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.
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.
For more in formation about the availability of Dersu Uzala, see the sections on Kurosawa DVDs and Kurosawa Blu-rays.
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.