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So this post will be a bit different. I'm not announcing that this is coming out, but at this point it has a 50/50 chance of happening in the United States.

So after talking to Celluloid Dreams, they told me they sold the rights to Film Movement. After talking to Film Movement, they confirmed they have the rights and will be releasing the film. Good news right? Somewhat. They aren't sure that the blu-ray format will be getting the film as there might not be enough interest/demand for Kitano anymore and it might simply just go straight to DVD only. They said they have to gauge interest first, before deciding if it's worth getting a blu-ray release.

So I'm trying to see if this is a film people would want on blu-ray and it's really up to us to help them decide.

I'm a huge fan of the first two films and I watched the this one last week and it was a perfect end to the series. It wouldn't make sense that the third one wouldn't get a blu-ray release seeing as how the first two did. (From Magnolia)

So please post any thoughts here, and if you want to show them that you're interested in this release please e-mail their customer service e-mail at [email protected].

If enough interest is shown we can get this film on blu-ray otherwise it's going to DVD only.

Strange coincidence on this post. I just re-watched the first Outrage last night and was wondering when this was coming along to the states. I'm willing to wager that their previous Kitano films didn't sell well (I bought all three, but those covers for Violent Cop and Boiling Point make it a hard blind buy for the uninitiated). If it comes out on Blu-ray here, I will 100% buy it, but I suppose I shouldn't hold my breathe.

I actually just ordered Japanese Blu-rays of Sonatine and Takeshis' as I figured those two would never get US releases, and seeing as Film Movement is basically saying their previous Kitano's sold poorly, I'm not holding my breath for anymore. What a shame!

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Strange coincidence on this post. I just re-watched the first Outrage last night and was wondering when this was coming along to the states. I'm willing to wager that their previous Kitano films didn't sell well (I bought all three, but those covers for Violent Cop and Boiling Point make it a hard blind buy for the uninitiated). If it comes out on Blu-ray here, I will 100% buy it, but I suppose I shouldn't hold my breathe.

I actually just ordered Japanese Blu-rays of Sonatine and Takeshis' as I figured those two would never get US releases, and seeing as Film Movement is basically saying their previous Kitano's sold poorly, I'm not holding my breath for anymore. What a shame!

Yeah, the covers for Violent Cop and Boiling Point really needed some work. The cover for Hana-Bi was great though.

If this is a title you would be willing to buy on blu-ray, please e-mail Film Movement. If enough interest is shown, the chances increase. It would be a shame if this doesn't get the blu-ray audience in the states. I watched it last week and really enjoyed this one. I would consider it on par with the second film, but not better than the first.

What a bummer. Kitano’s 90s films have been so bizarrely forgotten or pigeonholed as foreign genre films worth ignoring (I guess in part by his Outrage films being his most visible yet least distinctive), it’s sad to hear this has only been reinforced after these new releases.

I just saw A Scene at the Sea last night at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. The 35mm print was imported from Japan and hadn’t been shown here in over 20 years. What a remarkable film!!! I feel lucky to have seen it and sadness that films like this and Kikujiro have a hard time finding an audience, and thus make distributors trepidatious to release them on bluray.

I haven’t seen any of the Outrage films, but if they’re available to watch on Amazon Prime, I’ll have to queue that up. In the meantime, I may just have to blind-write Film Movement regardless. (I’d likely blind buy the Kitano films anyway, on the strength of the work of his I’ve seen.)

Lars Von Truffaut wrote:I just saw A Scene at the Sea last night at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. The 35mm print was imported from Japan and hadn’t been shown here in over 20 years. What a remarkable film!!! I feel lucky to have seen it and sadness that films like this and Kikujiro have a hard time finding an audience, and thus make distributors trepidatious to release them on bluray.

I haven’t seen any of the Outrage films, but if they’re available to watch on Amazon Prime, I’ll have to queue that up. In the meantime, I may just have to blind-write Film Movement regardless. (I’d likely blind buy the Kitano films anyway, on the strength of the work of his I’ve seen.)

