Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu (Early Spring / Tokyo Twilight / Equinox Flower / Late Autumn / The End of Summer) (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

The Criterion release has perfect video and audio. Many beautiful Japanese women wearing lovely clothing. The stories are interesting and beautifully filmed. I enjoyed the technique of never moving the camera. It's so interesting to see a culture that in SOME ways are superior to the west.I would describe these films as "a slice of life in Japan". You're not going to see anything profound, just fairly ordinary Japanese people struggling through the same situations we might find in the United States.I've often felt that the Japanese female form is some of God's best work, and this movie does not disappoint. There's more than just beautiful women though, a compelling story photographed beautifully.They're all good, but my favorite of the five was "Equinox Flower". The subtitling was excellent. They did not try to translate every single word, because in many cases facial expressions made the words spoken obvious. I'm not a big foreign film buff. But with movies like this I'll start searching for more Japanese film.I noticed a couple of actors from the Godzilla movies (that I also enjoy).Very happy to have these movies in my 3000 DVD/Blu-ray collection. Sadly, the ability for people to comment on a review has been taken away. I used to enjoy reading those comments, it helped me make my reviewing better and it allowed customers to help each other. Sometimes comments by the manufactures were also helpful.

Ozu needs no thumbnail review, from me or from anyone else, and it would be sheer immmodesty on my part to offer one. He's a genius; his work creates new forms of artistic expression; he is sui generis. What part of that needs me to review it or him? But this release cries out for one. It's such a shame that the bar is so low for art film transfers, that we're so overly grateful just to see anything at all on DVD or Blu-Ray, that Criterion can carry away the trophy as (get ready for it, you've heard it a million times already) "the gold standard" in doing it. It says a lot about the lowness of our standards. I just bought this set and sat down to watch "Tokyo Twilight" only to find.....wait for it.... that the image jittered and stuttered throughout from the first second of the live action (post-credits) material to the end title. And not just the "fast motion" sections, but everytime anyone in the fllm moved their lips, raised an arm, walked across a room, stood up, sat down, moved their head... the works. You get the picture? But wait, there's more: The jitter also included a slight audio lag and a pixillation or "jump" every single time there was a shot change (a cut) throughout the film. That's two or three hundred more jumps. You like those old jumpy, comical Keystone Kop silent movies? Well, this is a beautifully photographed, black-and-white 1957 sound film that will take you back to the jumpiness of a 1916 Chaplin one-reeler. What Criterion did, clearly did, was compress the video and audio so that much of the so-called digital "information" was left out. No, alas, Criterion is definitely not the "gold standard," in this transfer or that of a hundred other titles, where even when the image and sound is not jumpy, jittery, and stuttery in this way, their pack-in booklets are embarrassingly badly written, generally by famous or unfamous know-nothings, and their "bonus" material is often close to worthless. Three cheers for celebrity endorsements. Three cheers for worthless commentary and misleading summaries. Is anyone there in charge of quality control? Does anyone there actually know anything about high-quality flim criticism and commentary? Are our standards so low that we are unable to see the truth about their releases and the supporting material they include? Based on the reviews I've read here and elsewhere more or less universally praising Criterion to the skies, I guess they are. We really don't know what intellectual and artistic quality looks or sounds like. So much the worse for us. We have a right to get better work than what Criterion does, especially for the prices they charge--heck we have a right to get better work than this even if they were giving the disks away for free. I wouldn't give away this disk to one of my students. It would only spoil the film for them. P.S. A few days later: I just watched another title in this collection, "Early Spring," and encountered the same problem so it's not limited to the disk I first described.

Only a few times in an epoch or a century does an artist come along who is what would one call a special case, either because of the excellence and integrity of their contribution, their originality, or even their inherent sense of pleasure. Ozu, like a Shakespeare, a Jane Austen, or a Tarkovsky IS one of those cases. I have little to actually say about these films except for the following: they are about family life, their creators have love for their creations and their characters, they are elegant, simple but never simple minded and unafraid of beauty or genuine human emotion. They are very much Japanese and yet are for everyone. (real family entertainment). And they are as enlightening as they are entertaining. In short, they have much of life in them. Be open and see where they take you.

I was so happy to see this latest Ozu collection as I had been purchasing, individually, other Ozu films. These films were made a bit later than the earlier Ozu films I had purchased. I am just very interested in post-war Japan and so these films seem to capture this era beautifully. They are very "simple" stories of relationships, filmed in black and white. Having just recently visited Japan, the landscape seemed to touch me after having seen some of Ozu's earlier films. I thought of these films and their stories a lot while travelling through Japan - both in some large cities, as well as some beautiful rural areas of Japan.

A great set of films for those who enjoy post-war Japanese cinema (late 1950's early 1960's). Three of the films start Hara, Setsuko, the premier Japanese actress of this period. Those looking for Samurai action should skip this series as the series, and many of Ozu's films, focus on family life in post-war Japan. The films reflect Japanese life and traditions and the transition between generations in the mid-twentieth century.The first two films are in black and white, the other three reflect the transition to color at the turn of the decade. We enjoyed both formats. All films are in Japanese with English subtitles.

No incluye Tokyo Story, que es, de acuerdo a la crítica, la mejor película de Ozu (y de Japón). Pero la colección es buena. Sólo subtítulos en inglés.

Movies were great,delivery was excellent