Search - A Tale of Sorrow on DVD

Good film/Bad subtitles

GGB | United States | 11/26/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you're a Seijun Suzuki fan then this film will definitely satisfy you with many bizarre and stylishly photographed scenes that one would expect from him. This was apparently his return to feature film making 10 years after he was fired from Nikkatsu - so that in itself makes this film a very important document. Unfortunately, there is a major problem with this disc, and it is the subtitles. There are many instances during spoken dialogue where certain dialogue is not subtitled, including an entire scene at about the 1hr 5min mark that is missing subtitles completely. I've contacted the publisher of this disc, Cinema Epoch, and it's been nearly a month with no reply. They obviously don't care about correcting this issue. Adding further insult to this sloppy release, there is an "essay" about Suzuki that reads like a 12 year old's book report, complete with countless grammatical and punctuation errors (Hilariously, the essay cites a "source list" and the only 2 entries are IMDB and Wikipedia!). The image quality looks great, and shows off Suzuki's great, striking color compositions, so it's a shame that the subtitles are all messed up. If you're a Suzuki fan, buy it anyway, because the film is still completely easy to follow despite this issue and it would be a shame to completely ignore the film. Had the subs been better, and the essay been written by somebody with a decent grasp on Suzuki's films (in addition to the English language...), this would have easily been a 4.5-5.0 rating as I enjoyed the film immensely! Let's hope Cinema Epoch steps up and corrects this issue eventually."