Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[repulsed]

Originally Posted by rapta

Err...Mermaid Legend is incoming?!

https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/merma...pwwc0xmdixmtq2

Will definitely be getting this one! Wasn't as sure with the recent batch of Director Company titles (though The Crazy Family does look fun), but Mermaid Legend is more like it. Glad they managed to sort the rights out in the end!

Cannot buy fast enough! Of course that goes for Third Window titles in general esp. the recent Director's Co. stuff.

Wonder why we can't get Linda Linda Linda and Swing Girls out in the UK and/or US.

[qw0aszx]

Originally Posted by Cinematt

It was first shown on TV, and then they changed the aspect ratio from 1.78:1 to 1.85:1, regraded it and gave it a 5.1 mix, and put it into competition at Venice. I think it's only the theatrical version that has been made available on disc (the Kino is 1.85 and 5.1) but I couldn't find any comparison between the two so I don't actually know what was changed with the colour grading.

Also the TV version was in 8K (4320p), HDR and HFR (60fps), this film was shot for the 8K TV channel, I also remembered reading the promotion saying the TV version had a 22.2 channel sound mix.

[CelestialAgent]

JFF streaming season begins next month.

https://jff.jpf.go.jp/watch/jffonline2024/uk/

[take1leave1]

Picked up Luminous Women today. Will we see Tokyo Heaven? That is a great one too.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by take1leave1

Picked up Luminous Women today. Will we see Tokyo Heaven? That is a great one too.

It would be nice but Third Window says that the rights are with Shochiku and it's a "probably not" on their titles.

I was surprised to hear that Tokyo Heaven and Kaza-hana (Somai's final feature, a proto-Drive My Car starring Tadanobu Asano) are with Shochiku as, on their online catalog the only Somai titles they list are The Catch (one of Somai's best, another label should definitely jump on it) and Wait and See.

--


On a related note, news from Cannes is that mk2 have acquired global rights to a new 4K restoration of Shinji Somai's 1994 film The Friends.

Fingers and toes crossed we hear about that one being licenced soon.

It has been amazing to see the number of Somai films that have been licensed by either Third Window or Cinema Guild this past year - we've gone from 0 Somai films available in the West circa 2021, to 1 from Arrow that year, to almost half of his features by the end of this year.

It might be time to concentrate my efforts on lobbying for another neglected Japanese director

[Cinematt]

Originally Posted by Yami

While we wait in hope of more Obayashi releases from Third Window, followers of this thread might be interested to learn that Kani have picked up Obayashi's Beijing Watermelon for US release - undoubtedly there'll be a Blu-Ray down the line but they're giving it a limited theatrical release before that

[Official Trailer] Beijing Watermelon - YouTube

This is hitting the Criterion Channel next month (which is no indication Criterion have a physical release on the way) joining the anti-war trilogy that was added this month. I think Third Window can take a lot of credit for igniting interest in Obayashi beyond House so it's nice to see the ripples spreading across the pond.

[logboy]

Originally Posted by Cinematt

I think Third Window can take a lot of credit for igniting interest in Obayashi beyond House so it's nice to see the ripples spreading across the pond.

house was released by criterion such a long time ago.

i'd hope (and expect) any film that gets interest will cause those that enjoyed it to look up those involved in it on IMDB.

obayashi was long known about for decades. plenty of directors, especially from japan, have fans that can outstrip labels for their knowledge. when new announcements are teased, the imagination there is far beyond what the labels mostly end up releasing.

[Yami]

I'm confident that Kani will release Beijing Watermelon on Blu-Ray themselves. It's kind of surprising, seeing that House was evidently a hit for them, that Criterion hasn't seen fit to release any Obayashi since - particularly annoying because they're one of the few labels who'd have a chance of getting Bound for the Fields, the Mountains, and the Seacoast from Toho.

