DVD Times reviews the Artificial Eye release of ‘Dersu Uzala’
Noel Megahey at DVD Times has reviewed the region-free release of Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala by Artificial Eye. While I personally think that the film review makes a little bit too big a deal of Kurosawa’s attempted suicide in 1971, the review of the DVD itself is excellent in terms of the information that it provides regarding the transfer, which unfortunately is not quite what we would hope it to be.
I will not attempt to summarise the review in any other way than by simply noting that at the moment I have no idea which DVD release one should go with when buying Dersu Uzala. The other two main contenders are the French R2 release by mk2 and the Korean R3 release by Spectrum. Both include English subtitles, and the Korean release supposedly includes both the “international” as well as the longer Russian 1976 version of the film. Or this is what I have heard.
If anyone can provide me with more information regarding the Dersu Uzala releases out there, it would be much appreciated indeed.
The Artificial Eye release is available for purchase at Amazon.co.uk, although if you are considering to purchase this title you may want to support DVD Times for their review and buy the DVD through their various affiliate links.
Finally, make sure to read aspalex’s very informative comment (#4) regarding the somewhat depressing state in which the original negative of Dersu Uzala is at Mosfilm.
Once again, the DVD Times review, including comments, is available here.
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From what I can tell from DVD Beaver and other lesser sources, Spectrum (Region 3) and Kino (Region 0) are about the same in picture quality.
I’m sure a lot of films original prints and negatives are in poor shape at Mosfilm, I mean look at the state of almost every Russian film on DVD in any region.