Customer Reviews

A Tale of Sorrow

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

Suzuki Seijun's "A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness" is a very important film in Suzuki's career. A return to filmmaking after a ten year blacklisting from the controversy caused by his masterpiece "Branded to Kill". One would think that a film this important from such a prolific director would have been given a better treatment, even a mediocre treatment but here on the Cinema Epoch release there are a few distracting problems.

While the film is still very much watchable only half of it seems to be subtitled. Whole scenes will go on without subtitles and the ones that are present are timed poorly.

There is even an error on the plot synopsis on the back cover of the DVD with the use of the word "too" when "to" was the proper word. This error hints at the unfortunate subtitles and essay included on the disc.

If you are a Suzuki Seijun fan this DVD is at the same time a must have and a heartbreak.

,,, a Suzuki's fan, maybe you won't be after this one, and you might even think that Nikkatsu had good reasons for firing him. The only explanation for this crap is he spent too much time working for T(otal) V(ulgarity) : watching TV sure doesn't improve intelligence, but working for them apparently destroys it. "Branded to Kill" was the last one worth watching and maybe Nikkatsu should be held responsible for that....