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That would be incredible! Has there been any clues or confirmation from Mulvaney and crew, or is this still the best kind of pipe dream?

The Criterion Kurosawa main line titles between 1949-1980 are getting the HD treatment in Japan. Also, five pre 1949 titles are being released on blu-ray ( i am curious about their quality) and Madadayo which is wonderful (Criterion should do their best to secure this title). Ran has got some disastrous HD releases that far, so we'll have to wait to check if Optimum makes it right first.

Could the Ran blu have been pulled simply because they were holding off for this set? In other words, it wasn't a rights issue.

aox wrote:Could the Ran blu been pulled simply because they were holding off for this set? In other words, it wasn't a rights issue.

I've heard that Criterion has to wait 6 months after the titles are being released in Japan, but that was not the case about Ran.
The corresponding releases and the exclusivity of some editions can't be a coincidence, although a barebones DVD set is more likely to be out sometime by the end of 2010, instead of a glorious Kurosawa BD set.

actually, what I just posited doesn't make much sense considering the Kagemusha release. #-o

This was Mulvaney's email to me a while back regarding Ran:

I hope this email finds you well.

Unfortunately, the Blu-ray release of RAN has been cancelled indefinitely due to rights issues.

Sincerely,

Jon Mulvaney

The third wave of Kurosawa Blu-ray releases has just been added for preorder at Amazon.co.jp.
Release date is 2/19/10.
Throne of Blood
Red Beard
One Wonderful Sunday
High & Low
Dodeskaden
No Regrets For Our Youth
Drunken Angel

Kurosawa Masterworks III
Only 'Scandal' and 'The Idiot' left unreleased on Blu! =D>
I can finally see a Criterion blu-ray boxset coming (by 2011?) :^o
But until then, our Japanese friends can fork out a bit more than 700$ to acquire the three masterworks boxes.

DVD Times on the Optimum blu-ray.

TCM (Turner Classic Movies) just had Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala on and i have seen it many times on Criterion's laserdisc, Kino dvd, and the Ruscico dvd and now it was shown on HD and it's the best looking version i have seen. On the Ruscico version there was too much shimmering and not a sharp copy and then the Kino was better looking but not anamorphic but TCM did show it wide screen 16:9 and it looked good and it was the Kino version they were showing. It was nice to see that TCM HD was showing a better copy of the movie then on my dvd versions.

Dersu Uzala DVD is being reissued in Japan for the 3rd time.

The first was from Toho, second was from Rusico/IVL, and now from Odessa Entertainment.
Odessa claims this new DVD's source is an HD remaster of the original negative by MosFilm. No word on extras, and most likely with Japanese subtitles only.

If an HD master exists, it's a shame that it's only coming out on DVD. Hopefully someone (like KINO in the US or MosFilm/Rusico) will release this on Bluray.

manicsounds wrote:Dersu Uzala DVD is being reissued in Japan for the 3rd time.

The first was from Toho, second was from Rusico/IVL, and now from Odessa Entertainment.
Odessa claims this new DVD's source is an HD remaster of the original negative by MosFilm. No word on extras, and most likely with Japanese subtitles only.

If an HD master exists, it's a shame that it's only coming out on DVD. Hopefully someone (like KINO in the US or MosFilm/Rusico) will release this on Bluray.

I wonder if any kind of restoration was done on the original negative? Did read on some websites that it was in very bad shape whch may be the reason why Kino has not released a blu-ray version yet?

I have a question about The Lower Depths. Who was the woman screaming and hysterical at the end? She says she is going to kill herself and runs out into the rain. But she returns at the very very end of the picture.

Carlotta Films will be releasing 6 Kurosawa titles on 4K sometime in 2024. The titles are Stray Dog, Ikiru, The Lower Depths, The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, and High and Low.