From the Home Vision site:

Kill!
Street Date: 10/4/2005
Specifications
* 1968
* BW
* Action/Adventure
Samurai
Black Comedy
* Runtime: 114 min
* DVD
* 2.35:1 aspect
* monaural
* In Japanese with optional English subtitles
Other Information
* Suggested retail: $29.95
* Cat no.: KIL060
* ISBN: 0-78003-036-2
* UPC: 0-37429-20992-9

Samurai Rebellion
Street Date: 10/4/2005
Specifications
* 1967
* BW
* Drama
Samurai
* Runtime: 121 min
* DVD
* 2.35:1 aspect
* monaural
* In Japanese with optional English subtitles
Other Information
* Suggested retail: $29.95
* Cat no.: SAM170
* ISBN: 0-78003-037-0
* UPC: 0-37429-21002-4

Samurai Spy
Street Date: 10/4/2005
Specifications
* 1965
* BW
* Drama
Samurai
* Runtime: 100 min
* DVD
* 2.35:1 aspect
* monaural
* In Japanese with optional English subtitles
Other Information
* Suggested retail: $29.95
* Cat no.: SAM160
* ISBN: 0-78003-035-4
* UPC: 0-37429-20982-0

Rebel Samurai: Sixties Swordplay Classics (Four-Disc Collector's Set)
Street Date: 10/4/2005
This boxed set includes the following titles:
* Samurai Rebellion
* Sword of the Beast
* Samurai Spy
* Kill!
Specifications
* 2005
* BW
* Drama
Samurai
Black Comedy
* Runtime: 420 min
* DVD
* 2.35:1 aspect
* monaural
* In Japanese with optional English subtitles
Other Information
* Suggested retail: $99.95
* Cat no.: SWO050
* ISBN: 0-78003-038-9
* UPC: 0-37429-21012-3

http://www.homevision.com/users/fold...D=1350&month=9

Doesn't mention Wages of Fear, or anything else other than this box set...yet.

Le Samouraï
The Criterion Collection
DVD • $29.95
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays blue-eyed Jef Costello, a fedora- and trench-coat-wearing contract killer with samurai instincts. When Jef assassinates a nightclub owner, he finds himself confronted by a series of witnesses, who drop his perfect world into the hands of a persistent police investigator and Jef's shadowy employer, both of whom are determined to put an end to the smooth criminal. more »


This movie is mentioned in every "Why isn't this on DVD!!!?!?!?" thread I've ever seen. Everyone can rest well now.

Also,

The Wages of Fear (All-New Restored Special Edition)
The Criterion Collection
DVD • $29.95
In the squalid, impoverished South American town of Las Piedras, desperate men and women from all over the world scrape out a living and dream of escape, under the watchful eye of the ruling Southern Oil Company. When a well explodes 300 miles away, the American company conscripts four of these unfortunates to drive trucks loaded with volatile nitroglycerin through treacherous mountains, a suicide mission that is their only way out. more »

From the same link you posted...

Thanks for the heads up. It now features info on Wages of Fear and Le Samourai.

Jimmy

LE SAMOURAI?? Excellent! I was thinking about picking up an import version, but I'll gladly wait for this. Hopefully it has as many nice extras as their LE CERCLE ROUGE set.

The Wages of Fear (All-New Restored Special Edition)
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* New interview with assistant director Michel Romanoff
* New interview with Henri-Georges Clouzot biographer Marc Godin
* Archival interview with Yves Montand, on working with Clouzot
* A new essay by novelist Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Sacred)
* Original theatrical trailer
* New and improved English subtitle translation
* More!

Kill!
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* Original theatrical trailer
* New essay by film historian and culture critic Howard Hampton
* New and improved English subtitle translation

Samurai Rebellion
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* Excerpts from a 1993 interview with director Masaki Kobayashi
* Original theatrical trailer
* New essay by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
* New and improved English subtitle translation

Sword of the Beast
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* New essay by Japanese-film and pop-culture authority Patrick Macias
* New and improved English subtitle translation

Samurai Spy
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* Exclusive new video interview with director Masahiro Shinoda
* New essay by film scholar Alain Silver
* New and improved English subtitle translation

Le Samouraï
Special Features
* New, restored high-definition digital transfer
* New video interviews with Jean-Pierre Melville historians Rui Noguiera and Ginette Vincendeau
* Collection of excerpts from archival interviews with Melivlle and actors Alain Delon, Cathy Rosier, Nathalie Delon, and François Périer
* Theatrical trailer
* New and improved English subtitle translation
* A new essay by film scholar David Thomson and a reprinted tribute by filmmaker John Woo
* More!

