
Kurosawa's Japan Revisited - lermontov
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/12/30/kurosawa-japan-revisited/
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fitzwatermellow
Watch Ikiru. Be enlightened.

[http://www.hulu.com/watch/215850](http://www.hulu.com/watch/215850)

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J_Darnley
> Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the
> United States

Fuck you then. I'll go to the pirate bay and find one. Oh that domain name's
gone now? I'll try another. Oh look 3 results. What about demonoid? 39
results.

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cooper12
You can purchase it from the Criterion Collection:
[https://www.criterion.com/films/353-ikiru](https://www.criterion.com/films/353-ikiru)

Not only did they restore it, there are extras like a commentary track,
documentaries on Kurosawa and Ikiru itself, and some writings. Yeah the
streaming wasn't as convenient as one would like but we should support the
Criterion Collection, which goes all out for its films and restores
unappreciated masterpieces. It's a much better experience than watching a
horrible compressed-to-hell encode by YIFY with inaudible audio.

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J_Darnley
1 - That's not available for immediate download. 2 - It is a DRMed-to-hell
Bluray. 3 - I don't have a fantastic Full HD display (or 4K according to that
link) upon which to show the glorious remastered work. So I think I will get a
"a horrible compressed-to-hell encode by YIFY with inaudible audio". But to be
honest I have no idea what shit you've been downloading but I was thoroughly
impressed YIFY's work.

From this new link's help pages:

> 20\. Are Criterion’s Blu-ray discs region-encoded?

> Yes. Criterion is licensed to sell most of its editions only in North
> America.

> 4\. Can my order be shipped outside the United States?

> We only ship our DVDs in the United States and to Canada.

Fuck them again and fuck you specifically, cooper12.

I would try Amazon but my first 3 points still stand for them.

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cooper12
It's a shame that distributors haven't made it easier to purchase the film in
your area but you have to realize that behind-the-scenes rights deals have
many involved parties each taking their own risks and these restrictions are
usually the result of that. I don't understand your fixation on piracy though,
if you read the article I would hope that you'd see that this was a valuable
work by a very well-respected director that is worth buying, especially for
the things I mentioned, but I guess not. It's not like shipping takes that
long these days or that waiting a few days would make you not want to watch
it. I agree that DRM is bad. While a nice screen helps, it's not required, but
you will get a much better experience from a Bluray restoration.

As for our friend YIFY, do you wonder what kind of "magic" they do to fit
feature-length films into 700MB? Most importantly they completely starve the
bitrate so nothing looks as good as it could. Then they use a whole variety of
filters to change the film from how it originally looked so it will compress
better like denoising or color changes. Not to mention other atrocities such
as changing the aspect ratio, downscaling, low bitrate audio, or even cutting
out parts like intros and credits. You're only impressed with it because you
haven't seen what you're missing.

And thanks for the personal attack, In the future I'll make sure not to write
well-meaning comments to someone who had trouble with a specific method of
watching something. Excuse me, I gotta get back to sending cease-and-desists
letters and meeting my shill quota for the day.

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J_Darnley
The internet is a global market. The old industries would like to keep that
for themselves by denying buyer the possibility of buying something from
another region. They are free to shop around to keep their costs low but the
instant we do that we are criminal sum. Back to the point. What incentive does
me buying the film give to Kurosawa to make more films? The alleged point of
copyright. I find it hard to believe that he will make some more because I, or
anyone else in this thread, bought one. He's dead! Of course if I take the
copyright industry's line I would be literally reaching into his grave and
taking the money out of his pocket. I have no idea whether his films are any
good. I don't like many Hollywood productions of the same era. Perhaps being
Japanese his films will be better.

Let me get this straight. YIFY isn't allowed to filter video but Criteron are?
Also I'm not surprised you've got a bad impression of ripped video if you're
still downloading 1CD files. Don't try and 1-up me on the topic of video
encoding. I have never seen YIFY cut credits. I will admit that there is one
time where I have seen them make a mistake. Wreck-It Ralph: the audio on the
credits cuts out a few minutes before the end.

You shouldn't have posted a link to a shit website that doesn't ship
internationally if you didn't want to be insulted.

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splawn
I love YIFY as well as buying Criteron. My advice is don't bother with
Kurosawa, I think Wreck-It Ralph is probably more your speed. Just an well-
meaning, honest guess.

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J_Darnley
:) I'm not sure whether I should feel insulted or not.

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cooper12
Every time I watch Ikiru, the scene with the piano where the protagonist sings
"Life is Brief" in a low voice always tears at my heartstrings. He sings it
with such conviction that everyone stops their festivities just for a second
to hear the desperate song from an old man. One thing that's intriguing is
that the author chose to move to Japan over some kind of idealization whereas
he felt that New York City was a dead end. One would think you could be much
more effective in an established area rather than a country known for its
xenophobia, but I won't judge.

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Steko
> known for it's xenophobia

Broad brushes like these are usually dangerous to paint with. Japan has it's
xenophobic streaks but is also one of the most cosmopolitan cultures around.
For similar reasons, lines like the following in the article piqued my
annoyance as well:

 _how very un-Japanese it seemed: in the broadness of its satire, in the
zaniness of its switches from one genre to another, in the almost violent
simplicity of its message and story_

Author's certainly entitled to his own reaction but I don't find these traits
uncommon in Japanese cinema (and literature). I'm not contesting the whole
'Kurosawa is the least Japanese of Japanese directors' trope but that
reputation was largely earned for his later career. Imho Kurosawa in the 50's
was as Japanese as anyone, and that's especially true with _Ikiru_ , a film
that fits perfectly alongside the better contemporary efforts from directors
like Kinoshita and Ichikawa.

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cooper12
I apologize, you're right that repeating stereotypes can be more harmful than
useful. I don't blame the author completely for that, it was really just their
personal perspective on the film as compared to their baseline experience of
Japan. I'll certainly have to check out Kurosawa's earlier filmography around
the 50s. (I've only seen Rashomon in that period)

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hitlin37
One of my best directors, all his movies are timeless.

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ZenoArrow
Great article, thanks for sharing it.

