar!” at 0:11:06. After the “samurai”, there should be a comma, right?

This former professional copy-editor says it's optional. It's certainly not any kind of hideous, deal-breaking mistake.

Is that and the absence of full stops (a stylistic quirk encountered on many, many other discs) the sum total of these "errors"?

Thank you, Michael and swo for the clarification. I haven’t seen the full film yet, so I’m reserving judgment, but the missing full stops is the issue I noticed. Whether the translation is proper, I can’t tell but it shouldn’t be too long until we get some info about that on the other forum by a knowledgeable member.

Do you know by any chance which labels / subtitle creators omit full stops on a frequent basis? I can’t remember a single film I watched that had this, and since I personally consider it more bothersome than forgivable, it’d be great to have a rough idea on in that regard before a potential purchase.

[ryannichols7]

That Adrian Martin commentary is the real draw

it's the headliner for me. I could understand if someone didn't have the Criterion BD or was only interested in one package, but BFI getting Martin and the massive booklet with surely differing material than Criterion's book is a draw to me. I think the subtitles are negligible, and I'm not a huge audiophile so I'll be fine with that. the Criterion is an amazing package and I've been happy with it for years and will continue, but I don't see a need to repurchase it and get the same package from 15 years ago (as good as that cover is!), when I can get another edition with equal/better quality and something new. I tend to take this approach for a lot of movies though, and I'm not as anti-double dipping as others may be

EDIT: I've also never seen that 49 minute Tony Rayns piece, as I've never had a BFI edition of Seven Samurai, and as a huge Rayns fan I look forward to it

[tenia]

the absence of full stops (a stylistic quirk encountered on many, many other discs)

This is the first time I'm reading the absence of full stops being described as a "stylistic quirk", and in my experience, they're actually forming an extreme minority of cases (they're forming a minority of cases even just within the BFI releases !), and some of these are first-hand considered as of a lower standard by the labels having provided these tracks for their releases, and they wished not to have had to use these but instead provide tracks with full stops.
Lack of full stops would be a stylistic quirk if they made sense regarding the movies the subtitles are for, that the dialogues kinda don't have full stops and this is reflected in the subtitles.
Otherwise, it's just a hurdle in reading the subtitles by adding extra gymnastics because the viewer need to wait for the next line to know if the previous sentence actually ended or is continuing. Who likes that ? It's unpractical, and even if some might say this is on purpose, which I've never heard of before today, it reads as lazy and lacking, as if somebody forgot to handle this part of the punctuation and left it to the viewer to do so.

(I've fully used to differences in translation between releases, especially for Asian movies, so am totally fine with this, however)