Will They Ever Learn? Ever? Please?

Well, I saw this coming but that doesn’t make me any happier about it …

More general stupidity from Miramax when it comes to an Asian film acquisition. I volunteered at the Toronto Film Festival last year when one of the biggest buzz films was Zatoichi, Takeshi Kitano‘s take on the classic Blind Swordsman character that has spawned more than twenty feature films and a television series in his native Japan. There was such a big buzz around this film that I wasn’t able to get in to see it at all during the festival despite it being one of the top two or three films on my must see list. Everyone that did see it, however, came out babbling about how great it was and the film went on to win the People’s Choice Award – the only award Toronto gives out – as the audience’s favorite film in the festival. And I can say first hand that an awful lot of that excitement went up in smoke the second that word began to circulate that Miramax had just purchased North American rights to the film. It was like watching a slowly leaking balloon gradually collapse into the floor. Not only does Miramax have a horrible record with their Asian properties in general, but they’ve already squashed a couple other Kitano films.

So all of that to say this: I was perusing the message board on the Casshern website yesterday, hoping against hope that there’d be a North American licensing announcement, when I spotted a posting from someone who had just been to an early test screening of Zatoichi. And Miramax has dubbed it. I am less than pleased. You’d think they’d have learned from the test screening fiasco around Shaolin Soccer, which was dubbed until they finally clued in that the subtitled version tested out way way higher, but no. And I’m pretty sure that they won’t stop the tinkering there. This is just far too Japanese a film for them to release it as is.

So here’s my advice to you. Go buy the Korean DVD. The Koreans love their films and consistently put out very high grade DVD releases for prices comparable to domestic releases. As it stands the only way you’re going to see this, another incredible film from an acknowledged master of his craft, in an unmolested format is to pick up either the Japanese or Korean DVD release because there’s no way the Weinsteins are gonna let you see it the way Kitano intended. I went with the Japanese edition because it was the only one available at the time, but it’s mighty pricey. So go Korean. It’s available here.