23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Could be great, but who knows, December 31, 2004
This review is from: Aikido M. Saito's Empty Hand (DVD)
I ordered the DVD and anxiously loaded it into the player. I got a disk error and it wouldn't play. I tried the DVD in three additional players and two computers and had the same result in each. The DVD appears to be home-made which obviously doesn't affect the content, but the content is irrelevent if you can't view it. I'll post back if I manage to get it exchanged for one that works, in the mean-while, I wouldn't order it.
Ok, Round 2:
Amazon was kind and exchanged the defective one for another which appears identical to the first. Regardless, this one played approximately 15 minutes with minor but irritating interruption and then skipped to the point that it was un-watchable for another 4 minutes or so, then would not play the remaining portion of the content. I tried this again in multiple DVD players with identical result.
Instead of this DVD, I'd recommend...pulling your fingernails out with pliers, shooting yourself in the foot or simply a different DVD, this one is terrible unless you have plenty of asprin to nurse you through the exchange process until you perhaps get a good one.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
High Quality - umm, June 28, 2006
This review is from: Aikido M. Saito's Empty Hand (DVD)
Aikido Saito's Empty Hand DVD
Aikido Saito's Jo DVD
Aikido Saito's Sword DVD
I got the set of these DVDs as a present. I wasn't expecting a great deal from "lost footage", but to say these are "high quality" is way off the mark. The first 10 minutes (approx.) of each DVD consists of 2 short films in B&W showing various aikido techniques. These are old, grainy and look like they have been copies from old film stock to VHS and then to DVD. As old historical footage of Saito Sensei, they are interesting and worth viewing.
The annoying problem with these three DVDs is that the second and third sections of each DVD are identical. The only parts which are different are the first 10 minutes in B&W, which do indeed concentrate on Sword, Jo and Empty Hand as claimed in the titles.
The second section is in color, again old, grainy, but is taken from old professional video stock so that it is relatively clear. It is a documentary type section showing training at the Iwama dojo and demonstrating a number of techniques. This is the longest section at about 30 minuets, interesting and worth viewing, but I don't need three copies of it.
The last section is an old home video of Saito Sensei teaching bokken. The video is very bad, breaking up in parts and the audio is virtually inaudible, which makes the section fairly pointless since Saito Sensei is trying to describe subtle differences in position which you can neither see properly on the old video nor hear explained. I definitely don't need three copies of this.
I would have been happier getting one DVD for the same price with the 6 historically significant B&W short films and the old documentary section and a bit of clarity about what is actually on the DVDs.
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