Kurosawa dvds

[Edward Fowler]

I wish to reiterate the comment below about the poor quality of the
English translations.  One of the more obvious difficulties with this
series (and there are many) is the habit of turning the names of the
characters into Chinese, which makes using these DVDs in the classroom,
as I did in a course on the early Kurosawa a year ago, tricky, to say
the least.  I tried to get around this by presenting the films also in
another medium (16mm, VHS) whenever possible.  I will say this:  the
DVD version of a film like DRUNKEN ANGEL, which exists only in an
absolutely horrible VHS edition, is remarkably clear; it doesn't look
like the same movie.  The things I learned from viewing the DVD edition
practically made up for all the other disappointments.  Ted Fowler

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Miles Wood wrote:

> Ted Mills wrote:
>
> Excuse me if this has been asked previously, but I was off the list
> for a few months.

> Can anyone comment on the quality of the HK DVDs of Akira Kurosawa's
> films available from several online (non-US) DVD stores? Obviously,
> they're not going to be up there with Criterion, but there's many
> early films of his that may take years to get a US release, and at
> some going for $7 each, I wouldn't complain too much.
>
	-------------------------------------------------

> They're acceptable as a means of seeing the films, if you've not done
> so before;  Displacement artifacting is sometimes a problem, and the
> images generally look grainy. English subtitles offer poor
> translations. If you have access to good quality VHS copies, forget
> the Mei Ah DVD's. If you have no other option, and want to see the
> films, then at $7 (which is less than you can find them here in HK!)
> you can't complain.
>
> Miles