I do hope Third Window can release more though. I gather that dealing with Kadokawa wasn't the easiest and I'm not entirely sure how the rights to his other 90s and 00s work out but it would be wonderful to see e.g. Chizuko's Younger Sister, The Rocking Horsemen, Switching - Goodbye Me, The Discarnates

[dwk]

I still find it so odd that after House's success it took so long for anyone to release any more of Obayashi's films. (I guess Criterion has technically released 3, House includes his short film Emotion as an extra and Kurosawa's Dreams includes the making of doc directed by Obayashi. They do definitely have the rights to Sada, but I have no idea why they haven't released that.) Were there just no suitable masters? The Japanese companies just being their usual pain-in-the-ass selves?

[Yami]

Originally Posted by dwk

I still find it so odd that after House's success it took so long for anyone to release any more of Obayashi's films. (I guess Criterion has technically released 3, House includes his short film Emotion as an extra and Kurosawa's Dreams includes the making of doc directed by Obayashi. They do definitely have the rights to Sada, but I have no idea why they haven't released that.) Were there just no suitable masters? The Japanese companies just being their usual pain-in-the-ass selves?

There were clearly suitable masters for many of his films, as he is pretty well represented on Japanese home media. So...shrug.

[logboy]

Originally Posted by Yami

There were clearly suitable masters for many of his films, as he is pretty well represented on Japanese home media. So...shrug.

this makes me wonder (for some reason) how does one company assess the level of success (and interest) there was in a release, if they only pressed a limited quantity? why do some labels continue to insist there's not a market beyond limited releases and only push so far with pressings of any subsequent standard editions?

criterion, on the other hand, seems to have a model that sits more along the lines of covering a range of material as though somehow randomly representative of the world's collective cinematic output. i think this is supported by how it's treated by those watchers of films that are oddly dominated by thoughts of collecting.

the attitude has spread somewhat, and new (more imaginative?) labels are hailed as the new criterion. oddly, once i realised how productive japan's industry was, the more impossible it seemed to ever cover all the basis of what it alone makes, so any regard for it as merely part of any labels' output that includes a subset of it seems bizarre.

[UncleBuckWild]

Release Date: August 5, 2024


Casting Blossoms to the Sky



Seven Weeks

[Cinematt]

Originally Posted by logboy

house was released by criterion such a long time ago.

i'd hope (and expect) any film that gets interest will cause those that enjoyed it to look up those involved in it on IMDB.

obayashi was long known about for decades. plenty of directors, especially from japan, have fans that can outstrip labels for their knowledge. when new announcements are teased, the imagination there is far beyond what the labels mostly end up releasing.

I'm sure it would, but when you look them up and find that you can't buy any more of their releases then you end up with two options, moving on, or piracy. I don't know who got House out first, but between Criterion and Eureka it sat on both sides of the Atlantic as the only English language release of his for many years, despite being a much talked about cult classic.
There was someone on twitter that had a Mega folder of Obayashi's movies as their pinned tweet for years, there has certainly been demand in certain circles, but for whatever reason nobody was taking the commercial risk to release them and since Third Window did you can find Obayashi on multiple streaming services and more of his films are turning up with official releases. There's still miles to go, his catalogue is huge, but we're doing a lot better than 1 now.
I don't know if I'd assume that the fans can outstrip the labels for their knowledge, just because a film hasn't been released doesn't mean the labels don't wish it could be, and half of the time when someone asks Adam about something here he already knows exactly what the rights situation is because he's already looked in to them.

I'm hoping/expecting The Discarnates will pop up soon, given the success of All of Us Strangers, it's a good hook to get some interest, but it's with Shochiku so I doubt it's on the list of things Adam has been looking in to (I think he hinted before he was considering more from Obayashi)

[logboy]

Originally Posted by Cinematt

I'm sure it would, but when you look them up and find that you can't buy any more of their releases then you end up with two options, moving on, or piracy. I don't know who got House out first, but between Criterion and Eureka it sat on both sides of the Atlantic as the only English language release of his for many years, despite being a much talked about cult classic.
There was someone on twitter that had a Mega folder of Obayashi's movies as their pinned tweet for years, there has certainly been demand in certain circles, but for whatever reason nobody was taking the commercial risk to release them and since Third Window did you can find Obayashi on multiple streaming services and more of his films are turning up with official releases. There's still miles to go, his catalogue is huge, but we're doing a lot better than 1 now.
I don't know if I'd assume that the fans can outstrip the labels for their knowledge, just because a film hasn't been released doesn't mean the labels don't wish it could be, and half of the time when someone asks Adam about something here he already knows exactly what the rights situation is because he's already looked in to them.

