criterionforum.org

I have just received Kagemusha DVD from Amazon. Wait till you see the booklet - amazing! I'll watch it tonight along with Sword of Doom which also arrived today. Another sleepless night.

posto wrote:I have just received Kagemusha DVD from Amazon. Wait till you see the booklet - amazing! I'll watch it tonight along with Sword of Doom which also arrived today. Another sleepless night.

Apparently I'll HAVE to wait to see it ------ just got mine from Amazon with..... no booklet!!!

You can write Mulvaney, it might be quicker. My Fishing with John was missing a booklet and they sent one to me.

DVD Beaver review is up. Looks like a quality release.

Wonder what strings Criterion pulled to get it Region 0? Fox and Toho?

How is it packaged?

Keepcase?

Yes, According to the Beav.

It is indeed Region 1. I checked with my PowerDVD software.

BTW, what kind of surround sound is this? The back cover says it's 4.0 surround -- 3 front and 1 mono rear channels, meaning no subwoofer. But I'm definitely getting sound from my subwoofer.

You should get sound from your subwoofer even when your watching something in mono.

When something is 5.1 that means you have a dedicated discrete subwoofer chanel. When something is 5.0 (like In the Mood for Love) it means in the absence of a discrete low end chanel your reciever instead filters all the low end below a certain frequency (<60hz) to your subwoofer. And like I said before, even when you're watching a 1.0 movie (like Throne of Blood) the low end below a certain frequency will be directed to your sub.

Does that make sense?

Odd, I emailed Jon Mulvaney about the missing booklet in mine, and "he" didn't really reply to the issue, just asked how the heck I got a copy from amazon.com...... did they break the street date, or something??

It's illegal to break the street date. Now you gone and done it. However, I was told by a retailer that once the street date is broken everyone else can start selling the release. I think I may start lobbying Criteriondvd.com.

unclehulot wrote:Odd, I emailed Jon Mulvaney about the missing booklet in mine, and "he" didn't really reply to the issue, just asked how the heck I got a copy from amazon.com...... did they break the street date, or something??

Ah crap, sorry about that. I never thought of that being a problem otherwise I probably would have said "wait"

Damn, I'm getting this as a "late" Christmas gift from my father-in-law, who ordered it off Amazon. I was hoping it would ship or has shipped. I'm probably going to have to wait for the release date now.

unclehulot wrote:Odd, I emailed Jon Mulvaney about the missing booklet in mine, and "he" didn't really reply to the issue, just asked how the heck I got a copy from amazon.com...... did they break the street date, or something??

What was he talking about? Is the release date Mar-15 or a later date? What's going on here?

I'm glad they kept the 4.0 track from the Japanese disc.
I was worried when dvdbeaver said "Dolby 1.0" and the Criterion site said
"Dolby Stereo 2.0". Glad its all done, no more confusion.

kevyip1 wrote:

unclehulot wrote:Odd, I emailed Jon Mulvaney about the missing booklet in mine, and "he" didn't really reply to the issue, just asked how the heck I got a copy from amazon.com...... did they break the street date, or something??

What was he talking about? Is the release date Mar-15 or a later date? What's going on here?

Apparently it's March 29, and Amazon jumped the date. They won't replace the missing blooklet, and NOW claim a new copy would only arrive after March 30. So.... I got Amazon busted by telling Mulvaney?? Oh well, I'm pissed at them anyhow for refusing simply to send the damned booklet on its own.... I have to part with the thing and send it back.....unless JM comes through....

Forgive my complete ignorance about sound matters (and this going off topic), so this might be a stupid question, but I was wondering whether having a 5.1 soundtrack with a dedicated subwoofer channel means that each of the five surround channels have a wider sound range compared to a track without the dedicated subwoofer .1, since they are not having sound filtered to the subwoofer below a certain frequency?

Would this mean that in a 5.1 track that you get this wider sound range through all the surround channels plus the dedicated subwoofer sound? Or would this mean that all the sounds below a certain frequency would have just been moved to the dedicated subwoofer channel rather than having to be filtered from the surrounds? Or does it just depend on how the soundtrack is created for the film for theatres and authored onto the disc?

Perhaps if they issued release dates that (gasp!) they can and do stick to then there wouldn't be any confusion of street dates from vendors?

