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

ADDITION: Radiance Films Blu-ray (March 2024): Radiance Films have transferred Yoshishige Yoshida's A Story Written with Water to Blu-ray. The image is gorgeous with strong contrast - perhaps appearing overly bright (bleached) in outdoor scenes but this, and a skewed or warped perspective, are quite probably a technique hinting at the intentionally entropic timeline. It's very clean and visually appealing. I saw only one scene with a prominent vertical scratch.  The 1080P image is quite impressive on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. 

NOTE: We have added 100 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. A Story Written with Water has very little aggression (a car accident) and the audio is authentically flat with consistent dialogue. The score was by Toshi Ichiyanagi (Hiroshi Teshigahara's Pitfall, Eros + Massacre), adding occasional uniqueness via the uncompressed transfer. Radiance Films offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'B' Blu-ray.

The Radiance Films Blu-ray offers a short archival (2008) interview / introduction with director Kiju Yoshida. He talks about the film's themes. There is also a new interview with Mariko Okada (Shizuka / Shizuo's mother in A Story Written with Water) for a dozen minutes. She is 91 and still with us! - she worked with directors Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Juzo Itami and others. She talks about being 'freelance' and the first 'independent'  film project - and with a theme of incest that it wouldn't have been made at Shochiku studios. I loved hearing her recall her experiences and working with Yoshishige Yoshida. Lastly is a new 20-minute video interview with scholar Jennifer Coates, author of Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 - discussing some of the key themes of the film the director's anti-auteurist (non-manipulative) stance and her interpretation of A Story Written with Water. There is also a trailer for the film. The package has a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by scholar and author Alexander Jacoby.

This was the most screen captures I have done for a single film in memory. I watched Yoshishige Yoshida's A Story Written with Water last night and it may have the best mise en scène that I can recall in years. I was reminded of the cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni and the austere black and white aesthetic of Resnais' Last Night at Marienbad. It also evoked Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stars and Masahiro Shinoda's Double Suicide (how about those on Blu-ray someone!) Gorgeous unique, often daring, cinematographic angles, positioning and framing are constant throughout. While there are no explicit visuals - it does show subtle sensual intimacy and sensitively realized sexuality with the film's theme that involves an incestuous desire between mother and son. It has a very artistic grounding with a non-linear flashbacks that dart around - often indicated by either a passing train or a rotating skyward sequence that borders on... dizzying. A Story Written with Water would be considered slow cinema by some but I would have enjoyed it at twice the 2-hour length. Huge kudos to Radiance Films for bringing this Japanese New Wave masterwork to Blu-ray. They continue to be a shining beacon in the physical media space. Our highest recommendation!

Gary Tooze