7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Master director Nagisa Oshima’s seminal second feature — a brutal and beautiful portrait of two doomed, rebellious young lovers living fast and dying young in the sleazy backstreets of Tokyo
Starring: Miyuki Kuwano, Yoshiko Kuga, Fumio Watanabe, Shinji Tanaka, Yûsuke KawazuForeign | 100% |
Drama | 55% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Japanese: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region B (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Winner of Blue Ribbon Award for Best Director, Nagisa Oshima's "Cruel Story of Youth" a.k.a. "Naked Youth" (1960) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film and filmed video introduction by writer and film historian Tony Rayns. The release also arrives with a 36-page illustrated booklet containing an essay, interview material, and rare archival imagery. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
"It reminds me of that time on the boat. You were horrible at first. You'd get angry with me for all sorts of reasons. But once we had done our set-up, you were very sweet to me."
Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment.
The release is sourced from a new 4K restoration completed at Shochiku in Japan. The color correction was performed by cinematographers Takashi Kawamata (Black Rain) and Masashi Chicamori (About Her Brother).
The bulk of the outdoor footage is quite wonderful. During sequences where there is an abundance of natural light -- see the sequence in the beginning of the film where Kiyoshi forces Mako to make love to him -- detail and clarity are excellent. During some of darker indoor footage, however, depth is somewhat inconsistent. At times it appears that the brightness levels are set a bit too low and as a result there are some light crushing effects (see screencaptures #6 and 7). Colors are stable and lush, but there are select sequences where the browns become quite overwhelming (see screencapture #13). There are no traces of problematic degraining or sharpening adjustments. Overall image stability is very good. Finally, there are no large debris, cuts, scratches, or damage marks to report in this review. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese LPCM 1.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they appear inside the image frame.
The film does not have an impressive sound design, but the music is effectively used to enhance the unique atmosphere in select sequences. Balance is very good -- it is very easy to tell that the audio has been fully restored -- while fluidity is excellent. The dialog is crisp, stables, clean, and easy to follow. There are no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report in our review.
Nagisa Oshima's second feature film, Cruel Story of Youth, mixes the unbridled energy of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless and the anarchic anger of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. It works best as a time capsule that offers a glimpse at a country that has struggled to find its identity and in the process created a huge gap between two very different post-war generations. Eureka Entertainment's release features a wonderful new introduction to the film by writer and film historian Tony Rayns. RECOMMENDED.
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