horror films

[wlt4 at mindspring.com]

>what's actually out there, even though Weisser's focus is is hardly
>representative of Japanese cinema in general - some startling >omissions and a bias towards Nikkatsu's 'pink films', most of which >you'll never get a chance to see (nor would you want to!) It seems >more conceived of as a catalogue for his semi-legit 'Video Search of >Miami' service.


Well actually you can see many of those Nikkatsu films since Weisser has just started distributing subtitled tapes in the US, 50 titles debuted in January and they run $39.95 each.  I didn't post any info about it before because of Weisser's reputation and the nature of the films.  More info is at http://www.asiancult.com (& if you know where to look you can find about a hundred more unsubbed Nikkatsu films from the past 25-30 years).

These however do seem to be completely legal; perhaps one reason Weisser isn't selling them through VSOM.  VSOM is not exactly "semi-legit" since the vast majority of the tapes are copyright violations, which he tries to excuse by claiming the Berne Convention means exactly the opposite of what it actually does.  That said, VSOM has offered a service by subtitling some Japanese (and other) tapes that otherwise wouldn't have been and making available literally thousands of other titles.  Whether there's a moral problem with this is for each of us to decide, just don't be swayed by VSOM's claims about what they're doing.

LT