I feel the same way, up until 2 months ago I hadnt owned a Kurosawa DVD because I'm the type of person who, once I start buying dvds by a director, I want ALL of his works (I have ALL Hitchcock released dvds except the propoganda shorts Bon Voyage disc), ALL of Godard's discs released in the US, ALL of Jim Jarmusch's, etc. I went under the knife last month for back surgery and splurged and bought EVERY american released Kurosawa disc except for the one that's $30 the title slips my mind...anyways, I'm still expecting my Ran:Masterworks, it shipped last week from deepdiscountdvd, I hope it looks alright. Regardless, the 2 films I have watched (Rashomon and Dreams) are so spectacular. In fact, my recent independent film project, we needed music for a scene and were stuck, my friend was cutting clips in Adobe while I was watching Dreams, and the song in the Funeral dream came on and we both instantly knew that we needed to use that as a basis for the music, it's different, but for someone who's seen the movie a handful of times, you can hear the influence .

good point, which is why I never expect anything to be perfect...hate setting myself up for that fall, which will break my neck. it's Kurosawa, so I had to have it.

this is off topic but look at what the Seven Samurai looks like in France. I think that I like it quite a bit:

http://www.dvdpascher.net/bestof/toppack116.php

On the topic of 'Seven Samurai' i think it may be wise to wait until the 'rumoured' Criterion re-issue appears especially if it uses the Japanese R2 transfer.
If you are looking to France..i'd be more interested of how their Studio Canal release of 'Ran' holds up to the Wellspring Masterworks edition in terms of visual quality (I realise it has no english subs)

glad i found this thread, as i was about to re-purchase. i do own the FL version, and while the image is bad (watchable, for me), i really dislike how the image is pushed up. oh well.

i never planned on getting the boxset anyway, and i got kurosawa separately.

just bought that Street Fighter Saga collection, with all 4 films in WS. have not cracked the plastic on it yet....the same as VCI gave us before...but at least it's a 4 in 1. thats ok, need another back-up.