It's my understanding only, not 100% fact.
However, since the little sticker on the purple box says (in Korean) 'National Use' then I think it's an accurate translation.

Much like when the PS2 first came out in Japan, and the box said not for sale outside Japan. Sure, you could still buy one, but Sony would have laughed at you if you needed warranty.

Sure, these are grey market parallel imports, but if you think Korean companies don't factor US exports into their plans when producing DVDs, you're talking crazy.

Besides the large number of Koreans who live in the US (the second largest concentration of Korean people in one place outside of Seoul is Los Angeles), there are a *lot* of US film fans into Korean film. Since Korean films suffer poor distribution in the US, DVD is the only (legitimate) way we can watch them.

Now let's see, they'll take our money for an expensive, premium product, then laugh when there are defects? I can understand them not wanting to deal directly with overseas consumers, but at least they should handle the situation through the US distributors (e.g. YesAsia, who I will email about the replacement policy *before* I receive my set).

Starmax may be marking the UE officially "for national use only" to avoid getting in trouble with whoever has home video distribution rights for Oldboy in the US. But let's be honest, many of these are shipping overseas and they need to take care of their customers wherever they are.

Plus, I'm not sure the Japanese comparison is fair - that economy / society is a lot more insular than Korea's.

Bottom line is: the DVD is region 3, which means the company only has to worry about region 3. Look, I lived in Canada, and American companies couldn't care less about Canadian complaints sometimes, so why would Starmax worry about US territories? I mean, technically, region 3 DVD shouldn't even be in the US... If you want to buy it, that's your choice, but if there are problems, you should accept them. Just my 2 cents...

If this were a $7 HK disc, then yeah, you pays your money, you takes your chances. But when I pay $110 for a DVD set, my tolerance for problems gets pretty low.

If I worked for a US company and 1/4 to 1/2 of our sales were to the Canadian market, and we ignored the complaints of Canadian consumers, then we'd deserve to see our sales reduced by 1/4 to 1/2.

Yes, the sticker on the box says Region 3, but if Starmax truly didn't care about the export market, why bother putting English subtitles on releases? Why bother getting Harry Knowles to do a full length commentary (do Koreans even know who he is)? Why bother putting out dual Region 1 / Region 3 discs (as Starmax did for A Good Lawyer's Wife and The Quiet Family)? These are not the activities of a company that doesn't care about the US market.

As I stated before, I don't think Starmax should have to deal directly with overseas consumers (whether in the US or UK or wherever), but they should work to rectify the problems through their overseas distributors like YesAsia. In fact, I expect they will.

anyone in the US gotten theirs yet? I got a shipping notification from Yesasia last week but its still not here.
Once i do get it, i'm immediately gonna check for problems(which i'm sure i'll have, damage to the cases and/or problems with the disc[s]). Then those of us outside Korea have to figure out how to handle this situation with Yesasia(or other retailers).

I can't express how ticked off i am about this whole affair...and i haven't even recieved mine yet!

ehonauer,
meh, the PS2 comparo was the only thing I could think of at the time.
I don't think contacting the retailer before your order arrives will do much unless your going to ask them to open it and check.

pat00139,
Sorry, but nobody has to accept crap from a company.
If the product has faults, the manufacturer need to fix them.


Here's the FULL notice from Starmax (the bold comment is mine)


EDIT:
The OldBoy FE is now up for pre-order.
Uses the same HD telecine as the UE, and also comes with a 20 page booklet.

Okay, first, when you buy something and you weren't deceived about it, the company selling the thing has absoluely no responsibility after that transaction. If they want to keep their costumers happy, they'll be nice and try to fix the problem, but they don't need to.

'If I worked for a US company and 1/4 to 1/2 of our sales were to the Canadian market, and we ignored the complaints of Canadian consumers, then we'd deserve to see our sales reduced by 1/4 to 1/2.'

How many people in the US have Starmax DVDs and how many people in Korea have Starmax DVDs? If I'm not happy with my Dune DC DVD packaging I bought in the US, I doubt very much Artisan would send me a replacement in Korea. It would be nice, I agree, but I wouldn't expect them to.

Even though the Old Boy DVD is quite expensive, it's just one of Starmax's DVDs. I understand your point about the R1/R3 DVDs, but Starmax is only responsible for those DVDs. Presumably, Oldboy isn't R1/R3 because they figure they'll sell the rights for an eventual R1 release, or they'll do it themselves later on.

Thin defense, but so many people in Korea want to learn English, and there are actual English people living in Korea. English subs would help. As for Harry Knowles, whether he's known in Korea or not, his track does have Korean subs. Reaching out to Americans is their choice, but again, replacing faulty boxes is up to them. Criterion and other companies get commentary tracks by foreign critics that not many people in the US know, so it's the same thing. They're just trying to sell their product. If the DVDs work fine, the DVDs work fine.

Just according to Korean websites, the Final Edition has 2 commentaries, and has 2 disks.

Good points, you guys. A good debate is always fun. I still believe what I said, but I don't want to seem like a hypocrite given I'm living in Korea. If I can, I'll help you guys out. I'll try and email Starmax, telling them if I can accept replacements for people outside Korea.

pat00139,
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I ment Starmax is liable to fix any issues.
I would argue that online stores (or brick & motar stores) would have some liability, since they are selling faulty goods, even though it's unintentional.

