NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective disc.

ADDITION: Criterion 4K UHD (August 2025): Criterion have transferred Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters to 4K UHD. It is cited as a "4K digital restoration of the director’s cut, supervised and approved by director Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey." The package has one 4K UHD disc of the film and the 2018 Blu-ray with the film and special features. We compared the Warner DVD, Criterion DVD and Criterion Blu-ray (the latter included in this 4K UHD set) HERE. 

Like 4K UHD transfers of The Long Wait, I, the Jury, and many others below, Criterion's 2160P transfer of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters does not have HDR applied (no HDR10, HDR10+, nor Dolby Vision.) We have seen many other 4K UHD transfers without HDR; Mondo Macabro's Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf, Cult Film's Django 4K UHD, Umbrella's 4K UHD transfer of Peter Weir's The Last Wave, Radiance's Palindromes, and Criterion's 4K UHD transfers of The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain, Killer of Sheep, Chungking Express, Winchester '73, The Mother and the Whore, I Am Cuba, The Others, Rules of the Game, Branded to Kill, In the Mood For Love, Night of the Living Dead, and further examples, Masters of Cinema's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Kino's 4K UHDs of Bob le Flambeur, Last Year at Marienbad, Nostalghia, The Apartment, For a Few Dollars More, A Fistful of Dollars, In the Heat of the Night, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, as well as Koch Media's Neon Demon + one of the 4K UHD transfers of Dario Argento's Suspiria.

The film's visual identity is a deliberate mosaic, segmented by narrative layers to reflect Mishima's fragmented psyche. Cinematographer John Bailey (Cat People, Silverado, American Gigolo) employs distinct palettes: golden-greens for The Temple of the Golden Pavilion evoke ethereal beauty; pink-grays for Kyoko's House suggest urban decadence; orange-blacks for Runaway Horses convey fiery urgency; while black-and-white flashbacks ground the biography in documentary starkness. Interwoven are black-and-white flashbacks to his life: a frail childhood under his grandmother's domineering influence, his wartime avoidance of military service, his rise as a writer with Confessions of a Mask (which hints at his homosexuality through arousal at a Saint Sebastian painting), his bodybuilding transformation, and the founding of the Tatenokai militia to restore imperial honor. Drawing from Noh and Kabuki theater, the novel adaptations feature purposefully artificial environments: painted backdrops for nature, miniature models for landscapes, and confined spaces that limit actor movement, focusing attention on emotional intensity rather than expansive realism. The improved density and detail on large screens, smoother gradations in stylized shots, and impeccable stability with minimal artifacts, make the 2160P a dynamic upgrade over the previous Blu-ray, even without HDR.

NOTE: We have added 40 more large resolution 4K UHD captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their 4K UHD, Criterion offer DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel tracks (24-bit.) It is available in three options: the primary Japanese track with Ken Ogata’s narration (fully remastered for greater clarity, wider dynamic range, deeper bass, and subtle surround movement), and two alternate English narrations - including the original by Roy Scheider and a "test track" that's flatter but serves as a production artifact. The mix is crystal clear, with crisp dialogue, precise Foley effects, and an enveloping presentation that fills the soundstage without distortion or anomalies, ensuring the music's hypnotic rhythms and boisterous swells enhance the film's emotional and thematic intensity. While not remixed into immersive formats like Dolby Atmos, the audio is flawless in its execution, prioritizing fidelity to the original stereo design. Ambient effects like the clink of swords or crowd murmurs during the coup are crisp and the overall auditory mix is rapturous and attention-grabbing, enhancing the film's emotional and philosophical resonance. Philip Glass's (The Thin Blue Line, Kundun, Leviathan, Koyaanisqatsi, A Brief History of Time, Home, The Illusionist) minimalist score, performed by the Kronos Quartet, pulses with repetitive motifs that underscore thematic unity, building tension toward cathartic release. These elements create a hallucinatory vignette style, where novel adaptations feel like operatic interludes, enhancing the film's exploration of art as obsession. Glass's trademarks - repeating patterns, shifting harmonies, and a blend of strings with subtle percussion - create a hypnotic, frenetic energy complementing the visuals without overwhelming them. Glass himself expanded the score into String Quartet No. 3, affirming its standalone artistic merit. Criterion offer optional English subtitles (translation and two narrations - see samples below) on their Region FREE 4K UHD.

The extras package is comprehensive but unchanged from Criterion's 2018 Blu-ray, housed on the included Blu-ray disc (with the 4K UHD containing only the film and commentary), offering a wealth of contextual material that deepens appreciation for both the film and its subject. Highlights include a 2006 audio commentary by Schrader and producer Alan Poul (informative - worth the indulgence); interviews from 2007-2008 with Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mata Yamamoto (22 minutes), Philip Glass, and Eiko Ishioka (3/4 hour, particularly fascinating for her initial reluctance); discussions with Mishima biographer John Nathan and friend Donald Richie (A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics); an audio interview with co-screenwriter Chieko Schrader (26 minutes); a 1966 Mishima interview excerpt on writing (6 minutes); the 1985 BBC documentary The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima (short of 1 hour); the original trailer and a booklet with critic Kevin Jackson's essay, a piece on Japanese censorship, and Ishioka's set photos. While no new features were added, the collection provides invaluable insights into production challenges, Mishima's legacy, and artistic choices.

Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters stands as an audacious biographical film that dissects the enigmatic life and death of Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's most provocative post-war literary figures. The film eschews conventional biopic tropes, instead blending factual recreation, autobiographical flashbacks, and stylized adaptations of three of Mishima's novels to probe the intersections of art, politics, and personal identity. Executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, with a screenplay co-written by Schrader, his brother Leonard, and Chieko Schrader, the movie was made on a $5 million budget and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Best Artistic Contribution award for its innovative production design by Eiko Ishioka and score by Philip Glass. Schrader, known for his explorations of alienated men in films like Taxi Driver, frames Mishima not merely as a historical subject but as a symbol of existential turmoil, where the quest for purity through violence and self-destruction becomes a lens for understanding modern alienation. Each chapter incorporates vibrant, theatrical dramatizations of Mishima's novels: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Chapter 1: Beauty) follows a stuttering acolyte who burns a temple out of envy for its perfection; Kyoko's House (Chapter 2: Art) depicts a sadomasochistic affair between an actor and a domineering woman, ending in mutual suicide; Runaway Horses (Chapter 3: Action) portrays young nationalists plotting a coup and committing seppuku after failure. The culminating Harmony of Pen and Sword synthesizes these, positing suicide as the harmonious fusion of intellectual creation and physical deed, where death becomes an aesthetic statement against modernity's decay. The look and sound of Mishima are inextricably linked, with Ishioka's theatrical designs and Bailey's cinematography amplified by Glass's pulsating rhythms to form a cohesive artistic statement on Mishima's quest for unity between pen and sword. This synergy renders the film a "masterwork" of mid-century cinema, visually inventive and sonically immersive, though its stylized intensity invites critiques of emotional detachment. In 4K UHD these elements shine brighter, cementing the film's legacy as a bold exploration of alienation through aesthetic extremism. Strongly recommended.

Gary Tooze