Extras |
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Captures |
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Review |
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Anthony
Romero |
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One of AnimEigo's many Toho releases, this
disc contains another movie produced by Mifune
Productions that happens to walk a fine line
between comedy and action piece. The film
aside, this DVD is sadly nothing special.
The video track is fairly lacking, while the
audio is good considering the source but not
enough so to compensate for a rather meager
showing in the extra department. |
Video: |
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Sadly, the video track found on this release
is pretty sub-standard. On the plus side,
the print used in the transfer appears to
be in good shape in respects to print damage,
as things such as scratches are hardly to
be seen; however, it suffers a lot in the
color department. To be frank, there is a
lot of color distortion through out, with
many scenes appearing too yellow and red in
their hue, although some are faded other colors
as well. The range also looks washed out,
which distorts details as well, most noticeably
on the famous "red lion" headdress.
Red Lion is presented in its original
aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is Anamorphic for
widescreen TVs. |
Audio: |
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The disc contains one audio track, which
is a 2.0 mono presentation that is a faithful
recreation of the source material. There generally
aren't any inconsistencies to be found here,
as the entire track runs without any pops
or crackles while the dialogue is very clear.
As always, more options, like an added stereo
track, would have been nice, but what is included
is adequate enough.
As with other AnimEigo titles, the audio
track is accompanied by, removable, English
subtitles which are color coded to show when
more than one character is talking. There
is also a second set of subtitles that can
be turned on to provide definitions for certain
words related to Japanese culture. |
Extras: |
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Well there is a decent amount of supplemental
content, but nothing too interesting. The
image gallery is at least nice to look over,
as it does contain some pretty nice production
stills from the movie. The DVD also runs the
gamut in terms of text extras, including several
pages of notes on the time period, which is
a standard feature on most AnimEigo releases,
and character biographies. Finally, the disc
also has trailers for other Toho movies available
from the firm, including: Demon Spies,
Shadow
Hunters, Samurai
Banners,
and Samurai
Assassin.
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Overview: |
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Bottom
line, it's a typical release from AnimEigo.
They used to be known for having great video
presentations, but those days are long past
now and this over priced release, at least
for the presentation, is what remains. However,
it's still the one way to see the movie on
region 1, meaning Mifune fans are left with
little other alterative if they want to view
the production. |
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