High and Low 4K UHD (1963) / Kagemusha 4K UHD (1980)

[McCrutchy]

High and Low 4K Blu-ray

Kagemusha 4K Blu-ray

Toho will release Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963) and Kagemusha (1980) on May 17th, 2023.

[McCrutchy]

I'm surprised it's not Red Beard paired with High and Low, but Kagemusha. It's a little bit strange that Toho say that the latter especially will be on a 66 GB disc. I wonder if they will be like Disney or if they are just using 66 GB for the press releases of all the discs. They did change the audio spec from LPCM Mono to LPCM 4.0 for both of the May titles, though.

Presumably a Criterion release of either film would be on a 100 GB disc, but regardless, it will be interesting to see how these pan out. Stray Dog and Ikiru will be available next week!

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

I'm surprised it's not Red Beard paired with High and Low, but Kagemusha. It's a little bit strange that Toho say that the latter especially will be on a 66 GB disc. I wonder if they will be like Disney or if they are just using 66 GB for the press releases of all the discs. They did change the audio spec from LPCM Mono to LPCM 4.0 for both of the May titles, though.

Presumably a Criterion release of either film would be on a 100 GB disc, but regardless, it will be interesting to see how these pan out. Stray Dog and Ikiru will be available next week!

Amazing news. Thanks for sharing and your great work here in general.
You convinced me to buy The Inugami Family - what a great release in terms of content but unfortunately the PQ in 4K isn't as strong with quite a bit of grain management / DNR.

Do you know whether it's "safe" to import these Kurosawa releases? I don't have any Toho releases from Japan in my collection.

I'm asking because the prices are steep, so everything should be as good as possible in terms of encoding.

[NeilZ]

This is so awesome, brings the total 4k UHD's of Kurosawa released in Japan to 6 (and with Ran in the UK we have 7, but a UHD would come from Kadokawa for that one I believe).

As far as I know Red Beard hadn't been restored to 4k yet. The only other 3 yet to be announced that I know have been given new 4k scans in recent years are: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and The Hidden Fortress.

Then again we didn't know that Stray Dog had a restoration either last I checked, so very possible we still get Red Beard, or maybe The Bad Sleep Well, as the 10th and last combo, but maybe we'll get even more.

[M A]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

This is so awesome, brings the total 4k UHD's of Kurosawa released in Japan to 6 (and with Ran in the UK we have 7, but a UHD would come from Kadokawa for that one I believe).

As far as I know Red Beard hadn't been restored to 4k yet. The only other 3 yet to be announced that I know have been given new 4k scans in recent years are: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and The Hidden Fortress.

Then again we didn't know that Stray Dog had a restoration either last I checked, so very possible we still get Red Beard, or maybe The Bad Sleep Well, as the 10th and last combo, but maybe we'll get even more.

Throne of Blood has a 4K restoration as well

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by nicwood

Amazing news. Thanks for sharing and your great work here in general.
You convinced me to buy The Inugami Family - what a great release in terms of content but unfortunately the PQ in 4K isn't as strong with quite a bit of grain management / DNR.

Do you know whether it's "safe" to import these Kurosawa releases? I don't have any Toho releases from Japan in my collection.

I'm asking because the prices are steep, so everything should be as good as possible in terms of encoding.

Thanks for the compliment.

Unfortunately, I have no idea about whether the Kurosawa 4K UHDs will be worth owning. I may get one in the near future, but even if I do, I don't have a proper 4K setup yet.

[nicwood]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

Thanks for the compliment.

Unfortunately, I have no idea about whether the Kurosawa 4K UHDs will be worth owning. I may get one in the near future, but even if I do, I don't have a proper 4K setup yet.

No problem. Do you have any Toho BD’s imported from Japan in your collection?
That’s what I meant with my question. Based on how they usually encode I’d like to make my decision.

Sure, UHD is always a different thing but if they don’t completely screw up their BD’s I assume the upcoming UHDs should be fine. An example would be Criterion - their BD and 4k encoding seems to be roughly on par in how grain managed they tend to be.

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by M A

Throne of Blood has a 4K restoration as well

Thanks! That's right I forgot about that.

Originally Posted by nicwood

No problem. Do you have any Toho BD’s imported from Japan in your collection?
That’s what I meant with my question. Based on how they usually encode I’d like to make my decision.

Sure, UHD is always a different thing but if they don’t completely screw up their BD’s I assume the upcoming UHDs should be fine. An example would be Criterion - their BD and 4k encoding seems to be roughly on par in how grain managed they tend to be.

For what it's worth people who went to see the 4K restorations in cinemas gave them rave reviews. I don't see any reason not to expect them to be stellar.

Also I'd argue that Inugami Family still looks great and a significant upgrade from the blu ray (especially in terms of colors), but that was Kadokawa's work, these are Toho.

