Aug 2010
Love and war: Jia and Ichikawa
We’ve just released two dazzling humanist epics from the East this month, making their worldwide debuts on Blu-ray.
The first is Jia Zhangke’s spectacular tapestry The World [Shijie], detailing the lives and loves of workers and migrants in Beijing’s World Park. We’re especially pleased to present it from the fully digital original HD source, with a rich bounty of supplements: an engrossing hour-long on-set making-of piece — Made in China — and a fascinating 25-minute interview, The World According to Jia Zhangke (both subtitled in English for the first time), along with an exclusive new video introduction by Tony Rayns. The accompanying booklet includes a further discussion of the film by Rayns, an essay by Jia on “amateur cinema”, a tract of PR copy from the actual World Park, and a short essay by Craig Keller on the ending of the film.
Our other release is Kon Ichikawa’s haunting, magisterial The Burmese Harp [Biruma no tategoto] — the director’s breakthrough work which also stands as the first of the two versions of the film made during the course of his career. (The second, a colour version, dates from 1985.) We’re proud to present one of the most beautiful films of the 1950s in a glorious HD master, with a new subtitle translation and a 20-minute video introduction by Tony Rayns, as well as the original Japanese trailer. The booklet features rare stills and an essay by the sadly missed Keiko I. McDonald.
Coming up — brace yourself for tears of laughter and sorrow with two of the most uncompromising films ever to emerge from studio-era Hollywood…
Aug 2010
Upgraded and expanded for Blu-ray
Available now are two of our most popular catalogue titles, upgraded and expanded for Blu-ray: Vengeance Is Mine and La Planète sauvage, released originally under the title “Fantastic Planet”.
Shôhei Imamura’s triumphant return to fiction filmmaking a decade after Profound Desires of the Gods, Vengeance Is Mine [Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari] is one of the most unorthodox, brilliantly engrossing crime-spree films ever made. The Blu-ray edition features an entirely new and greatly improved subtitle translation, the original Japanese trailers from Shochiku, and the Alex Cox video introduction and Tony Rayns commentary from our previous DVD release. The 56-page booklet now contains an extensive new career interview with Imamura which spans the entire interior.
René Laloux’s legendary La Planète sauvage [The Savage Planet — aka Fantastic Planet] has undergone an even more significant update. Centrestage is a breathtaking new restored HD master created in 2009, along with a fascinating 27-minute documentary by Florence Dauman entitled Laloux sauvage containing lengthy interviews with the filmmaker and his collaborators, and a roster of five short films spanning Laloux’s entire career, two of which (Les Dents du singe [The Monkey’s Teeth] and Les Temps morts [Dead Times]) have never been available on any MoC edition before. Our booklet has been expanded, containing a newly-translated interview with Laloux and more artwork, as well as Craig Keller’s original essay from the DVD edition.
This is the first of three all-Blu months ahead. Our forthcoming releases — Jia Zhangke’s The World, Kon Ichikawa’s first, 1956 version of the The Burmese Harp, Frank Tashlin’s Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow — will all mark the first time ANY of these films will have been available for home viewing in the UK.