The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
楢山節考
Drama • 2h 10m
Overview
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
Director: Shōhei Imamura
Cast: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Tonpei Hidari, Aki Takejo, Shoichi Ozawa, Fujio Tokita, Sanshō Shinsui, Seiji Kurasaki, Junko Takada, Mitsuko Baisho, Taiji Tonoyama, Ben Hiura, Casey Takamine, Nenji Kobayashi, Nijiko Kiyokawa, Akio Yokoyama, Kaoru Shimamori, Yukie Shimura, Masami Okamoto, Kansai Eto, Satoko Iwasaki, Hideo Hasegawa, Kenji Murase, Sayaka Nakamaru, Azumi Niwa, Kosei Sato, Norihei Miki, Ryūtarō Tatsumi
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Criterion Blu-ray> Artificial Eye Blu-ray, Korea Nova Media 4K Blu-ray release is AI upscaled
Criterion Blu-ray> Artificial Eye Blu-ray, Korea Nova Media 4K Blu-ray release is AI upscaled
Director: Federico Fellini
2022 Paramount Blu-ray
2014 Criterion Blu-ray is from the same master and has only slightly worse compression. JP/DE/FR releases all have incorrect levels. Caps
2022 Paramount Blu-ray
All Blu-ray releases are from the same mastering, superior to the one on older DVD releases which is sourced from a higher generation source. They all sound about the same, with the exception of Criterion, which sounds worse due to extraneous filtering.
Paramount's disc also includes a contemporary English dub, previously unreleased on home video.
Director: Federico Fellini
2022 Paramount Blu-ray
2014 Criterion Blu-ray is from the same master and has only slightly worse compression. JP/DE/FR releases all have incorrect levels. Caps
2022 Paramount Blu-ray
All Blu-ray releases are from the same mastering, superior to the one on older DVD releases which is sourced from a higher generation source. They all sound about the same, with the exception of Criterion, which sounds worse due to extraneous filtering.
Paramount's disc also includes a contemporary English dub, previously unreleased on home video.
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook fixes duplicate shot seen on the previous Columbia Classics release and has better encoding
Original mono mix: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1991 Columbia LaserDisc
The 4K Blu-ray mono is only minimally worse (see blah-ray).
5.1 remix: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook fixes duplicate shot seen on the previous Columbia Classics release and has better encoding
Original mono mix: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1991 Columbia LaserDisc
The 4K Blu-ray mono is only minimally worse (see blah-ray).
5.1 remix: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Director: Claude Lelouch
Director: Claude Lelouch
Director: Ruben Östlund
Director: Ruben Östlund
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray or potentially French Intersections Blu-ray but not English-friendly
There are no comparisons, and all releases are likely the same transfer from 2K restoration. However, given that other releases in the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray are superior to other Polish releases, likely the same conclusion applies here.
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray or potentially French Intersections Blu-ray but not English-friendly
There are no comparisons, and all releases are likely the same transfer from 2K restoration. However, given that other releases in the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, Volume 1 Blu-ray are superior to other Polish releases, likely the same conclusion applies here.
Director: Chen Kaige
Director: Chen Kaige
Director: Shōhei Imamura
Director: Shōhei Imamura
Director: Shōhei Imamura
Director: Shōhei Imamura
Director: Mike Flanagan
US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray (similar encoding)
Director: Mike Flanagan
US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray (similar encoding)
Director: James Foley
Director: James Foley
Director: Richard Fleischer
Director: Richard Fleischer
Director: Terence Young
US Arrow > UK StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray, better color grading
Director: Terence Young
US Arrow > UK StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray, better color grading
Director: John Woo
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Shout! Factory, better encoding by Engine House and redone opening credits, errors present in Shout! Factory fixed
Arrow 4K Blu-ray, mono is from an alternate higher fidelity source than Shout! Factory.
Director: John Woo
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Shout! Factory, better encoding by Engine House and redone opening credits, errors present in Shout! Factory fixed
Arrow 4K Blu-ray, mono is from an alternate higher fidelity source than Shout! Factory.
Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray > Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber US Blu-ray, see caps
Capelight and Arrow both have good compression, but Capelight has the edge. Kino is very poor.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Image Entertainment LaserDisc
(Arrow is a port of the LD track, see spectrograms)
Capelight and old Arrow BD included the original stereo mix, but with excessive noise reduction rendering it much less detailed. Kino only included a downmix of the 5.1 remix.
The best and most accurate of the 5.1 mixes is from the 2003 Special Edition DVD in AC3 form.
Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray > Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber US Blu-ray, see caps
Capelight and Arrow both have good compression, but Capelight has the edge. Kino is very poor.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Image Entertainment LaserDisc
(Arrow is a port of the LD track, see spectrograms)
Capelight and old Arrow BD included the original stereo mix, but with excessive noise reduction rendering it much less detailed. Kino only included a downmix of the 5.1 remix.
The best and most accurate of the 5.1 mixes is from the 2003 Special Edition DVD in AC3 form.
Director: Joel Schumacher
US/UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray has both the original Dolby Stereo 2.0 mix in its best quailty and the original Dolby Stereo 4-track discrete stems in 4.0.
Director: Joel Schumacher
US/UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray has both the original Dolby Stereo 2.0 mix in its best quailty and the original Dolby Stereo 4-track discrete stems in 4.0.
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for October 2026 release
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for October 2026 release
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
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