On their Blu-ray, Imprint offer the choice of a lossy Dolby 5.1 surround track (24-bit) in the original Russian language or a surround English DUB. It did have a 70 mm 6-Track in the Russian print with it being reduced to 35mm and mono in the West. Dersu Uzala has a subtle score credited to Isaac Schwarts, a prominent Soviet and Russian composer of Jewish descent. It suits the Russian Far East wilderness environment of Dersu Uzala. There is not a lot of music in the film (about 1/2 hour). There are some notable separations involving the weather (howling wind, birds animals, rivers etc.) and it sounds quite effective in the lossless. Imprint offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Imprint Blu-ray offers a new commentary by Japanese film expert Stuart Galbraith IV (author of The Japanese Filmography: A Complete Reference to 209 Filmmakers and the over 1250 Films Released in the United States, 1900 Through 1994.) He talks about the film's origins, including historical background on its real-life counterparts, the production and release putting it all in to historical, cultural and industrial context. We also here from Jonathan C. Slat a biologist who explored much of the same territory covered in the film and who translated the first unabridged version of Vladimir Arsenev's writings. Also in the commentary we hear from Sergey Glebov who is a historian of the Russian Empire / USSR specializing in political, intellectual and cultural history at both Smith and Amherst Colleges. Stuart also talks with Barbara Boyle, the attorney who represented Roger Corman's New World Films to discuss Dersu Uzala's acquisition and release in the United States. It's quite a full commentary for the two hour 20-minute film. So much is covered. Great job Stuart! We also get Michael Brooke's new 23-minute Mapping Kurosawa: A History of Dersu Uzala – and he likewise documents much of the film's history and the fact that Kurosawa had long known of Arsenyev's book and had planned to make a film version very early in his career, Kurosawa's attempted suicide etc. It is another excellent piece by Michael full of factual details. Imprint also include Sound of the Taiga – an 18-minute video essay by music historian David Schecter discussing Isaac Schwarts' score, how it co-ordinates with the film, a history of the composer's career as well as Kurosawa's other film music. There are three separate video pieces with actor Yuri Solomin discussing writer Arsenev, director Akira Kurosawa and Dersu Uzala. Lastly are a short 'Making the Film' piece, archive footage of the real Vladimir Arsenev and a US Trailer.

Dersu Uzala is based on a 1923 memoir by Russian explorer Vladimir Arsenev. The title refers to the name of a native trapper. It shows a deep friendship of two men from totally different backgrounds. Dersu Uzala was filmed over two years in the far reaches of Siberia and won the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar in 1976. It's a masterpiece and it's very gratifying to see a label fearlessly tackle the prevalent issue of the ineffectual film stock and boldly put it on a stacked Blu-ray with commentary, video essay and much more. This should garner some votes in our year-end poll for the film if not the image. For Kurosawa fans, and beyond, though this is a must-own. Thanks for the effort Imprint!    

***

On the DVDs (Dec 2002): Image and Spectrum 3rd disc ( American version) are just about identical.  Disc 1 is cropped slightly (2.35 to 2.20), although I think it may be the brightest image quality.