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Coming May 23rd

Eureka Entertainment can reveal that they have acquired the rights to the new film from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, JOURNEY TO THE SHORE.

Mizuki’s husband (Yusuke) drowned at sea three years ago. When he suddenly comes back home, she is not that surprised. Instead, Mizuki is wondering what took him so long. She agrees to let Yusuke take her on a journey.

Full details about our Dual Format release will be released within the next few months, but in the meantime the film will be screening as part of the 2016 Glasgow Film Festival

Very surprised Eureka was able to secure video rights to this so quickly, as the Japanese Blu-ray comes out in April, only one month before Eureka's.

I assume they bought it at one of the festivals last year?

DVDBeaver.

It has some of the feel (and non-sugary sweetness of heart) of Rivette's Marie and Julien.

So, where are the Additional video extras to be announced, including a new interview that are mentioned on Eureka's site...?

I'm not seeing that on the product page, so I'm guessing they're not there. Regarding the interview, I wouldn't be surprised if they simply weren't able to get Kurosawa to sit down long enough to do one, since he's clearly been working at a steady clip since this came out—Creepy came out a few months ago and his French film The Woman in the Silver Plate is either finished or well into post-production. The Japanese Blu has a few extras (mainly a making-of and some stuff with the cast), but it sounds like they could just be EPK-style fluff.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:I'm not seeing that on the product page, so I'm guessing they're not there.

I definitely remember seeing that somewhere too (I'm pretty sure it was on that page) only about a week or so ago so it must have been a pretty close thing. Maybe some of the extras from the Japanese bluray?

I copied and pasted that sentence from the product page on eurekas site.
Looks like they deleted it afterwards.

Unfortunately, Kurosawa's schedule meant it couldn't happen.

-Kevin

I was eagerly waiting for this to arrive and finally got a chance to watch the film with my wife last night. Usually she doesn't like half of the films I watch, but we both loved Tokyo Sonata. Unfortunately, this time, we were both utterly disappointed. I know that he won Un Certain Regard Best Director award in Cannes, and that is probably good for him, but the movie/story was total nonsense, at least in my opinion. What was the point? I would really appreciate if somebody, who has seen the film, can prove me wrong. Well, there may be a chance that I totally misinterpreted the film, but I doubt it.

A spirit not being free to pass on to the next world when it still has unresolved business on earth is a Japanese folk belief -- and is a central premise of the film. Often such "stranded" spirits turn vengeful, this one is, however, benign. What did YOU understand the plot/theme to be?

(I, on the other hand, had high expectations for Tokyo Sonata, a found it mostly very disappointing).

I am familiar with the folk belief, other Asian countries have something similar. I clearly understood that the spirit(s) was stranded and wanted to take care of some unfinished business (wanted to release the other stranded souls?). I guess I failed to appreciate his unfinished business. What exactly were those?

Spoiler

So, the spirit took his wife to 3 separate households, which he has already visited. So, are you suggesting that the spirit couldn't solve the issues, or release the 3 stranded spirits by himself, so he needed his wife's help? Even, for the release of his own soul, he needed to come back to his wife? I guess I am little confused because I really didn't see his wife being very special to resolve his issues. She could see the ghosts, she interacted with them, but what was so special she did to release those stranded souls?

Spoiler

I think the point was that, by abandoning his wife, he didn't solve his (or her) own problems -- and (in his solo wanderings), he didn't have the courage or persistence to help others solve their problems. By one last shared task, he and his wife could all achieve (at last) a degree of peace and acceptance -- earned by helping others together.

Maybe it is because I have been married so long (40 years in August), I was a sucker for this movie. In any event, I found this movie especially lovely and moving.

Well, it seems like my understanding was not too far away from yours. I didn't say that this was a bad film. I guess we were just looking for a more realistic plot (even after realizing the fact that the plot is heavily sedated by spirit(s) ). I wish there were some extra features in favor of the film. Well, on the good side, I was able to watch a film with my wife after long time. Hopefully, Naomi Kawase's Sweet Bean will be a real delight. From the trailer, it looks promising.

chatterjees wrote:I guess we were just looking for a more realistic plot (even after realizing the fact that the plot is heavily sedated by spirit(s) ).

I would NEVER look for realism in a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film (and thought Tokyo Sonata was especially unrealistic).

Re-watched the film, via MOC's Blu-Ray -- this time along with our twins. We all loved the film. The Blu-Ray looks and sounds quite good to me. This is a rare film in which I find nothing at all worthy of criticism. The excellence of the script came through much more strongly in this more appealing format (compared to the personal screen in front of one in an airplane). Also loved the use of sound/music and (not always natural) lighting. Performances were superb. Highly recommended release. One of my very favorite films of the century so far.

It's such a beautiful film, in terms of the cinematography as well - I've been incredibly lucky in having had the chance to see his last two theatrical features (this and Real) on ther big screen, and should also be seeing Creepy next month (very optimistic about Daguerreotype or whatever it's going to be called as well, as it's a French production with big names so I expect it to travel a bit more than the average Kurosawa film). The piano scene and the slow dolly on the hillside are among the most heartrending moments in his oeuvre. (And Otomo & Eto's wonderful, wonderful score!)

I find it very sad that films as wonderful as this seem to get so little traction (even if they win festival awards).

On another KK-related topic... Has Seventh Code ever surfaced anywhere on DVD?

Michael Kerpan wrote:Has Seventh Code ever surfaced anywhere on DVD?

I got my copy from the one of the crew, but I believe a DVD of the feature comes as an extra with Maeda's CD:

cdjapan link

yoshimori wrote:

Michael Kerpan wrote:Has Seventh Code ever surfaced anywhere on DVD?

I got my copy from the one of the crew, but I believe a DVD of the feature comes as an extra with Maeda's CD:

cdjapan link

I assume there are no subs...