Region 4 Winners and Losers

    The Region 1 DVD of the film hit the streets on 23rd November, and so we finally have some reviews for comparative purposes. It would appear that the Region 1 release gains a radio interview with the director, but for some variances in the trailers is otherwise similar to the Region 4 release. There is a Region 2 (United Kingdom) release from Artificial Eye that from the sole review located seems to be very similar in quality to the Region 4 release, but is of course available now as a sell-through DVD. The main difference between the two releases is that the Region 4 has the obligatory Madman Propaganda trailers whilst the Region 2 release has a filmography and biography for the director as well as production notes that apparently focus on the the original 1948 film. Accordingly there is not a great deal separating the two releases.

    There is a rather expensive Region 2 (Japanese) DVD available that is probably ignorable not only on price grounds but also for the fact that it appears to only have Japanese subtitles - not much use to those of us who cannot speak Mandarin and cannot read Japanese. However, it would appear that it has a Dolby Digital 5.1 Mandarin soundtrack if that is important to you and you can live with the subtitle (non)selection. Information about extras is sketchy I am afraid. I have not been able to track down any other DVD releases of the film, noting that from China I could only find a VCD release, but would presume that there would surely have to be some legal Asian DVD releases. So all in all, it boils down to either buying from Region 2 or renting the Region 4.