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DVD Title |
Samurai Assassin |
International Title |
Samurai
Assassin |
DVD Length |
Original Length |
123 Minutes |
123 Minutes |
Company |
Year of Manufacture |
AnimEigo |
2005 |
Language |
Subtitles |
Japanese |
English |
Region |
Number of Discs |
1 |
1 |
Aspect Ratio |
Sound |
2.35:1 [Crop] (Anamorphic) |
1.0 Mono |
Extras |
|
Captures |
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Review |
What a stab in the back this release is. AnimEigo,
a company that at one time was known for their
attention to video quality, will now go down in
history as having one of the worst looking Toho
DVDs on the market. To make matters worse, the
audio presentation is completely lackluster as
well, while the extras are nothing more than the
standard, and unenticing, fare one has come to
associate with the company.
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Video: |
 |
To be blunt: the video presentation on this
disc is simply awful. Nothing works here, and
nearly every aspect is heavily flawed. Although
the biggest problem is simply that the print looks
very hazy, with hardly any sharpness to it; in
fact, it looks as if the source for the transfer
was re-recorded with cassette tapes numerous times
until the quality rapidly declined. AnimEigo attempted
to correct the problems with their source material
by upping the edge enhancement a great deal to
get some sort of detail from the film, but in
the process only made the situation worse as most
things have faintly noticeably halos around them.
By all accounts, this looks more like a poorly
done bootleg then a licensed release, with the
only genuine praise that I can give is that I
have
seen
worse.
To add insult to injury, the aspect ratio is
even messed up on this disc. According to the
package, the film is shown in a 2.35:1 ratio,
but this transfer has clearly been cropped. This
is noticeable for most of the film, with the cinematography
looking off, but is blatant during the main
title when the name and time code drift off
screen. On the bright side, at least it's Anamorphic
for widescreen TVs.
|
Audio: |
 |
The audio presentation here fares much better
than the video, but that's not saying much. For
this disc, AnimEigo has included a 1.0 mono track
of the film. Due to the one channel presentation,
the movie sounds very flat, and of course no speaker
distinction is possible. Otherwise, it sounds
good with most of the dialogue sounding clear
while there are no pops or crackles to be heard.
The audio can be accompanied by, removable, English
subtitles. Like other AnimEigo discs, the subtitles
are color coded to make it easy to tell when multiple
characters are speaking in the same scene. The
subtitles are available in two types: a general
one and one that only subtitles onscreen Japanese
text.
|
Extras: |
 |
With the film getting such a shabby presentation,
one would hope that this disc would be complemented
by a wealth of extras to make up for it. But,
alas, this is AnimEigo, and such hopes are quickly
dashed. I would like to think that the company
was at least aware that they should do something
to try and compensate for the movie quality, as
this title does have the largest selection of
trailers of any of the AnimEigo disc. However,
it's a very poor substitute for added content
when all of these trailers can be found on numerous
other discs from the company (Lone
Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance appears so often on these DVDs that it's almost
humorous at this point). It's also disheartening
to see the Samurai Assassin trailer
in general, as it's in much better shape than
the movie itself here.
The other extras found on this release are all
text based, which include filmographies, character
biographies, and the AnimEigo's trademark program
notes. All of these are pretty ho-hum though,
unless one has a deep fascination with Japan's
feudal history, in which case the 59 screen program
notes would likely prove rather interesting.
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Overview: |
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Bottom line, AnimEigo has hit an all time low
here. Even considering the critical acclaim of
the movie, it's extremely hard to suggest purchasing
this DVD to anyone. Given the quality of the disc,
or lack there of, one would have hoped for the
company to at least cut the consumer some slack
with the price, but no such luck as this retails
for a cutthroat $30.
This disc is also featured in the box set: Toshiro
Mifune: The Ultimate Collection.
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- Anthony Romero |
Buy
this DVD |
|