Region 4 Winners and Losers

     The Empress Yang Kwei-Fei has been released in Region 2 in the United Kingdom by Masters of Cinema under its traditional Japanese title, Yōkihi. This comes in a two-disc release with Akasen Chitai (also known as Street of Shame). The extras include video discussions on both films by Tony Rayns which run for 9-11 minutes, an audio commentary on Akasen Chitai again by Japanese film critic Tony Rayns and a 64-page booklet featuring writing by Keiko I. McDonald (author of Mizoguchi), Mark Le Fanu (author of Mizoguchi and Japan), Masako Nakagawa (author of The Yang Kuei-fei Legend in Japanese Literature), ninth-century poetry (A Song of Unending Sorrow) by Po Chü-i, and rare production stills.

     In my opinion, the video discussions and expert audio commentary by Tony Rayns and the booklet, together with the inclusion of Akasen Chitai, makes the Region 2 Masters of Cinema release the best available version on DVD.