13 / BD 55 Onibaba

Discuss releases by Eureka and Masters of Cinema and the films on them.
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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#26 Post by manicsounds » Mon Feb 18, 2013 8:52 am

DVDBeaver comparison

I noticed that the BD release has a PCM track, as opposed to a DTS track that pretty much all other Masters Of Cinema releases have. Also, this might be better asked somewhere else, but why does MoC always encode their audio at 16-bit as opposed to 24-bit like Criterion or BFI do? The difference is negligible but...

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tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#27 Post by tenia » Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:40 pm

I just finished watching the movie, and was a bit surprised by the overall very positive PQ reviews I've read so far, which I had trouble agreeing with. Blacks are too often blue-ish, picture level of details varies quite often, I've also seen at least one drastic drop in definition and some shots still have luminosity fluctuations, white speckles, and all.

Is it me ?

The Doogster
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:07 pm
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Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#28 Post by The Doogster » Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:17 am

tenia wrote:I just finished watching the movie, and was a bit surprised by the overall very positive PQ reviews I've read so far, which I had trouble agreeing with. Blacks are too often blue-ish, picture level of details varies quite often, I've also seen at least one drastic drop in definition and some shots still have luminosity fluctuations, white speckles, and all.

Is it me ?
No, it's not just you. I just watched it, and your observations sum things up nicely. I didn't have a problem with the blacks. However, the speckles (white speckles on a black background really do stand out) annoyed me, especially considering most of the non-speckly scenes were pristine. Some of the scenes did have a blocky look about them. Note that I watched this movie using a projector, so on a TV you might not notice these shortcomings.

TIVOLI
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:58 pm

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#29 Post by TIVOLI » Thu Apr 11, 2013 11:10 pm

Does anyone else have opinions on the quality of the BD release, in particular how prevalent the speckling is if seen on a mid-size (46 inch) TV screen?

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swo17
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Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#30 Post by swo17 » Fri Apr 12, 2013 12:02 am

I guess I haven't watched the BD specifically looking out for these criticisms, but I watched it right when it came out, up close through a projector, and thought it looked splendid.

TIVOLI
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:58 pm

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#31 Post by TIVOLI » Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:35 pm

Thanks; sounds like this is worth upgrading from Criterion DVD.

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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
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Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#32 Post by manicsounds » Tue Sep 15, 2015 10:34 am

I got the BD new from base.com a while back and it was a one-disc BD with no DVD copy. I assumed this was how it was, but I saw a copy on the shelf at a store today with the "Dual Format" sticker, and Amazon also has "Dual Format" listed. Are there 2 different editions in print?

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rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#33 Post by rapta » Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:30 am

manicsounds wrote:I got the BD new from base.com a while back and it was a one-disc BD with no DVD copy. I assumed this was how it was, but I saw a copy on the shelf at a store today with the "Dual Format" sticker, and Amazon also has "Dual Format" listed. Are there 2 different editions in print?
Weird...I didn't notice that!

Kuroneko, Onibaba and The Naked Island were all separate BD and DVD when first released. I remember buying the DVD copy of Kuroneko, then when I started collecting Blu-rays I bought Kuroneko, Onibaba and The Naked Island on Blu-ray (not available on Dual Format).

Recently Eureka reissued Kuroneko as a Dual Format edition, but I wasn't aware of them doing the same for Onibaba. Perhaps they decided to reprint new covers for all of their remaining stock of Onibaba rather than reissue it? If you look on the back packshot on the Amazon listing it says '2013', so they haven't updated the artwork like they did for the recent Kuroneko reissue (which states 2015...I asked Eureka if they could send me the new artwork so I could compile my own Dual Format edition).

This is quite odd, as they haven't followed suit with The Naked Island (yet). I'll ask Kevin about it over on Blu-ray.com and see what's going on with that. I reckon they did what I assumed above and adjusted their remaining stock...though it has put the price up significantly on Amazon for this title.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#34 Post by Orlac » Sun Oct 11, 2015 2:06 pm

The transfer on the BD looks rather contrast overblown - rather like some of the Criterion BDs.

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#35 Post by Drucker » Sun Oct 11, 2015 4:36 pm

On this message board, I have seen every manner of Japanese 50s/60s black and white BD criticized to the point where 1) I have no idea what any film "should" look like and 2) don't get the implicit assumption that every film is shot the same way. Both the MOC and Criterion Kuroneko have been criticized. Somehow Burmese Harp has the wrong grey-space but every Kurosawa BD is too contrasty? I just don't get it.

I'm not trying to be rude, but is there an easy, honest explainer that someone could give me on how these films "should" look?

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EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#36 Post by EddieLarkin » Sun Oct 11, 2015 4:57 pm

Sure, they should all look like Criterion's The Hidden Fortress and the MoC Harakiri* [-o<

*with a great many exceptions

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 13 / BD 55 Onibaba

#37 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Mar 02, 2020 12:26 pm

You can practically feel the concentrated grime in the air throughout this film that is overheating from anger and fear, spawned from desperation and powerlessness. The unknown is stretched from information to motives, while odd presentations of defenses and paranoia are rampant. The incredibly atmospheric style lends itself to a curiously energized exploration of the dull, and the camera’s role in floating around, positioning itself in the faces of its characters and then retreating up into the corners of the ceiling or behind another’s back, show its ability to provoke and hide and ultimately serve a role as scattered intrusive observer. The camera never makes up its mind over how safe it is to exist openly in the space the characters occupy, but instead opts to embody a range between anxious and serene that often feels out of step with the mood onscreen and only heightens the surrealism in attitude that mirrors the internal disorientation of the characters’ psychologies, particularly the older woman. The expressions of erotica are dense and disturbing because of their impenetrability, leaving us with little sense of character beyond reptilian drives, and even those aren’t clearly defined in filmic language. This exhibition feels a bit like what I imagine a sensory deprivation tank does, where in the absence of grounding emotional or narrative maps we are left feeling the extremities of the painful loss, resentment, fear, and jealousy along with the instincts to flee or fight, exposed to their vulnerable bones. Everything in this film is fear-driven, and the demons of this earth that are reactive based on extreme emotion are revealed to be just as dangerous as the fantasies of demons that haunt with confidence, because one is unpredictable and prone to illogical violence in fallible humanness and both are jarringly erratic. The technical choices exist across a diverse plane between starkly realist and experimental, and the last act is expertly crafted as all efforts culminate in abrasive disruptions to counter the banal meditations at the start, including a lightning storm for the ages- fittingly with some of the best use of lighting I've ever seen, and a heartstopping finale. I had see the Criterion DVD many years ago and these moments didn't stick out as much, but the attention to detail in that final stretch on the MoC blu-ray really drives home that this should be experienced in the highest quality. As a fable it’s pretty eccentric in how it presents a morality play on a cast of characters with no morals, which is dark icing on the cake of one of the best Japanese horrors ever.

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