Scott Connors

A friend of mine in Germany has a copy of this. He describes it as being similar to KWAIDAN, a film of which I am quite fond. I like Japanese films, both horror and historical, but can't find out a lot about this. I would be interested in hearing from anyone on this forum who might care to share their opinion of the film, which is about a cursed Samurai treasure. I can't find anything using the "search" function, and the IMDB is enticing if not particularly informative, as are the results of a Google search. Thank you in advance.

mrwilson

It's a good film but the HK dvd leaves a lot to be desired. I think it might even be cropped from 2.35 to 1.85. Is there a Germany dvd release?

visitor Q

" ... scripted by Hashimoto Shinobu, the writer of such Kurosawa classics as Rashomon and Seven Samurai .." http://us.yesasia.com/assocred.asp?C...ection-videos/

It can't be that bad considering. It's been on my want list for some time now (to a lesser degree). Sometimes ya just have to make the plunge.

For a few more bills, you can get four of Nomura's films packaged together over at http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID....qx/details.htm.

Here's some reviews:
http://www.cinema-nocturna.com/villa...nes_review.htm

You can get it for about $10 over at DDDhouse http://www.dddhouse.com/dddhouse/en/...productID=2572

brainee

I blind bought this title a couple of years ago (it was the HK DVD). I didn't have a HDTV when I last watched, so it's hard for me to be too exact about the picture quality. However, as far as I could the DVD itself was average at best. The movie is spread over 2 DVDs (even though its only 2 1/2 hours), extras are minimal (in fact, detrimental -- the insert, without warning, drops massive spoilers about the movie, pretty much telling you the details of every murder).

For the movie itself -- I very much enjoyed it, and found it well worth the purchase. Your description (and the reviews linked) pretty much sum up my feelings. It's kind of like a Hitchcock movie, with a samurai curse. It's a longish movie, but I found it engrossing. The scenery is beautiful, and I liked the set-up, about the young man from the city being called to his ancestral estate in the country, where there's a centuries-old curse and a modern string of deaths that may be related. In fact, the story reminds me very much of classic horror with European settings (but with a young man/woman from London/Paris/Berlin/Rome having to travel to old castle estate). However, this isn't a horror movie -- think of it as a mystery/thriller with a touch of the supernatural. Most of the movie takes place in modern times (or at the 1970s), but there are extended flashbacks filling in the history of the curse. And despite the movie's lush setting and classic feel, it doesn't pull punches when it comes to violence (which gets quite gory at times -- if you've seen early 70s blood-spurting samurai movies, you know what you could be in for).

So for the movie itself, I highly recommend it. I don't know of better DVD versions than the one I have, but I'm happy about the blind buy (especially since I haven't seen it elsewhere since).

TheBigDave

I agree. The movie was good. The HK DVD sucks.

I'm pretty sure it's cropped. It's been a couple months since I saw it, but I seem to remember that the opening credits were 2.35, then it shrunk down to 1.85 for the rest of the movie. Maybe I'm wrong, but for some reason, when I was watching it, I kept thinking "this video is cropped".

Despite the lousy DVD, I enjoyed the movie.

Scott Connors

Thank you all for the information. Sounds like something I ought to grab. And I am going to do just that.