A Criterion reissue

Regarding the aspect ratio, the Criterion version of the film is 2.35:1 because Criterion used a domestic US print of the film from Janus instead of the original Toho master. So it's 2.35 instead of 2.53 because 2.35 is the aspect ratio Cinemascope used at the time and to play with the anamorphic lenses already in American theaters they needed to crop it to 2.35.

The BFI Disc is presumably taken from a Toho print or some other Japanese source. The bottom line, though, is that it's not really a mistake on Criterion's part as it was done deliberately; they're presenting how the film was originally shown in the US. And it was Janus and not Criterion that did the cropping.

I agree though that Criterion needs to re-release this disc badly. It's one of the worst in the collection. Along with "Yojimbo" which also featured overzealous cropping and no additional features. Fortunately, "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro" are getting re-released in January, so perhaps "High and Low" won't be too far behind.

Yeah, I think it says so in the trivia section. But they took it out for the American version or something, and it ended up getting lost.

I'm afraid not - as ultrahchronic quite rightly pointed out earlier in the thread "the Criterion version of the film is 2.35:1 because Criterion used a domestic US print of the film from Janus instead of the original Toho master." I believe the film's OAR is 2.53:1.

Reading your response prompted me to check imdb's main page for High and Low, and it does indeed list the OAR as 2.35:1 - that really should be changed. I also find it a little cynical of Criterion to state the film is "presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1" when they know very well this is a misleading statement.

Take a look here:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare10/highandlow.htm

for image comparisons between the existing Criterion edition and other releases. Last time I looked, only the BFI disc had the 2.53:1 ratio, but since then I see there has been a Madman release with what looks like the same ratio (it's actually listed as 2.54:1, "16x9 enhanced" - not sure what that means, to be honest). The quality is not quite as good as Criterion (and may be worse still than Criterion's reissue), but it's a lot better than BFI's and has the correct ratio.

matrixagent, thank you for commenting, because otherwise I wouldn't have looked again & found out about the Madman release :) I'll see if I can find one to buy, and maybe go for the Criterion reissue too, for the extras. Wonder if the Madman has pink smoke?