[Hydra Spectre]

I don't know why Toho keeps making their catalogue 4K UHDs (King Kong vs. Godzilla and the Kurosawa films) SDR-only.
They released Godzilla 2014 in 4K UHD in Japan with HDR10. Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019 had Dolby Vision and HDR10 (but not HDR10+) on the Japanese release, while Godzilla vs. Kong also had Dolby Vision and HDR10.
Even locally-produced films such as Your Name., Shin Godzilla, and Weathering With You had HDR10 (WWY will also later get Dolby Vision on the GKIDS/Anime Ltd. 4K UHD). And Shin Ultraman will be Dolby Vision + HDR10.

It's not like analogue 35mm film only ever topped at 100 nits. HDR would honestly bring the films closer to the original intent, with more conservative HDR grades.
And yet Your Name. and Weathering With You, which were animated and mastered in SDR 100 nits, got HDR10 regrades, with WWY getting Dolby Vision on international releases.

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by Hydra Spectre

I don't know why Toho keeps making their catalogue 4K UHDs (King Kong vs. Godzilla and the Kurosawa films) SDR-only.
They released Godzilla 2014 in 4K UHD in Japan with HDR10. Godzilla: King of the Monsters 2019 had Dolby Vision and HDR10 (but not HDR10+) on the Japanese release, while Godzilla vs. Kong also had Dolby Vision and HDR10.
Even locally-produced films such as Your Name., Shin Godzilla, and Weathering With You had HDR10 (WWY will also later get Dolby Vision on the GKIDS/Anime Ltd. 4K UHD). And Shin Ultraman will be Dolby Vision + HDR10.

It's not like analogue 35mm film only ever topped at 100 nits. HDR would honestly bring the films closer to the original intent, with more conservative HDR grades.
And yet Your Name. and Weathering With You, which were animated and mastered in SDR 100 nits, got HDR10 regrades, with WWY getting Dolby Vision on international releases.

Probably because they didn't scan them with an HDR pass. A lot of these Kurosawa scans were done a few years ago (some as far back as 2019 if I recall correctly). Would be odd to do movies like Stray Dog in HDR and Seven Samurai in SDR, so I guess for sake of consistency they just decided to do all Kurosawa in SDR. Maybe they'll start doing HDR for other films though would be my guess. Yes it's a shame but ultimately the new scans themselves are what makes the biggest difference here.

[unberechenbar]

I thought High and Low was related to the High&Low franchise.

[d1360]

WOW. Both movies are great, but H&L is something else (9/10). Great news for the movie lovers and the collectors of course!

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by nicwood

No problem. Do you have any Toho BD’s imported from Japan in your collection?
That’s what I meant with my question. Based on how they usually encode I’d like to make my decision.

Sure, UHD is always a different thing but if they don’t completely screw up their BD’s I assume the upcoming UHDs should be fine. An example would be Criterion - their BD and 4k encoding seems to be roughly on par in how grain managed they tend to be.

Sorry for the late reply.

I only have a few Toho releases in my collection and most of those are releases of the English-language Godzilla films. Since those are probably unusual releases for Toho, I wouldn't be able to provide much insight into how they handle the Japanese films that they regularly release, although the Toho discs I have are very high quality.

However, even though I still don't have a 4K display and need English subtitles, that somehow didn't stop me from ordering the 4K UHD of Ikiru, so I hope they've done a good job with that one...

[NLScavenger]

Kagemusha screenshots






Colors appear a bit muted, but I guess that whoever took those screenshots didn't do a good srgb conversion. Here's one of the screenshots with a quick color space transformation in Resolve


--------------------------------------

High and Low

https://ibb.co/GMhzH1G
https://ibb.co/CwQ2yTy
https://ibb.co/tqQ46pK
https://ibb.co/2YbWhzG
https://ibb.co/6nD88nc
https://ibb.co/4NNrGFS

[Cpt. Feeney]

High and Low is my fav Kurosawa. If I'm playing on a pc, I can import subtitles, right?

[NLScavenger]

Originally Posted by Cpt. Feeney

High and Low is my fav Kurosawa. If I'm playing on a pc, I can import subtitles, right?

Yes, you can import external subtitles or remux the film + subtitles into an MKV container.

[MifuneFan]

Not really impressed by the look of Kagemusha there. Besides the colors (which may just be a user error as pointed out), the image just looks kind of flat.

[M A]

Took a screencap of the Criterion High and Low blu to match:

https://slow.pics/c/xvWcm3od

Huge upgrade

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by M A

Took a screencap of the Criterion High and Low blu to match:

https://slow.pics/c/xvWcm3od

Huge upgrade

Wow, makes the Criterion BD look like a DVD!

[nicwood]

My copies of both High and Low and Kagemusha should arrive in a couple of days.
I’ll check right away for the colors which I can’t imagine appear this flat.

Sanjuro and Yojimbo are stuck in customs for now.