The DVD (R1, at least) is non-anamorphic widescreen. I can't remember the last time I bought a widescreen new release that wasn't "enhanced for widescreen TVs." If you don't have a 16:9 TV, then you won't notice, but it's a big disappointment for those of us who do. Empire dropped the ball on this one, especially considering the beautiful cinematography. The interviews with Yamada and Sanada are good, though.
"Questions are a burden to others. Answers are a prison to oneself."
[deleted]
Empire f'ed up big time.The Panorama version http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview2/twilightsamurai.htm & http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare7/twilightsamurai3.htm is not too bad IMHO. Available from YesAsia.com . share
The Japanese region-2 is anamorphic and has English subtitles.
shareAlso, I was incredibly pissed by the quality of the transfer. It was like all those old Shaw Brother's Kung Fu movies I own. PLEASE CRITERION STEP IN! I got this movie specifically for the beautiful photography too!
share^the Japanese release also has DTS audio!
HST: "Don't take any guff from these swine."
I wanted to see this film, but i only found the original japanese spoken version, is there already an english dubbed version available?
sharedont think so, and hopefully that'll be how it stays (until the inevitable remake turns up - whats that? you don't think it'll translate very well to downtown New York, circa 1977?... Well frankly nothing would surprise me in this, the 'age of the American remake').
Put simply, watch it with subtitles - you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll feel your life has been enriched* - and you wont have to suffer yet another substandard dubbing effort (which have the power to make any film unwatchable)
* disclaimer: you may not be affected in this way
HST: "Don't take any guff from these swine."
I didn't know that R1 DVD was so bad.
Danherb, please don't get English dubbed up version, even if such a thing is available. Actors speak beautifully in the film. It's not the kind of movie you just want a story get going, but timing and the way they speak are crucial to understanding of the emotion of the film, which is hard to get across when speech is dubbed.
Well, I hate dubbed films in general. Films should be seen in original language as much as possible, excluding the kids' films, of course.
Man, dubbing this work of art would be like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Why would you ever want to defile a great movie that way?
This is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. Hiroyuki Sanada has such a great talent for playing this type of role. Not too bad on the sword scenes either.
I just bought this dvd (Empire Pictures) tonight at Best Buy. I agree with the comments about the horrible picture quality. Dark and low contrast. The indoor and night scenes are very difficult to see. A movie this good deserves better!
sharei cant understand why anyone would want a dubbed version... as confusing as the people who want movies in fullscreen...
dubbing drives me nuts.. i cant watch movies that way.. not even anime..
it just seems almost disrespectful to the actors.. theyre putting emotions into their words along with their actions... dubbing just replaces a major part of their character with some other persons.. and changing the dialog to fit their mouths... ... yeah.. i dont get it.. .. might as well go all the way and paste another actors face over theirs..
Yeah, the transfer is absolutely horrible. I can't believe a movie made in 2002 can look this bad on DVD. My Rashomon DVD looks leagues better and that movie's more than 50 years old.
shareNot only that, but the cover art is awful. It looks like a b-samurai action flick!
"Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"
Any one have ANY idea where I can get this DVD othen than from off the internet. I saw it at a small college theatre 4 months back and I've been dying to see it again evr since. I loved this movie very much. PLease help.
shareI got a bootleg of the original japanese DVD on ebay of this for like 5USD and it isnt in anamorphic but the transfer is wonderful. Check around if you are willing to not have special features until criterion gets ahold of it.
share[deleted]
[deleted]
I bought the british region 2 Tartan-edition and I agree, the image quality is simply embarrasing, even though it is in anamorphic. Really a shame on such a good film.
shareSpeedfreak, are you one of those tech-heads who expects and demands that every single DVD be the same quality picture as, say, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith?! I can't believe you rate the Tartan (RIP) UK DVD release of The Twilight Samurai so poorly!
Anyone who thought the picture quality wasn't very good simply has stupidly high and greedy standards. Sure, you want the best each and everytime if at all possible, but the problem here is that the picture quality is more than acceptable (I know not of the American version because I haven't seen it. I'm referring to the UK Tartan release here see.).
It was clean and clear and was presented in anomorphic widescreen. One of the things I found striking about this film was the visuals. They might not be to the same resolution standards as seen in the likes of 'House Of Flying Daggers', 'Seven Swords' or 'The Warlords' (to name some Far Eastern movie delights) but I thought the picture was very good. Sound was fantastic too!
Perhaps we need to go back to video cassettes just to give us little reminders of how things once were less than a decade ago...
Hovis!
Just saw the version available in Australia ... widescreen and a beautiful transfer.
But you ARE Blanche ... and I AM.
.. & ordered.
Edited to add: having now received & watched the R4 I can say this is a native PAL transfer (no crappy NTSC-PAL conversion here), anamorphic & well encoded. The only problem is that a touch too much digital noise reduction has been applied to the original element which means fine details on things like faces tend to get lost whenever there's movement & there's an ever so slight smearing effect during fast motion. In fact depending on the size of your screen you may not even notice these effects. Although I noticed them I can't say I found them distracting, indeed I think most people wouldn't even notice. Otherwise, colour, brightness & contrast looked fine to me. It isn't perfectas then but compared to the other DVD versions out there this is by far the best - & certainly so if PAL is your video standard.
Btw, terrific film too. It really moved me.
Mai Yamane! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD83P-vn5JI&feature=related
Dubbing is like watching a movie w/your eyes closed! Just a few hours of reading subtitles & you won't ever want to listen to dubbing again. It is a travesty when somebody sees a foreign film says they hated it, then you realize they watched DUBBED! That makes it a completely different movie for all of the wrong reasons. If you truly love movies you won't EVER watch a movie w/any sort of dubbing. For every dubbed movie done well there are 10,000 that aren't. In fact I can't name one film that had good dubbing. I take that back, "Princess Mononoke" was dubbed well, but that was w/big stars including Billy Crudup, Gillian Anderson, Jada Pinkett-Smith & more movie stars. Even that film didn't need to be dubbed though.
share