Zatoichi #14, Available on Amazon again

[Takuma]

Originally Posted by daisho2004

I don't see anybody putting out these classic movies!

I do! The Japanese, French etc, dvd distributors. Those are the dvds Merlin and pals are ripping and releasing under their own name. They don't have access to "prints", they just buy the official foreign dvds and rip them (and add subs).

Ok, I know you probably meant "R1" and "sources", but I just had to be a smart ass because someone would probably have misinterpreted those posts...

The topic in general is a bit more tricky in the sense that while I don't accept those bootleggers' activity, they do often produce subs, which would be very useful for people like me who always purchase the (non subbed) official releases only, but might like to add subs to those discs (which takes about 5 seconds with HTPC setup if the subscrip is correctly timed, 10 minutes if you have to fix the timings, and 13 mouse clicks if you want to burn custom dvd of your own to watch it via dvd player).

[BlackLamaFaction]

The really sad fact is that you could annihilate the bootleg market tomorrow, (the government in my country attempts to pass draconian copyright legislation every other week). However the real reason companies don't release these films is because there is not a large enough market for them to make a considerable profit. Sure they will release the work of the masters; Kurosawa, Gosha, Kobayashi, Okamoto, maybe as far as some of Kenji Misumi's most well known stuff.. Well after you spent the 2 months it takes to see all of those films then what?. Now i want to see some Tomo Uchida, Eiichi Kudo,and Masahiro Shinoda. I saw Zatoichi now I want to see Tough Guy. I can't even get my favorite samurai film ever, (Tanaka's The Betrayal) on R1. Even the majority of Gosha's work wouldn't be seen if not for the French. It's frustrating because it seems there just aren't enough of us who love these films for distributors to release all but the but the most well known titles. Most of the films I like are over 50 years old now, so why would they just all of the sudden be dug up and released on remastered DVD and Blue Ray.

[daisho2004]

@BlackLamaFaction: You seem to be the only one who understands what I'm saying here! Again do I support the Fansubbers Yes! Do you have to No! Its freedom of choice! Like BLF stated there are so many classics that will never see a legit release and I'll be honest I'm not great with computers and nor do I have to the time to mess around trying to put Subs onto movies. So again nobody is saying buy anything from Fansubbers but for People like me and many others we appreciate the hard work and the time that Merlin & CK do so I can watch these movies.

@Sambojits: And the Fansubbers are not the reason AnimEigo doesn't release these movies, its because there isn't a whole general need for these kind of movies any longer, plain & simple! People want the CGI the new stuff! This films while there classics, its not beneficial for these companies to start remastering them that is the reason AnimEigo lost the rights in the beginning to the Sleepy Eyes of Death series they were losing money on it! Look at the Lone Wolf & Cub TV series it was Great and they stopped it before I think they even finished the entire 1st. season. Samething with Sonny Chiba's Ninja series!

But again everyone has the right to there own opinions on here and I will never force my views on anyone. But don't hate People for doing something that a lot of us on here appreciate. You can buy the French release of these films whatever you choose to do. Like I've always stated when a US legit release comes out I'll buy it to support that company, until then I'll support the Fansubbers.

I Hope This End This Debate!

[shaolinkng7]

I was once friends with Merlin David. Or at least he convinced me I was. This is going back to the early 90s when his company was then called Samurai Video. Same Zatoichi logo. It was pretty easy to be friends with him. The guy gave his home number out for his business then. I forget where I got the number, probably an advertisement in the back of one of the martial arts magazines. I called because I was looking for some rare Shaw Brothers movies that were not available elsewhere, even on the bootleg market. For some unexplained reason, there was a box for "Street Gangs of Hong Kong", but the bootleggers somehow did not have the movie. So instead they got a copy of "Young Avenger" from Ocean Shores, removed the title credit, and replaced it with the new title "Street Gangs of Hong Kong: The Delinquent". ( the box had both the English dub and H.K. titles on it's front, which explains why both titles were superimposed over the video ). At the time "Street Gangs..." was one of my favorite Shaw Brothers films, and I wanted a copy. But it just was not available on the street.

Merlin sure liked to talk. What began with me asking a few questions ended up with him keeping me on the phone for a good hour, in which time he told me the only Shaw Brothers he had that were not already available on the street were the One Arm Swordsman series, "Come Drink With Me" and "Bells of Death". BUT, If I called back at a later date, he could get his hands on "Street Gangs..." as well as "The Boxer Rebellion".

