Being a huge Toshiro Mifune fan, I'm always on the look out for new DVD releases of his work. I own pretty much everything available with him in it. Especially his work with Kurosawa. I came across a DVD series that is being released by SamuraiDVD.com called Dai Chushingura (Epic Chushingura) which was evidently a TV show in the 70's based on the famous 47 Ronin / Chushingura story. I've never heard of it before nor have I been able to find much about it online.

Has anyone here bought theses DVD's? Are they decent quality? How would you rate the show?

Any feedback would be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDx_JNzhQfY
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423633/
http://www.samuraidvd.com/servlet/th...RA--BOX/Detail

So these are bootlegs, right?

I'm honestly not sure if they are or aren't.

Looking through their site and seeing that they have lots of titles unavailable anywhere else except for the expensive original Japanese discs, and that the covers are just slightly modified from the Japanese discs, and sometimes very poorly, they seem to be burned ports of the Japanese discs with added subtitles.

$119.80 for only 16 episodes?! I'd love to acquire this series, but that's way over-priced.

I remember this company when it was Samurai Video or something like that. I bought a few bootleg VHS tapes from them by mail order back in the 1990s.

AnimEigo needs to start picking up more titles like these.

Agreed on both points. AnimEgo is a great site / company. It's always my go to place for anything Samurai that isn't carried by Criterion.

I actually emailed both Japanese Samurai DVD (on when all the episodes would be available) and AnimEgo (if they planned to release them) when I saw the set. Here are the responses I received:

Japanese Samurai DVD:

"They will be available for all the 52 episodes, but not all at one time, as they needs to restore the quality of the old film also add the English subtitles.

I'll get them as they become available to me vol. by vol.

Hope this would clear your question."

AnimEgo:

They don't have any near term plans on releasing it. (not a direct quote)

I'm kind of surprised with a name like Mifune in the series.

The Japanese DVDs (without sub-titles) are available to purchase.....

Play Asia dot com offers the whole series broken down into three sets.

Part 1, 4 discs, 16 episodes - $231.99 plus shipping
Part 2, 4 discs, 16 episodes - $231.99 plus shipping
Part 3, 5 discs, 20 episodes - $291.49 plus shipping

The prices at SamuraiDVD are actually better than the original, plus the episodes are sub-titled....

IF only there was more demand for these types of DVDs in the US, AnimEigo and Tokyo Shock might be able to license and release more DVDs than they do.....

I am currently about 32 episodes into the series and have been enjoying every bit of it, impatiently waiting for each new sub-titled disc to become available.