extremely rare SAFARI 5000 has been released!

[Monroville]

I heard about this movie from this site:

Originally Posted by Two Rarities - March 16, 2012

Two of the hardest-to-see Japanese movies are going to be airing – and in high-def yet – on NHK’s BS-hi tonight and tomorrow. Both star Toshiro Mifune and Yujiro Ishihara, former Nikkatsu heartthrob, star of Crazed Fruit, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, and brother of novelist-turned-reactionary Tokyo governor Shintaro. Ishihara eventually formed his own production company and the hugely successful Tunnel to the Sun (1968) and the less successful Safari 5000 (1969) were the result. Apparently, Ishihara’s estate kept these movies under wraps for years. As far as I know, neither was ever released to home video at all – not VHS, not laserdisc, and certainly not DVD or Blu-ray, nor were they shown on Japanese television and revival screenings were rare, if at all.

It appears that this has just been released a month or so ago, both in a 2 disc edition and a 1 disc edition:

SAFARI 5000 Special Edition (1 blu-ray and 1 DVD) - $43.36:




SAFARI 5000 Regular Edition (1 blu-ray) - $36.83:




Does anyone know what the differences are (ie do a proper translation from the amazon.co.jp pages) and if they have English subtitles?

[Monroville]

I went ahead and bit on the special edition. It contains the blu-ray of the movie (with Japanese 2.0 and Japanese subtitles. Unfortunately, no english subs), a dvd with a small list of extras (about 7 short BTS clips, running 3 to 7 minutes in length each, as well as a trailer) and a thin booklet.

While it is sad that it is not english friendly (though it is Region A and will play on your PS3), the picture quality is pretty amazing, especially considering the movie is close to 3 hours long.

[toddly6666]

Originally Posted by Monroville

I went ahead and bit on the special edition. It contains the blu-ray of the movie (with Japanese 2.0 and Japanese subtitles. Unfortunately, no english subs), a dvd with a small list of extras (about 7 short BTS clips, running 3 to 7 minutes in length each, as well as a trailer) and a thin booklet.

While it is sad that it is not english friendly (though it is Region A and will play on your PS3), the picture quality is pretty amazing, especially considering the movie is close to 3 hours long.

So what's your plan - just watch the movie and try to get the gist of the film?

[Monroville]

Originally Posted by toddly6666

So what's your plan - just watch the movie and try to get the gist of the film?

LOL - that's all I can do for now. There are a couple of factors that make it a bit easier than your average movie to follow: (1) there are quite a few scenes with english audio, being that it follows a multi-national rally race (where the antagonist is French with an English navigator, who frequently speak in English), and (2) the movie is fairly straight forward, so while you might not understand the language, it still works quite well in that you can still get the gist of what is going on (think along the lines of QUEST FOR FIRE in the sense that, despite the proto humans speaking a primitive language, it is done in a way that the audience can still figure out what is happening).

The ultimate plan is to take the Japanese subtitle track, translate it into English and create a custom subtitle track to play with the movie.

[johnnystam]

Hi guys,
I am desperate to get a copy of this film. I live in australia and can't order anything off amazon someone please help me out I really want this film!
Thanks

[Yasujiro Ozu]

Originally Posted by johnnystam

Hi guys,
I am desperate to get a copy of this film. I live in australia and can't order anything off amazon someone please help me out I really want this film!
Thanks

Why can't you order of Amazon?

[stobbart]

I stumbled upon this movie the other day and immediately bought the special edition set. It actually contains two blu-rays, one being just the movie and the other one containing all the special features. Don't think any of the special features are English friendly, only flipped through a few of them. All seemed rather short but offered decent making of footage.

The movie itself does not have English subtitles, but as stated by the other member the movie is pretty straight forward and a lot of it is in English. Before I bought the set I was able to watch a version that had fan made English subs. And yeah, it basically boils down to what most racing films are, "I don't want you to race anymore". "I can't stop racing", etc. kind of stuff. There are also forced Japanese subs onscreen for the English and French dialogue in the film.

Overall, I am happy to own this set as I can't see it getting a release outside of Japan anyway. Very fun movie, the only other racing epic I can think of is Grand Prix which was the inspiration for this movie. If you are interested, I would suggest giving this a go despite it not being completely English friendly.

[Gorgon]

^^ Thanks for the heads-up stobbart (and OP of course!).
I can deal with films in foreign languages without subs/dubs to English rather well.
Was curious if this is considered a 'comedy', "drama' or "dramedy"?
I'm thinking "Gumball Rally, Cannonball Run" vs "Rush" or "Days of Thunder" ?
Ta!

[stobbart]

Originally Posted by Gorgon

^^ Thanks for the heads-up stobbart (and OP of course!).
I can deal with films in foreign languages without subs/dubs to English rather well.
Was curious if this is considered a 'comedy', "drama' or "dramedy"?
I'm thinking "Gumball Rally, Cannonball Run" vs "Rush" or "Days of Thunder" ?
Ta!

I was trying to think of a movie to compare this to and Grand Prix is the only one I could think of. Probably due to the fact that it was directly “inspired” by that film. My guess is Japanese investors / producers who worked on that film for the involvement of the Japanese team portions “borrowed” a lot of the same elements.

-3hr running time
-teammate critically injured in the films opening race
-women questioing their partners decision to race / men having to race
-love triangles
-foreign investment / rivalry

I’m sure there are a ton of other story beats as well.

So it’s like that film, but it being a Japanese film of that time period the characters are more somber and aloof and the production is less polished. But it builds up to an extended (~40min) rally race in freaking Africa, so, well worth the price of admission.