Are there any Spanish language Criterion movies yet?

Unfortunately no. I'm still hoping for a box set of Bunuel's mexican films.

Going to be a damn, expensive month. I will definitely be getting Le Samurai and Wages of Fear and that Japanese Samurai box looks pretty tasty too.

I certainly hope Criterion will not manipulate the colors in Le Samourai as they did in Le Cercle Rouge....

Pro-B

Kill! sounds pretty cool. May have to give it a rent.

Crap there goes all of my money for October.

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Details? (I just recently picked up the Criterion disc. Maybe I should have done some research first)

IFC showed it around a year ago. I didn't get to finish it, but I liked what I saw. You can tell it's not a Kurosawa film due to it's unusual pace.

Yessssssssssss!!!!!! I have been waiting for Samurai Rebellion since Criterion started releasing, in fact I e-mailed Mulvaney about it way back in mid-98, so it is great to see this. I'm excited about a remastered Wages and a R1 Le Samourai. Great month (and getting more and more expensive with each day).

Cultshock:

What Gary Tooze only partially touches upon in his comparison at DVDBEAVER I would describe as a much more serious issue. I think that nobody (certainly not on this forum) wanted to go into detail as to why the color scheme is different. I've owned well over 4 different versions of this film including a very old Bulgarian VHS tape that certainly did not have the "accurate" colors which one could see in the Criterion DVD (I considered this tape to be a good comparison source for many years).

I also think that not the French but the UK disc has the most accurate colors...I clearly see contrast boosting on the French disc (hence...avoid!!).
Either way as much respect as I have for Criterion this was the first (out of two discs in about a year or so...) that they dropped the ball on. The other one being Balthazar whch blown out on a huge screen (see it with a digital projector) clearly showcases "ghosting" (non-progressive transfer I would assume). The Criterion version still has some impressive extras though.

See the color issue of Le Cercle Rouge here:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom...clerouge3.html


Regards,
Pro-B

Le Samourai is the best DVD news I've heard in months.

Le Samouraï

pro, in the Beaver comparison, the Criterion image is easily the best. The other two looked washed out and colorless. For the best argument, look at the pool table shot.

Le Samourai

Jmj713:

With all due respect IT IS NOT...it is a tad sharper but we are discussing the color handling. In fact, if anything I would consdier the film grain the biggest Criterion advantage when discussing strictly the picture quality (sans extras). Believe it or not a lot of the older Melvile films were meant to have the blue-ish tint.

Regards,
Pro-B

Tint is good. But when you have a totally washed out image with no solid blacks, it tends to look crappy. I like my 2-disc Criterion of Le Cercle Rouge as it is. Maybe I'm not as discriminating a film fan as Mr. Tooze and yourself, but DVD Beaver's comparison sometimes have absolutely rididulous conclusions. With all due respect.

Also notice, Criterion's image contains a tiny bit more information than the counterparts, on top and bottom (even a bit on both sides), as is evident, again, in the pool table shot.

Well, you are certainly free to choose...yet I believe that it is a blatant exaggeration to describe the BFI disc as totally washed-out. Let me repeat one more time...the misty blueish tint is absolutely 100% intentional. The fact remains that the color scheme is visibly manipulated.

Regards,
Pro-B

Ok...you keep adding up to your post every 5 seconds...with this said...though I would not place myself in the elite group of a respected source as DVDBEAVER I certainly think that people refer to the site specifically for the fact that Gary is discriminating as you described him (me)...and tends to elaborate on small detrails that separate what is worthy from what is not.

For the record Gary is a firm Criterion supporter in every sense of the word!!

Regards,
Pro-B

I don't mean to pick a fight, pro, I'm just stating what, to my eyes, appears right and wrong. Case in point, Beaver's recent comparison of Ozu's Late Spring: the Beaver says Tartan has the better image, while to my eyes, looking at the shots provided, the winner is clearly the Bo Ying edition (Tartan's image is way too dark and less sharp).

Le Samourai!!!!