I know that there will be exceptions such as Grand Illusion where a superior print came to light late in the day, but the flip-flopping of release dates this year has been pretty comical.

colinr0380 wrote:Would this mean that in a 5.1 track that you get this wider sound range through all the surround channels plus the dedicated subwoofer sound? Or would this mean that all the sounds below a certain frequency would have just been moved to the dedicated subwoofer channel rather than having to be filtered from the surrounds? Or does it just depend on how the soundtrack is created for the film for theatres and authored onto the disc?

My simple answer is "I don't know", but any added improvement from the 5 speakers in a 5.0 vs. 5.1 comparison would be too slight for my ears to discern. I'm sure some golden eared audiophile would say he could tell the difference, but I couldn't.

I'm no expert so take this with a grain of salt. when something is DD 5.1, sounds are assigned to each of the five speakers plus the subwoofer when the sound is mixed by the sound engineer. So certain low frequency sounds are assigned directly to the subwoofer and it triggers when one of them happens.

Sometimes the sound for movies that were originally presented in stereo or mono theatrically is remixed to provide "surround sound". I personally don't like this, since the remixing is often very poor, see The Godfather. Also, if they are mixed poorly, the sound is too directional and it sounds unnatural or sometimes it is so aggressively mixed that you have to turn it up to hear the dialogue then your speakers rupture during an explosion scene. I don't think this was the case for Kagemusha, as it was originally presented as 4.0.

Most receivers contain Dolby Pro Logic software that analyzes the audio tracks (usually mono or stereo but sometimes 4.0 like Kagemusha), runs them through an algorithm, and assigns them to the various speakers. The algorithm looks at things like which sounds are in phase with each other, rapid rise in volume and frequency of the signal. In movies without a discrete subwoofer assignment, low frequency noise will be directed at your subwoofer by your receiver. Most receivers have an adjustable setting so you can set the threshold where things get sent to your subwoofer so you can elect to boom frequently or not.

And to bring this slightly back on topic, I think the audio presentation is very good for this movie. I get a lot of natural sounding surround effects and subwoofer activity.

Got mine in the mail lastnight. I was extremely pumped. Watched it tonight and loved it. I was expecting a slower film and I think because of that it went by faster than I thought. Loved it, though I admit I have to watch it again because I think I got some of the characters mixed up part way through.

At any rate, though, this DVD is really nice. The transfer blew me away and the sound was a nice surprise. I only watched Coppoloa/Lucas interview (which was good) from the supplements so far, and the trailers, but I'll probably go through the rest over the weekend. Anybody get to the commentary yet?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the Stephen Prince commentary and it is fair/good so far. Not up to the standards of his excellent commentaries on Red Beard or Stray Dog, but good. He spends a lot of time talking about the historical record and reputation of the characters but my western ears are having a tough time keeping track of who is who. Repeat viewings are definitely in order.

He also points out that Takashi Shimura has a small part in the movie, which I didn't notice but was glad to see. I love that guy.

Yeah I spotted Shimura!! I was so proud of myself (he was with the doctor/monk, right??) Yeah, my problem was with the names. Even though I was reading them I kept getting some characters mixed up with others but I think I straightened myself out by the end (yeah, I blame my Western ignorance as well) So I'll be watching the movie again either before or after I listen to the commentary.

I still haven't ordered this. After reading this thread I am going to order it from deepdiscountdvd.com along with other DVD it a cheaper combined with others compared to dvdplanet which have the chapest CC dvds IMHO.

The Stephen Prince commentary is more on the "historical" side than the filmmaking and art of the film. But it does do a good job of pointing out the differences between the 162-min international version and this 180-min uncut version. IMDB says there "20 min of footage involving Kenshin Uesugi", but in fact the extra scenes are merely short, trimmed scenes of various topics that are sprinkled all over the film to increase continuity. There is one scene featuring an unidentified character whom Prince speculates might be Kenshin Uesugi. The longest added scene is the one where the fake Shingen is examined by the Jesuit priest physician. This is also Takashi Shimura's only appearance in the film, seen for the first time on this DVD.

I finished up the commentary and the last hour of it was terrific.

I haven't made my way through all the extras but the story board version of the movie is beautiful. I had no idea that Kurosawa was such a gifted artist.