Ozu DVDs

[Michael Raine]

I'd heard the same story about the Panorama disks but unfortunately it
doesn't seem to be true. The Shochiku disks are dual layer while the
Panorama disks are single layer. They may have received the digital files
from Shochiku but if so they've been compressed and reauthored to a lower
quality (probably at the same time the punctilious Japanese subtitles were
replaced with the sloppy rubbish that Nick mentions below). It really does
make a difference: at least when projected, movement in the frame is
noticably choppier on the Hong Kong disks. Also, as Yoshida Kiju also
pointed out at Michigan this weekend, Ozu's is an art of repetition with
subtle differences -- that's hard to appreciate when lines are not
subtitled, or the subtitle is actually for the previous line of dialogue...

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Wrigley [mailto:nicklists at dsl.pipex.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 9:15 AM
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Ozu DVDs


> By the way, my wife gave me one of Shochiku's boxed sets of Ozu DVDs
> for my birthday. I forget if anyone has mentioned this already, but
> alas, it does not have English subtitles. I suspect Shochiku is eyeing
> selling rights for these to foreign companies.

Panorama (HK) are using the same DVD transfers as Japan (officially
licensed from Shochiku, and much cheaper than the Japanese discs) and
the Panorama discs have English subtitles. Unfortunately, their Eng
subs leave a lot to be desired and might as well not be there. AN
AUTUMN AFTERNOON's Eng subs are incoherent, rife with spelling
mistakes, factual inconsistencies, bad grammar... it's truly a shambles
(something you'd expect from a bootleg), but at least you can turn them
off and enjoy the images.

-Nick Wrigley>-
www.ozuyasujiro.com
www.mastersofcinema.org