NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Radiance Films Blu-ray (November 2023): Radiance Films have transferred Yuzo Kawashima's Elegant Beast to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "New 4K restoration". I'd say the first 1/3 of the film can looked a shade blocky with the overt textures. Eventually this settles to export a higher level of detail and more naturalistic sequences with realistic colors. This latter part of the film is still consistently textured. This may all have to do with the way the film was oddly shot - through various parts of the apartment (blinds, windows, vents, over the balcony) and only a small number of close-ups. I had no problem enjoying the film via this HD presentation. It is on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate.   

NOTE: We have added 50 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance Films use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original Japanese language. Elegant Beast has no aggressive moments aside from some forcefully expressed dialogue and rain. The subtle score was by Sei Ikeno (Red Angel, Zatoichi's Flashing Sword, Black Test Car) sounding clean. The track has consistent dialogue and an authentically flat expression in the lossless transfer. Radiance Films offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

Radiance Films have produced three exclusive new video supplements for their Blu-ray starting with a 17-minute interview with film critic Toshiaki Sato on the 'Life and Career of Director Yūzō Kawashima'. There is also a 1/4 hour new appreciation by filmmaker Toshiaki Toyoda, the director of Blue Spring and Hanging Garden who shares his love of Elegant Beast and Yūzō Kawashima. Also included is a dozen-minute visual essay by critic Tom Mes on post-war architecture in Japanese cinema. Lastly is a trailer for Elegant Beast. The package has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Midori Suiren and contemporary archival writing.

Elegant Beast was one of the last of Yūzō Kawashima's fifty feature films. He was Yasujirō Ozu's assistant on The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Elegant Beast was written by Kaneto Shindô (Kuroneko, Onibaba, Naked Island) who wrote over 200 screenplays for the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi, Kon Ichikawa and Seijun Suzuki. Before his death in 1963, Yūzō Kawashima made three more films after the release of Elegant Beast. It was almost exclusively shot in a small apartment focusing on the family's (parents, son and daughter) unscrupulously eavesdropping and working financial schemes regarding bribery, extortion scams, avoiding taxes and skirting laws for financial gain - often against each other! This is all to satisfy their materialistic desires. Elegant Beast is an absurdist comedy satirizing the consumerism of post-war Japan - and what it would lead to - a more common theme in Kawashima's cinema. What makes it even more unique is the unusual use of camerawork - intentionally unbalanced with odd angles - as if to identify that this family lifestyle... ain't right. Ayako Wakao (playing accountant Yukie Mitani) is quite the eye candy (a favorite actress of director Yasuzo Masumura, starring in 20 of his films including Red Angel and Mizoguchi's Street of Shame.) She plays a ruthless self-serving femme-mercenary. The Radiance Films Blu-ray marks their continued expansion into lesser-exposed, worthwhile, world cinema. They also add new, self-produced, viable supplements. I found Elegant Beast a highly interesting film and this is another exceptional package from them. Yes, we strongly recommend.

Gary Tooze