J films on video w/ E subtitles

[Boum Productions]

There's been a discussion recently about this on another board, with some
correspondants getting quite ridiculously worked up over the issue. Remarks
about Japanese companies "not owing" the rest of the world subtitles and
"why don't American producers sub their disks in Japanese" etc. Never
realised this was such an emotive issue.

Anyone involved in selling marginal titles on disk these days knows they're
going to sell a fair number overseas. It's what the internet was invented
for! And if you add subs (and English is one of the widest spoken languages)
you WILL increase your sales.

I can understand it if the movie has been sold overseas. But many (most?) of
the titles we're talking about will only receive a domestic release.

Furthermore, making them more accessible might actually facilitate a sale in
another territory. We sold some French 70's soft core titles on DVD to a guy
in Japan, who happened to be a rep of a sales company. He liked them so much
he contacted (through us) the film's copyright owners and bought the
Japanese rights. So it seems to be to everyone's advantage - or at least to
the advantage of everyone who wants films to reach their widest possible
audience. But maybe some people don't want this...?


Pete Tombs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Nornes" <amnornes at umich.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: J films on video w/ E subtitles


> >
> > I'd be very happy to learn where online shoppers have been going. It
> > would be helpful if people adding to this thread can indicate whether
> > they have experienced any shipping territory limitations.
>
> I went on a little shopping spree this summer, and brought home a
> couple thousand dollars worth of disks for our library. I found Shibuya
> Tsutaya the best, with trips to Kinokuniya important for filling in the
> gaps. I suspect ordering online is the best, since you are not at the
> mercy of the store's stock.
>
> By the way, I used a credit card for these purchases and was hassled by
> the stores every time. They didn't want to sell me the disks because
> the card was issued in the States. Tsutaya relented easily. I had to
> slap the employees of Kinokuniya around a little before they even
> considered calling Visa to check out the card. If you are dropping a
> lot of cash, I think travellers checks are probably the way to go.
>
> Markus
>
> PS: Virtually all the good stuff is Region 2. I simply don't get it.
> Why are these companies shooting themselves in the feet? Virtually all
> of these titles have no hope of being picked up by foreign
> distributors, while it is becoming increasingly easy to purchase disks
> through the internet. Does anyone know what's going on?
>
>
>