The Amazon.com exclusive Criterion Collection Director Series: Akira Kurosawa that I wrote about recently turns out to consist of Criterion’s new version of Yojimbo, Seven Samurai and Sanjuro (as well as the standard Throne Of Blood) and not the old versions, as we had feared. Note, however, that if you don’t take postage into account, the price tag of $109.99 is the same (well, actually two cents more) than it would be if you ordered the DVDs separately. With shipping included, the set may turn out to be cheaper for overseas customers, but again breaks even for US customers who would get free shipping in any case for orders over $25. As such, the whole collection seems to be nothing more than a marketing trick.
Another new-but-old Amazon.com exlusive Kurosawa item on sale is the Rutgers Films in Print series book on Rashomon, which is now available in the Kindle store. Amazon Kindle is a new electronic book that was launched a few months ago by Amazon, and this seems to be the first Kurosawa book that has been made available for it. For more information about Kindle, see Wikipedia’s entry on Kindle. For Akira Kurosawa books, see the section on Kurosawa books. Kindle is currently available only for US customers.
I just noticed that Eastern Eye has released a new box set as well which includes:
RASHOMON
THRONE OF BLOOD
RED BEARD
as well as the Kurosawa written THE FENCING MASTER (Tateshi Danpei)
It doesn’t look like you can buy THE FENCING MASTER separately so you would have to pay Aus$79.95 for the box.
http://www.madman.com.au/actions/catalogue.do?releaseId=9134&method=view
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186606/