Kikujiro is a personal favorite and a gorgeous film. I believe Sony still holds the rights to that film in the U.S. and would love a blu-ray of it.

The Outrage films are probably his most "mainstream" films, but still feel like Kitano, if that makes any sense. Any feedback or interest shown to Film Movement would be greatly appreciated as Kitano's works deserve a wide audience.

I ordered the Third Window Films blu-ray releases of Kikujiro, Hana-bi, A Scene at the Sea and Dolls this week from base.com (shipped, but not yet arrived). According to reviews, they are all Zone B locked, which may limit their appeal to US fans.

Yes a lot of the Third Window releases are Region B locked (e.g. Shinya Tsukamoto's Fires On The Plain, the two recent Sion Sono releases of The Whispering Star and Antiporno, and so on), though there are two exceptions that I have come across so far: Lowlife Love (Adam Torel being a producer on that film might have been a factor there) and Love and Other Cults are both All Region.

I've seen the first two Outrage films. I would love to see the third one

I actually watched Getting Any? from Third Window about a month ago. I forgot to change the region code on my player before popping it in, but it booted up perfectly. The back cover says it’s region B, but are any of the Kitano’s actually coded as such?

oldsheperd wrote:I've seen the first two Outrage films. I would love to see the third one

If you want to see the third one on blu-ray, please send them an e-mail! Any bit of interest will help!

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:I actually watched Getting Any? from Third Window about a month ago. I forgot to change the region code on my player before popping it in, but it booted up perfectly. The back cover says it’s region B, but are any of the Kitano’s actually coded as such?

The four Kitanos that arrived yesterday - Kikujiro, Hana-bi, A Scene at the Sea and Dolls - are marked "B", and will not play with my Oppo 103EU set to Zone A.

Does any distributor have North American video rights to Scene at the Sea?

whaleallright wrote:Does any distributor have North American video rights to Scene at the Sea?

It was supposed to get a release in 2009, but the company decided it wasn't profitable to release Japanese film anymore and and cancelled the release. Not sure if they still have the rights or sold them to someone else.

Also, keep on e-mailing if you can people. News has broken out that they have the rights to the film now via Variety.

http://variety.com/2018/film/global/...da-1202804399/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Vegeta84 wrote:

whaleallright wrote:Does any distributor have North American video rights to Scene at the Sea?

It was supposed to get a release in 2009, but the company decided it wasn't profitable to release Japanese film anymore and and cancelled the release. Not sure if they still have the rights or sold them to someone else.

That's frustrating. I hope they don't go the "Miramax route" of holding out to sell a bunch of less-valuable properties in a package deal and thus basically keeping foreign films in distribution limbo for years and years. Scene at the Sea is a very great film and deserves to be much more widely known in the US.

whaleallright wrote:

Vegeta84 wrote:

whaleallright wrote:Does any distributor have North American video rights to Scene at the Sea?

It was supposed to get a release in 2009, but the company decided it wasn't profitable to release Japanese film anymore and and cancelled the release. Not sure if they still have the rights or sold them to someone else.

That's frustrating. I hope they don't go the "Miramax route" of holding out to sell a bunch of less-valuable properties in a package deal and thus basically keeping foreign films in distribution limbo for years and years. Scene at the Sea is a very great film and deserves to be much more widely known in the US.

They had the rights to a ton of Kitano films. Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Hana-Bi, A Scene at the Sea, Getting Any, The Kids Return, and Takeshi's. BCI no longer has the rights to Violent Cop, Boiling Point, and Hana-Bi, so I think they probably no longer have the rights to A Scene at the Sea. Who knows though.

If I had to pick just one Kitano favorite -- it would probably be Scene at the Sea. (And I still think the photo montage epilogue subtly undermines what we saw in the entire preceding film).