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AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) (2009) Review
Congratulations & thank you Criterion for releasing all of their Akira Kurosawa films in a boxset!Not many people know that they need to pay license fees for the right to release AK movies and movies like Ran have "expired" and that is precisely why it is not included here. At the time of this review, their DVD is out of print. They were scheduled to release the Blu-Ray last August, but since the rights expired, Criterion pulled the title from schedule. Why release it for a few weeks only for it to go out of print? The rights to Ran defaulted back to Studio Canal. Furthermore, Criterion never obtained the rights to the other 4 missing titles:
The Quiet Duel
Dersu Uzala
Dreams
Rhapsody in August
I'm not an insider so I do not know the business decisions (remember they are a business first!) but I have a feeling that it isn't because Criterion didn't try to get the license. It's possible that either the license/copyright owners want too much money or there might not have been a great film print to begin with! It's not like Criterion is sitting around with nothing to do =P. So, it isn't really Criterion's fault for not including every single film Akira Kurosawa directed, i believe this boxset is everything Criterion had rights to!!! They already released every AK they owned! And for that, I am grateful!
Now, onto the set itself, every single film is presented in the usual excellent picture quality and audio presentation! If you have purchased Criterion products in the past before, you already know that they deliver the very BEST technical film presentation than anyone else in the industry. So if you were wondering what if Criterion skimped on quality, I would stop wondering, they did not skimp on anything in this boxset! All grain is preserved and the picture is clear and sharp and audio cleaned up so you can hear everything. Pretty good for 60+ year old film negatives on the early films!
Ok, so there is probably only 1 film that you are wondering how they can squeeze what was once a 2 disc high bitrate release (from the 3 disc edition) down to 1 disc. I'm talking about the Seven Samurai, of course. I have to remind you that Criterion has released that title 3 times (correct me if I'm wrong). The first is the barebone movie only version during the early days of DVDs! The second release, Criterion took the video from the first, cleaned it a bit, and added more bonus/extra. The third release is the definitive remastering of the film negative that is so sharp and awesome they needed 2 discs (it is an almost 4 hour movie after all). Did they do it right by squeezing it into 1 disc? Absolutely. Why? Improvements in MPEG-2 compression knowledge over the years. MPEG-2 is a VERY mature technology by now. It's been 13+ years since DVDs debuted. Every year or so it has improved more and more, squeezing more quality out of less disk space than previously required. So rest assured everything else is golden here.
That brings to me to why I gave this 3 stars. The only Kurosawa Criterion I have is the 3 disc Seven Samurai because I was really waiting for a boxset like AK 100 to come along! The Seven Samurai is my favorite film of all time and Akira Kurosawa is my favorite director of all time, but I never bought AK movies on DVD because I've been waiting for a "definitive" Criterion collection. By that I meant, a boxset of all bonus/extras that have been released TOO! Not just the films themselves!
Which makes me wonder who this set is target. I know one of the audiences they want to bring in are people who have never purchased any AK films. It would seem like I am their target... yet I am disappointed because they didn't include all the PREVIOUSLY released bonus/extras! Before I got this, I assumed that this boxset would include EVERYTHING, my 3 disc Seven Samurai, all of the Criterion AK movies that have been released and previously unreleased material with even MORE bonus material. Instead I'm left with JUST THE FILMS themselves, which isn't bad at all! They are excellent films! It's just I feel cheated now because I'm expected to be brought upto speed w/the rest of the AK collectors (over the years) who have purchased the single disc editions for the bonus/extras. Instead, I'm left with the impression that Criterion is basically saying: "you should have been buying those AK Criterion releases all along, we were never going to include the bonus/extras in a boxset you silly goose!"
The other side of the coin, you've already read the reviews by existing AK collectors. They have most of the releases except the titles missing on this set, which will eventually get their own single title releases.
Which begs the ultimate question, does this mean that when the single movie Criterion releases DO happen (not the Eclipse versions) that they will have bonus/extras for each and every single AK films (even the early ones)? That will basically render this boxset moot because I'd rather get every single movie w/bonus, extras and wait for all that to come to fruition than to have this now and be left without extras in the future.
Meanwhile, I have stopped buying DVDs anyways, I'm moving onto Blu-Rays, I have Kagemusha and plan on grabbing Sanjuro/Yijimbo double pack. The Seven Samurai Blu-Ray should be out this fall or next spring at the latest. I hope they get to a point where they can release a boxset like this in Blu-Ray format WITH all the bonus features from the Blu-Ray. But, I, for one, am going to start grabbing AK on Blu-Ray one by one instead of waiting like I did in the past.
AK 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) (2009) Overview
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