Criterion's release of Hiroshi Inagaki's Academy
Award winning Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto
is sadly very dated by today's standards on the
format. In fact, this early DVD from the company
is very poor across the board, as video and audio
are both lacking while it's also nearly devoid
of extras.
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Video: |
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An extremely lackluster video presentation
from Criterion, as the company is still getting
the hang of the format with this being only their
14th release. However, the biggest concern here
is unrelated to the transfer process, but is in
fact a problem with the noise levels. To put it
bluntly, there is an incredibly thick layer of
grain through out the movie, making the picture
look muddled. Print condition could also be better, as scratches are also apparent.
Very rarely, the film will also flicker to black
in the middle of a scene, pointing most likely
to a missing frame. The colors also leave some
to be desired on this release, as the entire color
scheme has been faded to overly yellow and green
hues despite the fact that the opening Toho
logo looks rather nice in this respect.
In terms of digital inconsistencies, the disc
fares much better although it's difficult to gauge
on account of the shape of the print. There does
appear to be some pixilation brought on by compressing
the movie too much, but most of this is overtaken
by the sheer amount of grain present. This also
makes it difficult to tell if edge enhancement
is being utilized, although at the same time the
movie doesn't look overly blurred either. Shimmering,
a rainbow band of colors on finer details, is
apparent here on occasion as well.
Musashi Miyamoto is presented in its
original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.
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Audio: |
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It's unfortunate that even the audio presentation
on this disc is severely lacking, to the degree
where it's almost intolerable at a few points
in fact. Distortions on this one channel audio
track are what really hold it down, as segments
of the movie sound scratchy and rough, particularly
Ikuma Dan's remarkable main title theme. At the
same time it's not unwatchable, but it's hard
to ignore when distortions start kicking in here
as well.
The audio track is accompanied by, removable,
English subtitles. |
Extras: |
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From a heavily flawed video and audio presentation,
the disc tops it off with a sparse and nearly
unnoticeable collection of extras. A trailer for
the film is present, with removable English subtitles,
and actually looks better than the film itself
despite the fact that the frame isn't always stable
on account of text imposition. Other than, there
is also linear notes from Bruce Eder (narrator
for some of Criterion's laserdiscs) found in the
booklet, which are a nice diversion even if they
are short but it does little to give the overall
supplemental content here much worth. |
Overview: |
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Bottom line, this is unfortunately a pretty
poor release of one of Toho's most famous films.
Seeing as how this is one of my favorite movies
too, it pains me to suggest against this release;
unfortunately, those interested in Musashi
Miyamoto don't have much of an alternative,
as the region 0 and PAL discs are even worse.
One can only hope that Criterion decides to revisit
this classic for a more fitting release in the
future. On a side note, Toho has recently released
the entire Samurai trilogy on region 2; however,
not having the set, I can't comment on them directly,
but I would assume them to be far better than
Criterion's efforts.
This disc is also featured in the DVD box set:
The
Samurai Trilogy. |
- Anthony Romero |