Ran and A.K. -- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly -- Tin Drum and Stray Dog -- Shogun -- Nil By Mouth -- Dr Mabuse

A double disk special from Warner: Ran and A.K. [6 March 2004]

Warner have announced what could be one of the double disk sets of the year, depending on transfer quality. Akira Kurosawa's masterly 1985 transposition of King Lear to feudal Japan, Ran, is to be released in a 2-disk set with Chris Marker's excellent documentary of the making of the film, A.K.. Ran will have a stereo soundtrack and a 1.85:1 transfer - anamorphic status is unconfirmed at present, but word is that it will be anamorphically enhanced. Release date is set at 3 May and price a very reasonable £12.99. A little too reasonable, actually - we will hold judgement until we see the prints. This is not the only classic film that has a highly regarded documentary attached to it, and it would be nice to see this start a new trend. For a couple of suggestions on what we'd like to see next in this line, click here.

Also from Warner at the same price on the same date are Jean-Jacques Beineix's (some may say superficially) stylish Diva, Orson Welles hauntingly realised adaptation of Kafka's The Trial and Bertrand Blier's arresting Buffet Froid. All three are free of extras and 1.66:1. Again, anamorphic status remains unfirmed at present - based on previous 1.66:1 aspect ratio releases from American studios, hopes are not high.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Special Edition [3 March 2004]

Sergio Leone's glorious Dollars trilogy has been available on DVD for some time on region 1 and the first two, A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari 1964) and For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più 1965) are still available on region 2 but though the third and perhaps best of them, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il Buono, il brutto, il Cattivo 1966) has an anamorphic transfer and a reasonable set of extras, the others are non-anamorphic, free of extras and in need of an upgrade. So it's a tad surprising that the one with the best print and the extras is the one one that get's the special edition treatment. It looks rather good, though, this two disk set featuring a remastered print (the last one was good enough, but also will include 18 minutes of additional footage, much of which was on on the first reelase as deleted scenes. The difference here is that it has been edited back into the film and redubbed in English (the scenes on the original disk were in Italian) by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. The trouble is, this was not done by Leone, who has sadly passed on, so their inclusion has to be viewed with at least a little suspicion. Still, there's plenty more, with the documentaries Leone's West, Leone's Style and The Man Who Lost the Civil War, a featurette on the reconstruction of the film, a gallery of missing sequences, and extended score, two featurettes on the creation of the score, a trailer and a commentary by genre writer and film historian Richard Schickel. It arrives on 26 April. So what about the first two now.

The Tin Drum and Stray Dog form Criterion in May [1 March 2004]

Time to get the credit card out again as Criterion set a May release for two more world cinema classics, Volker Schlöndorff’s compelling 1979 adaptation of Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum and Akira Kurosawa's 1949 police drama Stray Dog, starring Kurosawa favourites Toshiro Mifune and Takeshi Shimura. Both are special editions with a decent set of extras and new, high definition transfers. The Tin Drum comes in a 2-disk set with a new anamorphic 1.77:1 print, the original mono and remixed 5.1 sound, a commentary by director Schlöndorff, an isolated Maurice Jarre music track, deleted scenes, a 21 minute audio-visual montage Volker Schlondörff Remembers The Tin Drum, video interviews, a rare 1987 recording of Günter Grass reading an extract from his original novel, an excerpt from the screenplay's unfilmed original ending, Banned in Oklahoma, a documentary on the child pornography lawsuit that revolved around the film's release, production sketches and designs, the original trailer and more. Stray Dog is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio and mono sound, an audio commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa, a 32 minute documentary on the making of the film Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create and a booklet featuring essays on the film and extracts from Kurosawa's autobiography, Something Like and Autobiography. It should be noted that The Tin Drum was previously released in a special edition by Image Entertainment, but the print was non-anamorphic and average quality, and the extras did not come close to the collection promised here by Criterion.

Shogun lands on region 2 [26 Feb 2004]

Nil By Mouth on region 2 (at last) [26 Feb 2004]

Considering it was released back in 1997, was widely acclaimed as one of the best British films in years and won a string of awards for the film-makers and cast (not to mention the fact that when we screened it we could have filled the cinema twice over), Gary Oldman's searing directoral debut Nil By Mouth has only just been announced for a UK region 2 DVD release. That's not to say it appeared everywhere else first - its release on region 1 a couple of months back was its first showing on the format, and it seems perverse that it should be released first in the US. Well on 19 April you can pick it up at your local video store, though don't expect much in the way of extras - after such a wait it would have been nice to have something. We do get probably the same anamorphic 1.78:1 as the region 1 disk (which looks fine) and a 5.1 sound mix, something the region 1 does not have, though this is hardly a film to show off the glories of rear speaker action and subwooferism.

Dr Mabuse arrives in May [26 Feb 2004]

Having already announced its excellent sequel, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse for release in March, Eureka continue to carve a very special niche for themselves by announcing the May 24 release of the original Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (known variously in English speaking countries as Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler and Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime). originally released in cinemas in 1922, Fritz Lang's extraordinary noir drama shares with Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible a two part structure and a considerable (for the era) overall length. Eureka have given the running time as four-and-half hours - the full restored version actually runs for 297 minutes, which is closer to five hours, and even with PAL speedup this suggests a less than complete version. As with many silent films of any substantial length, especially those not originated in the US, the film has been subject to several cuts over the years, and this looks certain to be at least close to complete edit. Hopefully more details will emerge when the disk is released. The film itself will be spread across two disks (presumably the original two parts) and will include Dolby 2.0 and 5.1 music scores, biographies, a documentary essay and a photo gallery. It goes without saying that this will be a memastered print and no doubt up to Eureka's recent high standard.