Attack of the mushroom people / Frankenstein Conquers the World - bluray coming

[sa5150]

https://www.amazon.co.jp/マタンã‚...BFY71BBM507R5E

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/...=AN1VRQENFRJN5

Very odd when translated it says Language: English
Subtitles: Japanese

Toho flicks in english from Japan , must be a amazon error . any word on these ?

[spannick]

says Audio and Subtitles Japanese only in Tech Specs:

Language: 日本語
Subtitles: 日本語

[Partyslammer]

Any word on the quality of these two releases? I have read some vague, second-hand comments elsewhere that at least Frankenstein is not much of an upgrade over the Japanese DVD release. Also, it seems odd that Amazon Japan already no longer has Frankenstein in stock and is only showing resellers having this one available.

[Qaenos]

I bought both. Quality is similar the same as the other 2008 Toho Blu-rays. Slight improvement over the DVD. Definitely not a new scan.

[Joseph Goodman]

Small FCTW comparison I found:

https://twitter.com/venuscrab/status/934740371598319616
https://twitter.com/venuscrab/status/934750878568914944
https://twitter.com/venuscrab/status/934752395262701569
https://twitter.com/venuscrab/status/934746432707235840

[Monroville]

Hmm... it does look better than the dvd. Just a shame about the lack of english options.

[Partyslammer]

I finally picked up Frankenstein Conquers The World/vs Baragon via Amazon Japan. $48 including global shipping to California in only 3 days. I'm continually amazed how fast (and well packaged) Amazon.Jpn gets stuff to me compared to UK, Germany etc.

Most people reading this thread are familiar with the movie's plot and where it fits in Toho's monsterverse or whatever.

Anyway, the screen caps above pretty accurately show the overall marginal improvement over the older Toho DVD for this Blu-ray. The print used occasionally shows a *lot* of thin vertical running scratches that in a couple cases, I mistook for wires supporting the monsters. The overall video quality is fair, but not really great. No doubt due to the less-than-stellar print source used and of course, to the often primitive optical effects and film stock. This film features some unusually rough looking bluescreen and matte work even by Toho/Tsubaraya standards for this period.

The transfer includes both versions of the film in HD with the different endings, the one where Frankenstein sinks into the ground during some sort of earthquake as well as the octopus battle.

Of the two film audio tracks for the film, the original stereo mix is the most robust, the 5.1 remix from the old DVD seems lacking.

The other bonus and alternate scenes are included as standard def extras, some window boxed, some full screen, most in near VHS tape washed out quality. There's a couple trailers that include quick glimpses of alternate versions of some monster scenes. The audio track also includes the isolated music cues as a stand-alone audio track as well as a commentary track, both ported from the old DVD release. I think the one new extra for this release is a visual run-through of major scenes in the original shooting script with the actual movie playing in a small PIP-style box on the upper right of the screen.

It almost goes without saying, there is no English language audio track nor English subtitles, standard for any Toho genre home video release.

The menu screen is an even more confusing than usual affair from Toho, especially for us non-Japanese reading folk, laid out horizontally at the bottom of the screen (usually they are laid out vertically on the left side) you have to initially stumble around to figure out how to access the two different cuts of the movie.

The packaging is more bare-bones than usual for Toho's sci-fi Blu-ray releases. No (sparkly) slip cover of any kind. Honestly, based on some comments I've read since this was released last year, I was expecting a lot worse presentation and I only just bought it as I'm a Toho Blu-ray completest, having the previous Toho DVD release as well as the US 2 DVD release. Thankfully, while only a marginal HD upgrade, it is better than the DVD releases.