Fresh from the UK release of Joachim Trier’s debut film REPRISE, UK DVD label Diffusion Pictures are now releasing Lars von Trier’s The Boss Of It All on Region 2 DVD, for those without a Multi Region DVD player this is good news. The DVD is released June 23rd, see the links below for DVD pre order details.
To say that Tony Ching’s martial arts epic An Empress And The Warriors drew a lukewarm critical response is being kind, reviews from both The Visitor and Stefan in these pages being strongly negative. I actually enjoyed this one significantly more than either of those two and the film is certainly not without its fans and if you’re one of those who likes their martial arts action old-school then it’s certainly worth noting that the film is about to arrive in an English friendly, region free DVD edition in Hong Kong.
Now, when I say old school for this film I mean it. Though blessed with a lavish budget and impressive production design the film is directed by Tony Ching, a legendary fight choreographer most recently known for his work on Zhang Yimou’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers though his resume stretches back much farther than that. Ching shoots his film very much in the old style - complete with over the top soap opera melodramatics - and he’s got one of the best screen fighters in the biz - Donnie Yen - to work with here. Take it as a throwback with the actors playing to certain stock types and you’ll have a good time with it and, if nothing else, the martial arts and set design - particularly Leon Lai’s hidden tree fort refuge - are fantastic. You’ll find trailers below the break.
Continue Reading "Tony Ching’s AN EMPRESS AND THE WARRIORS With Donnie Yen Hits DVD!"...
For those who’ve been asking how they can get their hands on copies of award-winning films from the Malaysian independent scene, well Da Huang Pictures has just gone online with its webstore.
Da Huang is a collective that consists of filmmakers Amir Muhammad, Tan Chui Mui, James Lee and Liew Seng Tat, and the webstore carries titles by them. At the moment, seven titles are available - Love Conquers All, Flower In The Pocket, Village People Radio Show, Lee’s trilogy of Before We Fall In Love Again, Things We Do When We Fall In Love and Waiting For Love, and Three Short Films By Tan Chui Mui. In time,more titles will be available.
Probably the only thing to complain about here is that there’s not a lot on the DVDs’ specs, eg. aspect ratio, language options, subtitles, extras, etc. But I think it can be safely assumed that ALL of the DVDs are English-friendly.
All the titles are also available at the Asian Film Archive in Singapore.
We have talked about this before but we have never had a concrete date or even if it was true that a director’s cut of Alex Proyas‘ cult film Dark City was on its way. Writer David S. Goyer had talked about the new cut but nothing was set in stone regarding a release. But today I stumbled across an ad in Home Media Magazine online which confirms that the film is indeed on its way on to DVD and Blu Ray on the 29th of July. Yay!
So far no word on a theatrical re-release that many had hoped for but keep those fingers crossed and ready on the pre-order button when that arrives at your favorite online store.
Click here for the Home Media Magazine ad.
Austrian Horror Dead in 3 days was a big enough success to recieve a Sequel which is currently being remade, so is it any good?, well for those wanting to see if the film was worthy of a sequel or not, a DVD release is being issued in Australia with English Subtitles on 14 May, 2008.
In 3 days… you’re dead.’ At first, Nina Wagner - a high school senior - and her clique think this SMS [mobile phone text message] is just a bad joke. But then Nina’s boyfriend Martin is cruelly drowned in a lake. Soon after that the killer strikes again ferociously. The village is paralysed with dread. Panic rules among the members of the clique. They’re all on the murderer’s list. But why? Nina is the only one who discovers a mysterious trace leading to the brutal stranger’s identity. No one wants to believe her. But time is running short....
One of last years most interesting Russian films was the $10million Budget lavish historical war epic Sluga Gosudarev, the film was a moderate Box Office success in its homeland, looks very pretty from the trailer and stars Wolfhounds (Volkodav iz roda serykh psov) very own Aleksandr Bukharov. The kind of film that probably wont see a North America release on DVD, luckily there is now a link on the films Official site to purchase a 2 Disc release with English Subtitles. Links for DVD order as per usual in the links section below…
But not here any time soon. There are rumblings of a possible problem with the announced US deal for Prachya Pinkaew’s new martial arts flick Chocolate but do not despair! It’s hitting DVD in Thailand in just a few days. No subtitles, as is the norm with Thai discs now, but this may be one where you’re better off not knowing what they’re really saying. That way you can amuse yourself by making up your own dialog. Check the trailer after the break.
Continue Reading "CHOCOLATE Coming To DVD!"...
We’re big fans of French animator Michel Ocelot around here and anxiously awaiting English friendly DVDs of his two most recent features, Kirikou and the Wild Beasts and Azur and Asmar. I’m hearing rumors about a region free, Taiwanese edition of Kirikou that includes English subtitles but haven’t been able to confirm it - if anybody out there can, I’d love to hear it - but what isn’t rumored is the upcoming UK edition of Azur and Asmar. That one hits DVD in late July, so check out the trailers below the break then get after the disc.
Continue Reading "Ocelot’s AZUR ET ASMAR Gets An English DVD in July!"...
Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s mighty terrifying [Rec] has been announced for release on DVD and Blu-Ray in its home territory of Spain on May 28th in three iterations, each featuring English-language subtitles.
The single-disc edition sports an anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, DTS and Dolby Digital sound, director commentary, a making-of featurette, promotional stills and materials, TV spots, teasers, and trailers.
The two-disc special edition retains the above and also features footage from the premier at Sitges, interviews, clips from casting sessions, deleted scenes, and quite a bit more.
