The Twilight Samurai (2002) - November 11, 2014 - Limited to 3,000 copies

[Akijama]

Pre-order http://www3.screenarchives.com/title...-SAMURAI-2002/



Courtesy of Twilight Time

One Of The Best Reviewed Films Of The Year

Set in the late nineteenth century as the feudal Shogun period was giving way to the Meiji Restoration, Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada) is a low-ranking samurai of the Unasaka clan in Shonai Province of northeast Japan. The divorce of his childhood friend Tomoe (Rie Miyazawa) leads him into a confrontation with her violent ex-husband, a high-ranking samurai. Just as Seibei begins to dream that despite his impoverishment he might win the hand of the long loved Tomoe, he is caught in the shifting turmoil of the times and is assigned, against his wishes, to confront and kill a renowned warrior on the wrong side of a clan power struggle.

IMDB - 8.2 ( 15,823 users )

Rotten Tomatoes - 99 % ( 68 reviews counted )

The Twilight Samurai Movie Trailer HD (2002) - YouTube

[MifuneFan]

Great movie. Too bad it's with TT though, I likely won't spend $35 for this..

edit: There is an HK version that's very cheap. Not sure how the transfer is though:

http://dddhouse.com/v3/product_detai...roductID=11620

[tsetse27]

!!!

who own the right of this one in US? does this means TT has access to other studio's library now (not just Sony/Columbia/MGN)?

I have the HK one, and it is not good: I am not AV expert but I believe the contrast is wrong (black become like gray.)

[Swift1246]

I want this movie badly! But Twilight Time, at $35 is rediculous.

[ultlife2013]

Originally Posted by Swift1246

I want this movie badly! But Twilight Time, at $35 is rediculous.

It's also ridiculous.

[manicsounds]

$35 is not that ridiculous considering the Japanese blu-ray is listed at $50, and didn't carry over the 200 minutes of extras from the DVD edition.

I'd like to know what Twilight Time will do with the extras. Hard to believe that the US DVD was non-anamorphic widescreen...

[lolwut]

Wow, 99% and 8.2. I've never heard of this film. I don't like romances though.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by tsetse27

!!!

who own the right of this one in US? does this means TT has access to other studio's library now (not just Sony/Columbia/MGN)?

I have the HK one, and it is not good: I am not AV expert but I believe the contrast is wrong (black become like gray.)

I read any contrast issues might be inherent to how it was filmed. A few people have said the PQ us very good, including Blu Titan just now in the TT thread.

[MoulinBlu]

Originally Posted by tsetse27

!!!

who own the right of this one in US? does this means TT has access to other studio's library now (not just Sony/Columbia/MGN)?

I have the HK one, and it is not good: I am not AV expert but I believe the contrast is wrong (black become like gray.)

The levels were encoded high on the US dvd too. I wouldn't expect the TT release to be any different, unless they tweak the levels themselves. I'd presume it to be from the same master - US producers don't always have much say over the master they're provided for foreign films, not even the majors like Sony. Foreign producers don't tweak their home video product as heavily as some US producers do. As such their masters are often more faithful: more detail, less ringing, the levels haven't been cranked to appease the masses. The only downside is that such sometimes means less meticulous compression (artifacting that hasn't been digitally cleaned/corrected in problem spots) and a greater likelihood of encoding errors, like lip sync or color timing.

If the video levels are only encoded higher than they're supposed to be or higher than you prefer, that can easily be corrected by lowering your displays white levels. Remember, calibration only optimizes the display, not the material. In most cases black and white levels are one of the few things that we consumers can pretty effectively compensate for ourselves, if the studio messes them up, without seriously compromising fidelity - which in the case of black and white levels, we can only guess at what the DP intended. If post was rushed, even the theatrical run may not have been what they wanted. Regardless, your own enjoyment is what most matters. And if lowering brightness enhances the movie for you, sobeit.

This is one of your better non-Kurosawa samurai films. I'd definitely recommend it for what the HK import is selling for on amazon, assuming the criticism above is all that ails it and it's the official release, not some bootleg. If resolution still looks like HD and compression doesn't make it look like some streaming rental or youtube video, all else can be fixed or greatly compensated for by the end user.

[Mansinthe]

some gamma adjustment did do wonders to the HK bluray on my projector !
but still it didnt look much like a HD Release after all. ;(

i got the first two movies from HK (BD) and part 3 from the UK (DVD)
there is not really much of a difference between these 3 releases in picture quality..

[Canvas of Flesh]

I have the HK releases for both The Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. From what I could see, the films definitely aren't very pretty, but it looks like most of that comes down to the source material. I don't think either of the releases had special features. They both had very good audio, but they're not really action films, so don't expect a ton of LFE or anything. The subtitles were also great and I don't remember seeing any typos or grammatical errors.

If you're just looking to see these great films, I'd suggest importing them.

[Shingster]

Looks like it's German subs only I'm afraid. If you go to the caps-a-holic comparison ruffhux and scroll down you can see an image of the BD Info scan on both discs being compared. This is actually pretty useful for checking on subtitle or aother details like audio tracks and whatnot so long as caps-a-holic features the disc on the site.

[DukeTogo84]

So, I watched this after having the Empire DVD for over a decade, and let me tell you, this version feels 100X better than that DVD.

It felt so good throwing away that DVD and watching it via the Twilight Time.

[DukeTogo84]

Watched this again recently after three years. I know people complained about it, but as someone who watched the New Yorker DVD for a decade this release was somewhat of a revelation. I guess after that it, was almost impossible to be worse.

I'm so happy to own this imperfections and all as the DVD was easily in my top 10 worst looking DVDs I owned.

[Ssnake]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

Watched this again recently after three years. I know people complained about it, but as someone who watched the New Yorker DVD for a decade this release was somewhat of a revelation. I guess after that it, was almost impossible to be worse.

I'm so happy to own this imperfections and all as the DVD was easily in my top 10 worst looking DVDs I owned.

Recently watched Sword of Desperation and greatly enjoyed it. So it motivated me to go back and watch again The Hidden Blade and Twilight Samurai. Like you, am very glad that I got this blu ray of The Twilight Samurai. The image quality did not hinder enjoyment of this film.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Ssnake

Recently watched Sword of Desperation and greatly enjoyed it. So it motivated me to go back and watch again The Hidden Blade and Twilight Samurai. Like you, am very glad that I got this blu ray of The Twilight Samurai. The image quality did not hinder enjoyment of this film.

All excellent films. I do wish Love & Honor had gotten a Blu-ray. It looked like Funimation was going to release it at one point, but for whatever reason it didn't happen.

[Markjohnsonii]

It would be great if this Trilogy was picked up and remastered.