Following their release of the region 2 DVD a few months before, comes Warner Bros' region 1 disc of Dreams. Those looking to just experience the film are in luck, as Warner has packed this disc with great video and audio quality, although sadly they did almost nothing in regards to bonus material.

Warner Bros. has done a solid job with the video presentation on this release, with the most noticeable aspect being the rich spectrum of colors present; an attribute which is really brought to the fore due to Akira Kurosawa's use of color in the feature film. Unfortunately, the colors do look a little washed during the Van Gogh sequence, which could be a sign of the saturation being increased too much, but given that its the only instance of this in the film, its easy to overlook.

Other aspects of this transfer also fare well, with the movie looking sharp and with only minor signs of edge enhancement. Noise levels are also great, with only minimal film grain visible. The print used for the transfer is also in pretty good shape . There are a few scratches at the start, but thankfully these disappear later in the feature.

Dreams is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and is Anamorphic for widescreen TVs.

Dreams contains one audio track, which is a 2.0 stereo presentation of the film in Japanese. The overall quality is good, with the dialogue all being crystal clear and there being no noticeable distortions. For a stereo release, the speaker distortion is also commendable, especially "the funeral song" which makes excellent use of the soundscape.

The audio can be accompanied with, removable, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese or Korean subtitles, making this one of the more subtitle loaded Toho releases.

Sadly, the disc's crippling weakness is its extras, or lack there of. What little supplemental material is included is all text only, which include Kurosawa's awards and a very, very brief rundown of the cast and crew, with some expanded information on Kurosawa. Otherwise, this disc is as bare as they come.

Bottom line, if one wants to watch the film, and nothing more, then Warner Bros' DVD is a fine release. It's sad that they didn't stock this disc with some nice bonus material though, especially given that Kurosawa was given his Oscar around this time and that footage would have been excellent to include, but so it goes.