After the Asian line Wild Side/Aventi just released later on this year the Lone Wolf and Cub series will see an elaborate boxset offering brand new fully restored from the original vault negatives prints of the Kozume Okami series. In addition to the six DVDs a massive collector's book will be included in the boxset-80 pages (by Nicolas Rousseau). All films will be presented in their original 2.35:1 ratio and 16/9. The boxset is not for the English-speaking market as you could see above (French territories only).






All info courtesy of WildSide.

Ciao,
Pro-B

That box... my GOD... are you sure it doesn't have English subs?

Ooh... BABY! That is a beautiful set!

nice box design. theres a R1 USA boxset listed at amazon.com for release soon, and australia also gets one soon too (R4).

I believe it's just all the current individual Animeigo titles repackaged together.
Am looking forward to picking up the French set in December.

Damn that box is nice as hell. Too bad about no english subs.

That is really nice. I already picked up the Animiego discs and am pretty happy with them. No english subs means no agonizing decisions for me.

I've already got the R2 releases of these and that is bad news that there are no English subs. I love the Lone Wolf movies.

i really hope that the R1 re-release is not just a repackaging. hopefully we'll get some specs soon on that one...

Just to clarify, "Kozure Okami" is the Japanese title of the manga and films.

That's a great looking box set. Nicely designed and with an 80 page book? Wow.

Well aware of it and I was not implying anything else. I should have worded it differently however...perhaps "the Kozure Okami"-series....as I see exactly what you mean...

Pro-B

Yeah, I figured you probably knew, as you seem to be quite the foreign film aficionado The way you worded it though, I just didn't want some people to think that was the director's name or something.

Looks like Wild Side nailed it....Review:
http://www.ecranlarge.com/test-dvd-1228.php

Ciao,
Pro-B

Yes, i had the suspicion that Wildside would produce a wonderful boxed set edition of these films and thankfully i've not been proved wrong.
Am certainly looking foward to Amazon shipping mine in just over a weeks time.

Another review here, which concurs :-

'Wild Side nous offre une édition splendide'

http://www.dvdclassik.com/Critiques/...nc-enfer-6.htm

Lots of french speaking fans bought the Hk Video sets, I waited for the Wild Side edition and ordered the Hk Video. I think Wild Side made this for collectors not for fans, compared to HK, they just improved quality of subs, put one more disc for Extras and a 80 pages book. The cost of Hk sets decreased, I found them at 2x23.9 Euros on a Belgium site.

For people interested in Wild Side pre-order it's here:
http://www.wildside-lemagasin.com/fr...wild_25342.php
click on [ ACHETER] then choose the number of item under "Qté", your country under "Livraison :" (delivery) to calculate the shipment price and select [Valider ma commande] to confirm. (payment by Visa, Mastercard/Eurocard)

Have to say it appears you are very correct and my initial enthusiasm in receiving the Wildside boxset has been tempered slightly by comparisons of the image of the HK and Wildside editions as in this review :-

http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_fiche-5850-0-baby-cart.php

EDIT: The review to which i linked has suddenly disappeared from the site, i wonder whether Wild Side have insisted the pre-release review be removed as the negative aspects of it would certainly harm sales?

Thanks but I know this, I made my opinion sooner by reading forums , HK edition is not perfect, in particular the 2nd DVD, but they have the rights on those movies for only one year. Wild Side should have release the set in December 2004 and fans discovered it is more for collectors or for people who know nothing about chambara movies or exploitation movies at that time in Japan. Not sure it is interesting for non french speaking people.
I couldn't read the comments at the bottom, but the HK review is still there:
http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_fiche-3470-.php
"EN BREF
Il faut chercher très loin pour trouver des défauts aux images de ces trois premier Baby Cart : s'il existe perfection en matière de restauration, ces trois transfert s’en rapprochent de très près (à l’instar des coffrets Suzuki parus chez le même éditeur). Un régal pour les yeux, et surtout une première de pouvoir (re)découvrir ces films dans de tels conditions."
And the news with a picture gallery too:
http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_news-7498-.php

A new comparison between HK and WS edition here:
http://www.dvdrama.com/rw_fiche-5890-.php
There's a note of the staff explaining that Wild Side, of course, didn't put the pressure on them. The first test should'nt have been on-line because the opinion of Kevin Prin (the redactor) was not shared by some staff members, they apologize to the readers and editors.
http://www.dvdrama.com/news.php?13607
Usually they trust each other for reviewing, in this case not, they reacted one week later, the pretext seems ridiculous to me.

In the test, they say the colors are oversaturated on HK and more natural on WS. They insist on the color of the skins and the color of the sky, to explain the colorimetry correction on WS. Then, everything's better on WS, the constrasts, the details, the rendering and the definition of the image. They say there's more croping on WS but they show snapshots of a rare scene with some loss on the HK edition, looks like they try to confuse people.


To me, the superiority of WS is not obvious, the image is more detailed and red on HK and more green on WS, I wonder what it looks like on big screens. At the bottom of the page, you can see that the staff and Wild Side boss (Manuel Chiche) answered to angry readers.

Yes, have been following the 'controversy' over on the forums etc.

Interesting 'compromise' that has been reached, mind you with Wild Side being site sponsors they are certainly trying to tread carefully i suspect.

Like yourself and many others i can't fully agree with their overall assessment but then again i'm basing my opinions purely on screencaps etc.

Oh well, the set was bought as a gift from my g/f for xmas and should be here any day now so i'm no position to complain etc

Lucky guy, I keep my HKs and wait till the price of the WS edition fall.

Did anyone buy this? And if you did, can you take some scans of the new covers and box set as well. My next tat is of Ogami and Daigoro

Bump, still looking for cover scans especially the back of the box.

Is the Kino box set the Animeigo discs? And how do they compare in quality to the other region DVDs? From the screenshots I wouldn't rush out to buy the WS version.

The Wild Side boxset is 69.99€ for sale at Asia-Diffusion and the HK Video boxset is 64.99€ at DVDmoinscher .

Would i be right in thinking that Wild Side are going to be releasing the individual films in September outside of the boxset?
I very much doubt they will be readdressing the issue of PQ in relation to the HK releases?