emhello

Is there an easy way to find out which U.S. releases actually have Japanese language tracks or subtitles? My wife's father visits from Japan twice a year and it would be nice to let him watch some good movies other than animes and the occasional rare movie that happens to have Japanese subtitles. Thanks for any help!

cultshock

I don't know an easy way to find out, but from my experience, US releases with Japanese subtitles are extremely uncommon (my wife is Japanese too, so I noticed that). I've probably personally only seen three or four Region 1 DVDs with Japanese subs (Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2, the original animated version of Lord of the Rings, and maybe one or two others). There's probably more out there, but that's all that I've seen so far. And as far as Region 1 discs where English is the original spoken language, I've never seen one with a Japanese dubbed audio track. I guess it's because Region 1 discs are meant for North America and there isn't a large amount of Japanese immigrants compared to immigrants from other countries, who would require such subs or alternate audio track.

D-Ball

California Split
It Should Happen to You
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The China Syndrome
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Look for Columbia and Warner Bros. releases since they are most likely to release the same disc in both regions.

eau

Go to a DVD online store and look up the foreign film/Japan section. It should give you a good list of Japanese films in R1. Most of them should include Japanese audio. Japanese subtitles can be very rare though.

Also, Criterion has a good collection of really good Japanese films. ADV Films has some live-action Japanese films too.

cultshock

I didn't know about those ones. What a selection!