A Bittersweet Life R2UK DC

Ugh. Tartan’s releases have always been either a hit or miss, but their upcoming director’s cut of Kim Jee-Woon’s brilliant A Bittersweet Life is just — for a lack of a better word(s) — an epic fail. I mean, just look at it! The blood looks like it was done in paint, the font’s ugly as hell, and that quote — I mean, I agree with it for the most part, but even so, it seems to be in bad taste. Worst of all, they have a mannequin — and a badly dressed one for that matter — on the cover. Shake. My. Head. I’ve lost all hope for this company.

Tartan UK Announces Blu-ray Titles

Now that the format war is pretty much over, Tartan UK has announced some upcoming Blu-ray titles: A Tale of Two Sisters on 3/28 and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK on 5/26. Retail price will be £24.99. I’m still holding onto SD-DVDs for the time being, but I thought some Park Chan-Wook fans might appreciate the news. Oh, and that cover is my own chop job. Not official in any way.

DVD Active

16-Disc Akira Kurosawa Collection

• Three Bad Men In A Hidden Fortress (1958) – 138mins
• Throne Of Blood (1957) – 104mins
• Record of a Living Being (1955) – 103mins
• The Seven Samurai (1954) – 206mins
• Ikiru (1952) – 142mins
• The Idiot (1951) – 166mins
• Scandal (1950) – 104mins
• Rashomon (1950) – 87mins
• Stray Dog (1949) – 112mins
• The Quiet Duel (1949) – 95mins
• Drunken Angel (1948) – 98mins
• One Wonderful Sunday (1947) – 110mins
• Zoku Sugata Sanshiro (1945) – 85mins
• They Who Step On The Tail Of The Tiger (1945) – 60mins
• Sugata Sanshiro (1943)- 97mins
• *Bonus: Tokyo Story (1953) – 136mins

Pretty sweet line-up, huh? Too bad it’s only available with Korean subtitles. For some reason, DVDfromKorea has been stocking up on Akira Kurosawa collections — none of which I’ve heard anything about. Now, they’ve got a pretty solid reputation, at least from my experiences, so there’s no reason to be suspicious, but it does sound too good to be true, especially at these prices. $29.99 for 16 discs!? Insane. The only question that remains is the picture quality.

If you want to take the plunge, there’s a 4-disc collection with English subtitles going for $11.99 that includes The Seven Samurai, Rashomon (In The Woods), Ikiru (Living), and Tokyo Story as a bonus.

Pickups 2/27

Not entirely for bragging purposes, here are my recent pickups (and probably the last for a long time to come…). Yes, I finally decided to go for the Namie Amuro single, marking my first Jpop and Amuro purchase ever. However, I opted out of the tour DVD. I figured I’d never watch it more than once and will probably just skip through 1/2 of it anyway. But it does look hot. Hot indeed.

The other two discs are mainly filler — I just didn’t want to get raped on shipping charges that badly — since I ordered (now) mainly for the CD’s first press bonus: a nice B2 sized poster of Namie Amuro. But I’m quite happy with them: a priced-down reissue of Blue Automobile and the indie flick Blister!. I’ve seen Blue Automobile before, and was honestly a little confused more than anything, but I stick by my belief that anything with Aoi Miyzaki simply cannot fail and am willing to give it another shot. Blister!, on the other hand, is an odd piece about an otaku’s obsession with action figures. It’s gotten favourable buyer reviews just about everywhere, and it sounds right up my alley, so why not?

Oh, and the real reason I bothered to write this post: I contacted CD Japan about the PayPal problem, mainly because they told me to (through the error message) and also because I didn’t want to miss out on my first press poster(!), and not only did they reply promptly, but the time they replied, the problem was fixed. Now I’m pretty sure my email had nothing to do with it since PayPal was down for a few days, but it always gives me a fuzzy feeling inside when stores have such great customer service. I’ll definitely order from them again.

M DVD Pushed Back…Again

I know I gushed about this before, and then cried because I missed out on the Takeshi Kitano boxset because of the wait, but it looks as if M is still not ready for private viewing. The original January release date was pushed back to an early February date, then to late February, and now, according to YesAsia, to March 4. Not only that, it looks as if retailers are getting mixed messages. DVD Asian and Sensasian had the disc ready at the beginning of the month while DVDfromKorea is still aiming for a February 28. Get it together, people!

Pre-Order M

Once in a while, along come a film that, in its sheer brilliance, reinstates the film geek inside you. For me, that most recent film is Lee Myung-Se’s M. Now yes, I know that the film has garnered less-than-favourable reviews, with most of them pulling the age-old “style over substance” card, but for me, the film is a perfect balance of said elements.

Therefore, I’m more than delighted to see that the R3K DVD is finally up for pre-order. The 3-disc set was pushed back from a mid-January release to an early February release (although the exact date is unsure, since DVDfromKorea cites it on the 5th while DVDAsian on the 11th) and raised in price by a few dollars. However, being an avid fan, a few dollars won’t detract from my joy. What will, however, and has, is the fact that waiting for the pre-order option has cost me a chance at the insanely underpriced 11-disc Takeshi Kitano boxset. However, the last time it went out of stock, it miraculously came back into stock, so hopefully such a miracle will befall me again.