I'm hoping/expecting The Discarnates will pop up soon, given the success of All of Us Strangers, it's a good hook to get some interest, but it's with Shochiku so I doubt it's on the list of things Adam has been looking in to (I think he hinted before he was considering more from Obayashi)

it may well be exactly because of piracy that plenty of people can outstrip labels for their knowledge, and because of that knowledge that they stick with piracy.

i've gone through periods where i've looked at what's being fansubbed, and always watch people reacting in FB posts with comments about what they hope will be announced by any regular licensee of japanese film, and there's always excitement before then disappointment afterwards. not a blanket thing, but very frequent.

plenty of much talked about cult classics have been in limbo for far too many years. abashiri prison, red peony gambler : both of these are extremely well-known, and just making it out right now. this is very commonplace, the lack of a release of japanese films, but this is where the greatest frustration may lie, in stuff being screamed about but nobody even says they tried to license things.

the chance of a film eventually turning up, if you can accept we will never have the capacity or interest to catch up on a century of an industry making hundreds of films a year, can be exciting too. trying to discover, or having surprises, like those from labels like radiance, is great too. we could all be digging to find directors and films that have screened at festivals that could be of interest to others here, and maybe a label will agree and give those finds a try too?

fwiw, i think adam has astonishing knowledge and passion for what he does and for the work he releases. i do wonder, however, if the recent licenses are more a matter of what is offered up, and there's now less of chasing dead ends on passion projects, and the number of those is now focussed more : hence the director's company releases, maybe.

[Cinematt]

Originally Posted by logboy

fwiw, i think adam has astonishing knowledge and passion for what he does and for the work he releases. i do wonder, however, if the recent licenses are more a matter of what is offered up, and there's now less of chasing dead ends on passion projects, and the number of those is now focussed more : hence the director's company releases, maybe.

Well I'm sure you always have to strike the balance, but I think the Director's Company releases have been really great so if they were what was offered then we've all got lucky. Given the situation with Mermaid Legend he'd spoken about before I didn't think we were going to get that, so it seems like there is still some chasing going on. There's obviously a limit on how many release he can do a year as a small label so I'm not surprised this year is dominated by Director's Company, but given the runs he's done on Obayashi, Toyoda, Sono, Kitano, and Tsukamoto it's not unusual for TWF to get stuck in to a niche and get as much as they can from it, so I'm sure there'll be more passion projects around the corner.

[Daedolon]

Is TWF skipping a boxset in favour of individual releases for their new Obayashi releases?

[Yami]

Originally Posted by Daedolon

Is TWF skipping a boxset in favour of individual releases for their new Obayashi releases?

There haven't been any new Obayashi releases announced per se, Seven Weeks and Casting Blossoms to the Sky were already in the Anti-War Trilogy box set

[Yurakucho]

Casting Blossoms and Seven Weeks were in the Anti-War Trilogy boxset, unless there're more Obayadhi releases coming up.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by logboy

fwiw, i think adam has astonishing knowledge and passion for what he does and for the work he releases. i do wonder, however, if the recent licenses are more a matter of what is offered up, and there's now less of chasing dead ends on passion projects, and the number of those is now focussed more : hence the director's company releases, maybe.

Don't really get this line of thinking. What part of the Director's Company releases doesn't resemble a 'passion project'? It's not like they were a package deal - each has been licensed from a different rightsholder, some have needed tricky negotiations, all for films that are essentially unknown quantities in the West with limited sales potential. They seem as much of a 'passion project' as anything Third Window has done before, perhaps more so.

[Yurakucho]

Typhoon Club, Door and The Guard From Underground have been wonderful, surprising, hilarious originals I'd never heard of before. People would like Adam to cave in to commercialism and give us Takeshis, Glory to the Filmmaker and Achilles and the Tortoise... and Linda Linda Linda.