The Blu-Ray release retains everything from the two-disc set with the feature presented in full 1080p. One would assume it’ll be a Region B release.
The discs don’t seem to be up for pre-order yet, but we’ll let you know when they are. Despite the dollar’s ever-dwindling status on the international scene, I’ll be taking a hit and ordering this ASAP. [Rec] is one of those rare cases of a film living up to considerable hype - it’s just damn scary, bloody fun.
Worth noting too that Balagueró’s potent debut feature, Los Sin Nombre (The Nameless), will see a Blu-Ray release in Spain on May14th. As with the two-disc set of the film released several years back, the director’s outstanding short films Alicia and Días sin Luz will be included (and almost warrant a purchase by themselves).
Hideo Nakata triggered the Japanese horror boom with the huge international success of his film The Ring, a success that led to the director spending several years working in Hollywood before finally returning home to work once again in his native language on the acclaimed, period set horror piece Kaidan.
250 years ago. Soetsu, a humble moneylender, is murdered by Shinzaemon, a cruel samurai, and his body is disposed of in Kasane-ga-fuchi—the pool of a snaking river where, legend has it, those who sink into the water will never float to the surface again. 20 years later, in a chance encounter, Shinkichi, the handsome son of Shinzaemon, meets Toyoshiga, the daughter of Soetsu, and they fall in love. When Toyoshiga dies from a strange disease, Shinkichi finds that not only is he unable to avoid the mysterious fatality of the past and Toyoshiga’s tenacious love for him, but he is also forced to confront the ghostly truths held by Kasane-ga-fuchi.
The press on this has been glowing wherever it has played - The Japan Times review it here - and it will be receiving an English friendly DVD release in Hong Kong on April 17th. Excited for the chance to see this? You bet I am. You’ll find the theatrical trailer and two teasers below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "Hideo Nakata’s Acclaimed Period-Horror KAIDAN Arrives On English Friendly DVD!"...
It wasn’t quite two weeks ago that we were writing about the release of a second box set of eight films from Yoji Yamada’s hugely popular series of Tora-San films and already here we are with news of a third set, also of eight films, raising the total available now on low cost, English subtitled, Hong Kong DVDs up to twenty four films. Yamada, of course, has gone on to huge international acclaim in recent years for his samurai trilogy of The Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade and Love and Honor, and these films make up a large percentage of his overall body of work, a hugely popular and long enduring series of films following the travels and romantic misadventures of a wandering salesman.
In the violent world of Hong Kong’s Triad societies one false move can be fatal. A series of unexpected misfortunes challenge the very existence of gang leader Sammo Hung and his mob, eventually leading to a bloody gangster war. Battle after battle Sammo and his gang are moving closer to destruction. A drug deal turns bad, a kidnap turns into murder, a secret mission turns into a savage massacre of the police. Who is the mastermind behind these evil plots? Will Sammo be able to defy fate and survive? Or will the once powerful gang face extinction? To fight with destiny can sometimes be deadly.
We’ve written rather a lot about Dennis Law’s Fatal Move in these pages, excited by the incredible cast and high action trailers, and while the film itself generated some mixed reviews it also rode that wave of excitement to a very strong showing at the Hong Kong box office. And if you want to get yourself a look at it, you soon will be able to. The film hits DVD in Hong Kong April 25th with English subtitled included. Arriving the day before is another successful cop actioner, Playboy Cops with Shawn Yue. You can check the Fatal Move trailer below the break.
Continue Reading "Dennis Law’s FATAL MOVE - With Sammo Hung, Simon Yam and Wu Jing - Hits DVD April 25th!"...
Hot on the heels of last years success ‘Fritt Vilt’ Norway has took another ‘stab’ at the slasher genre, although not as successful as Fritt Vilt at the Box office, Rovdyr looks like a fun ride from the trailer. Well news has just came through that a DVD release is imminent and the good news is that firstly its English Friendly and secondly theres also a Blu-Ray release to coincide with the standard DVD release again featuring English Subtitles. See the links below for the relevant Pre order sites.
Someone at Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures has been reading Twitch, or so it seems to me. Why’s that? The Sam Raimi run horror label has just announced their new DVD imprint, Ghost House Underground, which aims to release international genre pictures on DVD in North America and the first block of eight titles is dominated by films covered extensively in these pages and not much anywhere else, among them Lordi-starring creature feature Dark Floors, Ole Bornedal’s Danish science fiction picture Vikaren or The Substitute, Danish horror picture Room 205, Igor Shavlak and Pavel Ruminov’s Track Man, and Gabriele Albanesi’s Last House in the Woods.
Ghost House Underground aims to release as many as twenty pictures per year with the first arriving in October.
Ooh. All you browncoats, format hounds and Firefly fans out there, word has gotten out that Fox Entertainment is in the planning stages to release a Blu-ray box set of the still popular television series from Joss Whedon. Jewel “Kaylee” Staite was at the Supernova Convention in Melbourne last week when she dropped this bit of juicy news…
“I just heard that they’re re-releasing Firefly, a special edition of Firefly in a box set. They actually asked me if I was able to come down to L.A. and do a commentary in the Spring at some point. So I think that would be fun.”
Since this was picked up by TVShowsOnDVD yesterday they have confirmed with Fox that indeed they are planning to release Firefly in the Blu-ray format. This marks the first time that the series will be available to us in an HD format. Serenity was released on the now spurned HD DVD format.
Continue Reading "Ooh. Joss Whedon’s ‘Firefly’ to be released on Blu-ray?"...
