8.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
An imperial lady-in-waiting gradually descends to street prostitution.
Starring: Toshirô Mifune, Kinuyo Tanaka, Hisako Yamane, Jûkichi Uno, Ichirô SugaiForeign | 100% |
Drama | 76% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Japanese: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi's "Saikaku ichidai onna" a.k.a "The Life of Oharu" (1952) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include new audio essay by film scholar Dudley Andrew; audio commentary by Dudley Andrew; and a documentary film directed by Koko Kajiyama. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Gilberto Perez. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
"You must spend day and night repenting for your sins..."
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Kenji Mizoguchi's Life of Oharu arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm fine-grain master positive struck from the original camera negative, except for reel one, which was taken from a 35mm duplicate negative, because that portion of the master positive has been lost. The restoration was supervised by the Prasad Group, India, and the Criterion Collection.
The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the fine-grain optical track. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tool HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube's integrated workstation.
Transfer supervisor: Lee Kline.
Colorist: Yoshiaki Abe/Imagica, Tokyo; Lee Kline."
Traces of some minor wear around the edges are at times visible. A few extremely light vertical lines also pop up. There are also a couple of frame skips and and very light warps. It is easy to tell, however, that the film has been carefully cleaned up as it actually looks very healthy (take a look at the films in The Mizoguchi Collection to see how much more fragile some of Japanese director's films could look). Where possible, various stabilizations have been done as well. Most of the close-ups convey quite pleasing depth, especially the ones with plenty of light (see screencapture #8). The panoramic vistas also boast good clarity and fluidity (see screencapture #3). Color saturation is also very good, with the blacks and whites never looking artificially boosted. There are no traces of excessive degraining corrections. Sharpening adjustments have not been performed either. Finally, serious transfer specific anomalies such as aliasing, banding, and flicker do not plague the high-definition transfer. To sum it all up, there are some inherited source limitations, but this is a solid organic presentation of a film which I believe at this point looks as good as it can. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese LPCM 1.0. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
There are no serious dynamic fluctuations, dropouts, or distortions. Overall dynamic intensity is quite limited, but this should not be surprising considering the age and history of Life of Oharu. Generally speaking, the sound is well balanced, clean, and stable (this isn't always the case with the four films in The Mizoguchi Collection). The English translation is very good.
I think that it is fantastic to see that Kenji Mizoguchi's films are slowly making their way to Blu-ray. The Life of Oharu, one of the Japanese master's best films, now looks quite wonderful, and I cannot recommend it highly-enough to anyone interested in classic Japanese cinema. I would also like to encourage you to consider adding to your collections The Mizoguchi Collection, which contains four Mizoguchi's films, including the terrific Utamaro and His Five Women and Osaka Elegy, that are no currently available on Blu-ray in North America. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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