Yume Pictures has released a Region 2 DVD of Madadayo. This is very good news for those in Europe, as there has so far been no viable option for an English-friendly region 2 DVD release of the movie!
The same company, Yume Pictures, is also putting out a region 2 The Quiet Duel (under the title The Silent Duel) on October 22. Again, this is very good news for European Kurosawa aficionados, as (to the best of my knowledge) no English-friendly region 2 release of the movie has been available before.
Details are still largely unknown to me, but I will update you once I know more.
For more in formation about the availability of Kurosawa’s films on home video, see the sections on Kurosawa DVDs and Kurosawa Blu-rays.
Just to let everyone know that I got the Silent Duel disc this morning and its pretty much exactly the same as the Ronin release minus the newsreel and interviews. Which is good news from a transfer perspective since the video has basically been stolen lock stock from the pretty decent R1 version. It also includes a trailer for Madadayo, which I’m assuming is going to be a similar shebang as far as copying the transfer from a US version.
Still waiting for a pay cheque to come in before I can afford Madadayo :-p