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

 

ADDITION: Criterion Region 'A' - Blu-ray - October 2016: Okay, after some extensive comparison on my system - switching between the Animeigo and the new Criterion, my general comments are that the Criterion is vastly superior - especially considering the flagrant edge-enhancement in the Animeigo transfer of Babycart to Hades. In fact, most of the Animeigo Blu-ray looks boosted to varying degrees. I can't comment on the color representation too much - but the skin tones of the Criterion 1080P are cooler and seem more realistic. The lighter Criterion shows much more detail.

 

Criterion also put three films per dual-layered Blu-ray but the Criterion nudge ahead in every bitrate but the colors and over-digitization of the Animeigo tend to make the Criterion look even superior. The first Blu-ray has Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx and Baby Cart to Hades with the second housing Baby Cart in Peril, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons and  White Heaven in Hell. Criterion include a third with extras and Shogun Assassin which has a few more comparison captures (with the Animeigo DVD and Eureka Blu-ray HERE. I guess I don't have too much more to say on Shogun Assassin than "It has a high bitrate - looks fairly similar but perhaps a shade superior (contrast), slightly warmer skin tones and more detail, unfortunately has only lossy audio (in English) and offer no subtitles. The Eureka steelbook (with the two commentaries) is waaaay out of print."

 

Criterion stick with linear PCM mono tracks for all 6 films. Swords slice with uncomfortable impact and although, obviously, there is no surround separation - it does have plenty of aggressive depth. Aside from some exceptions (ex. Kunihiko Murai doing the score for Zatoichi at Large and Zatoichi in Desperation - assisting with Babycart to Hades) or Hiroshi Kamayatsu (TV work and White Heaven in Hell) the scores are essentially done by Hideaki Sakurai (Shogun Assassin and Hanzo the Razor: Who's Got the Gold? also to his credits) and remains consistent throughout supporting the violence and passive moments equally well with drama and/or traditional charm. There are optional English subtitles on the three region 'A'-locked Blu-ray discs.

 

Okay - the supplements cover and entire third dual-layered (48,567,691,967 bytes) Blu-ray and provide a 1080P presentation of Shogun Assassin, a 1980 English-dubbed reedit of the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films - and we have compared it below and, with more captures, HERE. There is a new, 12-minute, interview with Kazuo Koike, writer of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series and screenwriter on five of the films and a 52-minute 2005, French, documentary entitled Lame d’un père, l’âme d’un sabre about the making of the series. It was made by Wild Side Films and features director Buichi Saito. producer Masanori Sanada, and cinematographer Fujio Morita. There is a new, 14-minute, interview in which Sensei Yoshimitsu Katsuse, 15-year headmaster of the Suio-ryu martial arts system, discusses and demonstrates the real Suio-ryu sword techniques that inspired the ones depicted in the manga and films. We also get a new 12-minute interview with biographer Kazuma Nozawa about Kenji Misumi, director of four of the six films Lone Wolf and Cub films. Sword of the Samurai is a 1939 silent documentary about the making of samurai swords, with an optional new ambient score by Ryan Francis. It runs 1/2 an hour. On the first two Blu-rays there are trailers for each of the film and the package contains a booklet featuring an essay and film synopses by Japanese pop-culture writer Patrick Macias.

 

The Lone Wolf films have such a strong following and Criterion have met the challenge producing another wonderful Blu-ray set that will, no doubt, make noise at our end-of-year poll. Strongly recommended!

 

 

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ADDITION: Animeigo - Region 'A' - Blu-ray (September 2012): So, 6 films spread over 2 Blu-ray discs. The bitrate is only about 3 times that of SD. It is hard to deny the improvement but the image is severely digitized looking overly glossy with some less-noticeable banding. It looks like HDV with some of the same contrast weaknesses, BUT - it is so significantly improved over the flat, hazy, cropped and picture-boxed ArtsMagic and the boosted Eureka. So, despite the waxy-glossiness it is still an enjoyable presentation for the less image-discerning. I really enjoyed it without getting overly picky although the edge-enhancement on Babycart to Hades is very distracting.

 

The audio is lossless via 2.0 channel linear PCM tracks. The effects benefit from the lossless transfer sounding quite crisp and sharp. Animeigo are very thorough with subtitles and they are in both yellow and green for alt-characters reasonably matching the ArtsMagic translation.

 

No extras save the digital program notes as a menu option for each film that flash through pages every 45 seconds. There is no booklet.

 

Absolute classic of the genre and great to have in 1080P despite the imperfect transfer. I think fans will appreciate the improved appearance and audio.  

 - Gary Tooze  

 

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ADDITION: Eureka - Region 2 - NTSC - December 09: Eureka took reigns from Artsmagic which released all 6 films in UK first in 2005 and then restored version in 2008 HERE and used excellent Toho restorations for this 7-disc boxset. Unfortunately, we could not compare to the second edition or to Animeigo US releases, but compared to Artsmagic's first release the improvement can be seen easily. Each progressive all-region disc use NTSC masters from Japan, so there is no PAL/NTSC conversion issues. White font subtitles with black borders are easy to read and placed over the image (see examples below). The bonus 7th disc presents a 1980 US re-edit and re-dub of the second film (plus a few scenes from the first) called Shogun Assassin. Most English-language speakers learned about the series from this version and it's been restored as well. Notice that in the second comparison from Shogun Assassin, the damage spot from is missing in the original. Each disc has an original trailer which are also on the 7th disc. Each disc is packed in a slimcase Eclipse Series style. Reversible artwork has a one-page essay about each film by Tom Mes on one side and reproduction of original posters on the other.

 - Gregory Meshman

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ON THE ARTS MAGIC: DVD 5 editions, the image appears to be a port from video. Its presented in 1.78:1 anamorphically, with the cropped 2.22:1 Aspect Ratio top aligned, not centre as normally, with space for the fixed subtitles below the image.

The image has serious problems. First the ghosting is very intrusive. Even normal movement causes ghosting and fast movement causes invisibility of objects. Secondly, the image is very soft and has a tendency to blur. Third, it has at time very visible edge enhancement, even visible on small screens. Forth, it has serious problems with light. Bright scenes tend to “white” out, night scenes tend to “black” out. Fifth, it lacks sharpness in detail, images away, especially in long shots show almost no characteristics. Six, colors are faded.

Also the sound has problems. Being the 2.0 Dolby Digital mono, the sound seems to have been subdued, possible by noise reduction. While dialogue is clear, subtle sounds are barely audible.

ArtsMagic should simply take this release back. Even as this is the first time these films are released completely uncut in the UK, a very bad cropped image does not do these films any justice.

Henrik Sylow