Also, in this case, the packaging is damaged. In some severe cases, the discs are also damaged. This isn't about sucky cover art


As for Harry Knowles, well for some reason Park likes him enough that he wanted a commentary from him. That's it.
I hear it's a snore fest, is it true?

I listened to about 10 minutes and it seems like anybody could have said the things he said. Five of those minutes, though, he looks at the screen saying, 'What have we here?'... 'Ah, no, not that...' and that type of thing. Those interesting comments were in that important part at the end of the movie... If that's any indication, he didn't work too hard. I can listen to it and tell you guys about it on Saturday or Sunday.

If I'm gonna be touching it, I guess I should bring a towel and some handi-wipes or something.

Hahaha
yup and keep it warm as I left mine near the window and its freezing today, I picked up the tin and nearly dropped it as it was bloody freezing! guess Copper is a good cold conductor as well

now I need gloves and a towel to wipe them once I have toutched it.

I got mine today (im in the netherlands) and its got the same kind of damage as the pictures taken in page 6 of this thread (brian made the pics).

Should i file for replacements, if i file do i go to yesasia or starmax/

I sent the following email to YesAsia: "I have not received my Oldboy UE yet, but I've heard that many have been damaged in transit due to the exposed copper rivets on the inside of the copper box tearing up the DVD covers. I've also heard Starmax is offering replacements covers during the first two weeks of December. What is your policy regarding replacement DVD covers for damaged Oldboy sets?"

I recommend that anyone who purchased the UE (even if you haven't received it yet) send a similar message to whomever you purchased it from. Starmax is only taking replacement requests from 12/1 - 12/20, so there's no time to dilly-dally. If there's a flood of emails then the retailers will be quicker to react. If complaints trickle in slowly, they won't do anything until it's too late.

Thanks for all the info + latebreaking news, Shintaro.

If Starmax/YesAsia can't resolve the damaged case issue, I'll likely return my UE to YesAsia and order the FE. I really just want the new transfer, and if I'm going to spend > $100 on a DVD it better be in absolutely perfect condition.

KoreanDVDs has the FE up for $18, haven't seen it listed anywhere else yet...

http://www.koreandvds.com/dvddetail.html?id=25300

Starmax has made the window to submit a replacement request so short, and the process is still unclear (we don't know for certain if Starmax will honor overseas replacement requests), I'd say do both. Send YesAsia a message asking if they plan to replace covers, and submit the form Shintaro posted in this thread to Starmax. Numerous inquiries will at the least force Starmax / Yesasia to make a ruling on overseas replacements.

I'd be doing the same, except I haven't received my set yet, and you need the serial number to submit a request to Starmax.

FYI just got my set. 2 digipaks damaged. One has the same type of damage displayed in a previous post. The other (the blue digipak) only has a couple of tiny scratches.

I will write YesAsia and submit the form to Starmax. Might be a good idea to ask YesAsia to reply directly to this thread as well.

If that issue can't be resolved and since I own the regular edition of OldBoy, I'll just do a swap of the movie digipak. I was just going to give the regular edition to a friend anyway so since he'll get it for free, I'm sure he can tolerate the damaged digipak.

what email are you guys using for yesasia? thanks.

I sent my email to [email protected]. Not sure if that's the best one, they have a bunch of addresses, another good candidate is [email protected].

# General
[email protected]
# Product Information
[email protected]
# Shipping
[email protected]
# Order Status
[email protected]
# Returning Items
[email protected]
# Technical Support
[email protected]

I used [email protected]

I just sent an e-mail to them in which (along with asking for their replacement policy) I suggested that it might be a good idea, and it would be appreciated, if they replied directly to this thread.

I won't get mines for a while but I'll definately send them an email. Yesasia might as well count the number of ones ordered and send a bulk request to starmax considering that every single person has reported some damage whether big or not. How about for the DVD itself with the issue of the ch 13? Also, the starmax instructions makes it seem as if we need to send the damage digipacks. Is this accurate or did i just misread it? Finally, does yesasia read their emails? I had sent an email to them to the service@ and the orders@ regarding something else, and i never got a replied. (maybe one of you guys can answer it, does the Big Swindle LE come with a slip cover and a Film cell, because mines didn't, it just had the book and the 2 DVDs, thanks) At least they could say they received it, no? thanks again.

Angel

heres a pic of my OLDBOY case, you can see some scratching, but its the damn shitty greasey crap thats made it look bad for me look at the fingermarks! some are mine some an other persons marks! basically I cannot toutch it without having to wipe my hands clean and its coming off all over and it doesnt bode well at all, maybe its bronser or something?

How To Clean Copper

just got mine. 3 of the cases messed up!

shot off an e-mail to Yesasia letting them know the condition they arrived in. also let them know that the manufacturer is offering replacements first 2 weeks of December.

dunno what else to do

Glad to see my case wasn't the only one scratched like that

I have also sent an email to YesAsia asking for replacement cases, when I get an answer I will post it on here

I'm sitting here reading all of this, and I'm just in awe. I can't believe that they would screw up such a major release like this. Has this company ever had other screw ups like this in the past?

oh my copper box is scratched up like that too, no biggie...its gonna get all dark with time anyway.

but what REALLY pissed me off is that my copper box is dented! right above the serial # there's a very noticeable depression