7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A woman looks back on her family's life in Tokyo before and during WWII. A maid arrives from the countryside to work for an upper middle class family. She fits in well, but everyone's emotions are stirred up with the arrival of a younger designer who works for her employer's toy company.
Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Chieko Baishô, Takako Matsu, Haru Kuroki, Takatarô KataokaForeign | 100% |
Drama | 38% |
War | Insignificant |
History | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Music: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Amy Tan’s lovely and moving The Joy Luck Club captured a lot of attention with its depiction of various Chinese and Chinese-Americans whose lives unspooled over a couple of generations, and whose lives at least tangentially intersected with some epochal historical events like World War II. Those wanting something of a Japanese analog, at least in some ways, might well want to check out the quiet but frequently incisive The Little House, an often beautiful film which traffics in some (admittedly tangential) transgenerational drama as it ping pongs back and forth between two timeframes, slowly doling out a soap operatic tale that takes place in the 1930s and 1940s, just as Japan’s imperial ambitions started to sweep up the general populace.
The Little House is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The good news is that this Twilight Time release does not exhibit the anomalies that were present in Yamada's The Twilight Samurai, though there is a somewhat odd (and admittedly slight) color timing issue at play here where a lot of the film seems slightly skewed toward the yellow-green side of things, something that tends to put a jaundiced cast on flesh tones and what should be pure whites. Other than this situation, the transfer boasts a nice looking image, with good sharpness and clarity and some excellent fine detail in close-ups. Some of the interiors have a surplus of brown tones, and that general sameness tends to slightly minimize detail levels in backgrounds.
The Little House lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is often fairly subtle, but nonetheless very effective, offering good discrete channelization for ambient environmental effects and providing a lush, rather wide bed for Hisaishi's beautiful score. Dialogue is cleanly rendered and is always well prioritized on this problem free track.
The metaphorical aspects of The Little House may zing right past the heads of some who become deeply involved in the touching story of Taki, but the film's mingling of present and past and its cogent analysis of family and society in the wake of huge historical events is increasingly moving as the film progresses. The film works an almost subliminal spell, managing to communicate and ultimately captivate as much through its quiet (even its silences) as in any of its restrained histrionics. Technical merits are generally excellent, and The Little House comes Recommended.
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