Criterion has announced that it will be releasing the recently restored edition of Rashomon, which was touring cinemas a few years ago. As the company’s Rashomon page suggests, the new edition will be available on the 6th of November 2012 in both DVD and Blu-ray versions.
In addition to the new print, Criterion’s new edition will also differ from their earlier one by including A Testimony as an Image, a 68 minute documentary featuring many of the people who worked on Rashomon. This was not part of the original Criterion DVD release of Rashomon, although it is included on the UK 2008 Optimum edition, as well as on the Australian Madman release. (For more information about the different Rashomon releases, see here.) What the other releases don’t have is an archival audio interview with Takashi Shimura, which will also be included on the new release.
In addition to the documentary and the interview, the Criterion discs will according to the Criterion page also include a new English subtitle translation.
The other special features included on the disc are the same as on Criterion’s original Rashomon release:
- Audio commentary by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie
- Video introduction by director Robert Altman
- Excerpts from The World of Kazuo Miyagawa, a documentary on Rashomon’s cinematographer
- Original and rerelease trailers
- A booklet featuring an essay by film historian Stephen Prince; an excerpt from director Akira Kurosawa’s Something Like an Autobiography; and reprints of Rashomon’s two source stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “Rashomon” and “In a Grove”
It is great to see Criterion improve on their already fairly excellent Rashomon release. The new restoration should be great, and with this being to the best of my knowledge the first time the film is out on Blu-ray with English subtitles, I’m sure that this will be a must buy for many Kurosawa aficionados, myself included. How about you?
For information about Rashomon‘s availability on Blu-ray, check out the Akira Kurosawa on Blu-ray section of this website.
Awesome! I can’t wait!!!! 😆