He also spend a good ten minutes dissing Dragon Video. Apparently Dragon Video had sunk so low as to take a Japanese superhero movie, spray paint the box silver, and sell it to someone expecting a rare Sonny Chiba film they paid $100 for. There were other Dragon Video horror stories. And we discussed Zatoichi. I had read about the series in the Ric Meyers book, but had never seen any of the films. Merlin was the distributor of legit Zatoichi releases from Chambara Video, and he agreed they were charging too much for them. But he also was selling, from his collection, some Zatoichi's that Chambara was not releasing, including "Zatoichi meets the One Armed Swordsman". By the end of the phone call he had talked me into ordering "...Fire Festival" from his collection which was subtitled in English. I also ordered Jimmy Wang Yu's "Beach of the War Gods" which was not yet available on the street. He had another movie not available on the street, Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master", but talked me out of buying it because the one in his collection was missing the ending. He said he would be getting his hands on a complete copy of the movie in a few months, so instead I bought "The Young Master"

A few weeks later I called back, and sure enough he had landed copies of "Street Gangs..." and "Boxer Rebellion". Once again I ended up on the phone for an hour and once again I ended up buying more Zatoichi movies from his personal collection. And if I could stomach the $90 that Chambara was charging for their Zatoichi films then I would have bought one of those as well.

I called many other times. Another time to get the complete copy of "Drunken Master". Yet another to get the first two One Armed Swordsman films. And another time to get "Disciples of the 36th Chamber". Each time he talked me into buying from his personal chambara collection. I ended up buying from him all of the subtitled Zatoichi films, and then episodes from the television series ( which turns out he had in the incorrect broadcast order. ) and also some other Japanese films like "The Hidden Fortress" Each time I called he was very friendly, very eager to talk about martial arts films, kept me on the phone for close to an hour, and ended up talking me into trying Japanese cinema. Then one day I ran out of Kung Fu movies in his catalog I wanted to buy, right after I had purchase a restored version of "The Street Fighter" combining the censored New Line Cinema home video release with the cut fight scenes from the Japanese Laserdisc, and a copy of "Enter the Dragon" with a minute of footage not then available on the U.S. version, along with Zatoich TV episodes #15 and #16. I had no reason to call back, so I never did.

Was he selling me bootlegs? Yes, although he had rationalized it as a service that provided collectors with movies otherwise not available. And he was distributing the legit releases of these movies, with no worry that selling the bootlegs would kill that market. I do know this. I would never have watched a Zatoichi movie had he not talked me into buying one from his personal collection. And years later, I would have not gone out of my way to buy the legitimate released DVDs from HVE and AnimEigo, even though I had some of the same films in VHS on my shelf.

And that is the point that people miss about the bootleg market. It actually builds interest in foreign movies. Take anime. If not for the bootlegs sold at comic book conventions, where the merchants played scenes from those cartoons on television screens to show how cool or dirty they were, then there would not have been any market for them in this country. Our only exposure to the genre would be "Speed Racer", "Battle of the Planets" and other badly mangled re-edits for pre-schoolers. Bootleggers kept interest in Shaw Brothers alive when they were unavailable in any form for nearly two decades. Bootleggers got the good Jackie Chan movies onto the street, when the only legit Chan videos were from the Lo Wei era, or those two dismal Warner Brothers films. As much as we can detest Bootleggers from cutting into the profits of the legitimate distributors, if not for the bootleggers then there would be no American market for Asian films. There would be no AnimEigo or Dragon Dynasty because no market for the films they release would have been developed in this country.

And that is the double edged sword. The legit companies are benefiting from interest created by bootleggers. But they are also losing revenue to those same bootleggers. Can't exist with them, can't exist without them. I think there is a big difference between Merlin David and Ground Zero. Ground Zero is clearly in it for the money. Samurai DVD is in it because the owner loves the genre. Samurai DVD promotes Chambara. Ground Zero merely illegally repackages what already sells. But what is really important is that any true fan of martial arts will upgrade their library. They will buy bootleg if nothing else is available, and replace that bootleg with a legit release once that is available. I do not think the bootleg market is cutting into the profits of legit releases as much as everyone thinks. The real demons here are the unrealistic expectations that a fringe market should perform as well as a mainstream market.

[daisho2004]

@shaolinkng7: Well said, I cannot even add to that!