Home Media Magazine takes a look at the turnout from various anime purveyors at this weekend’s Anime Expo…and the signs ain’t good…

On the convention floor, the booth for leading anime DVD distributor ADV Films looked like a mom-and-pop DVD sidewalk store, with no signage and no representatives from the company.

“I just work here,” a young man selling DVDs said. “I can’t tell you anything.”

While ADV’s set-up was bare bones, anime powerhouse VIZ Media wasn’t on the show floor at all. Neither was The Right Stuf International. All three companies held panels to discuss their plans for the rest of the year and beyond, but their absence from the show floor was reflective of the slow-down of domestic anime DVD.

“You can see the decline in the industry,” said Adam Sheehan, senior events manager for Funimation. “A lot of the companies in the past were pushing every title as an ‘A’-list title, and it was too much for the market to handle.”

Of course, it’s nothing people inside and outside the industry haven’t been saying for the last year or so. Anime - in the U.S., at least, is hurtin’ - even when its’ popularity is at an all-time high. If you want my opinion (and I’m by no means an expert), what we’re seeing is a rough patch which represents the transition to new forms of distribution. While DVD was undoubtedly a gold-mine for companies looking to bring Japanese animation Stateside, it’s abundantly clear that the future of anime in the U.S. is online. A significant number of anime distributors have begun initiatives to push their product via the internet, and I predict the trend will continue into the forseeable future, at least for those with the vision and determination to stick it out.

Honestly, old people doing the horizontal bop isn’t all that odd. To be perfectly frank, I hope I’m spry enough to enjoy my golden years to the fullest…and compared to some of the wierd Japanese pr0n I’ve been subjected to in the past (’poop tempura’ should be first and last word on that account), old-people porn is downright mainstream.

Still, this TIME article about 74-year-old porn actor Shigeo Tokuda is fascinating in an ‘On Golden Pond Meets John Holmes’ kinda way. And seriously - you’ve got to love some of the names of these flicks…

Tokuda’s exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an “old man” series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. “The adult-video industry is very competitive,” says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. “If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers’ hearts.”

Rating:  

Anyway you cut it, Heroes of the East is a fine example of classic martial-arts filmmaking. The name Lau Kar Leung may not immediately ring a bell with younger fans of the genre, but if you’ve seen Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master 2 (aka Legend of the Drunken Master), his performance as the tough-as-nails Fu Wen-Chi is nigh-unforgettable, and on more than one level.

The character portrayed by Jackie Chan, Wong Fei-Hung, is well-known to martial arts film enthusiasts as the subject of over 100 films stretching back to the beginnings of China’s movie industry. Lau Kar Leung, a well-respected martial artist in his own right, studied under one of the real-life Wong Fei Hung’s students, making him a living link to this legendary figure. To say that he’s as good a director as he is a martial-artist is a high compliment, and after viewing Heroes of the East I’d say it’s a distinction he rightly earns.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tartan USA, the North American branch of UK distributor Tartan Films, has ceased operations according to IGN. I’m fairly disappointed by this - Tartan USA’s Asia Extreme label was responsible for some really remarkable Stateside DVD releases, including Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Shinya Tsukamoto’s A Snake of June, A Tale of Two Sisters, Natural City, and a whole slew of other great flicks.

One assumes that most of these films will find new distribution, but it sure sucks to see a good company go the way of the dodo. If you’re looking for any of the films they had rights to, you might want to grab them while you can. At the very least, you’ll want to nab the excellent 3-disc Oldboy tin…it’s worth every penny.

Thanks for the good times, Tartan! You’ll be missed (sniffle)…

My brother has been bugging me for a while to record a commentary track for the website, and last night we found ourselves hanging out with nothing better to do than drink beer and watch Enter the Dragon…and record the experience for posterity.

A word of warning - this is easily the world’s worst commentary track. There are factual errors out the wazoo, and it does nothing to honor the memory and accomplishments of the late Bruce Lee. In fact, listening to this commentary track will do nothing but ruin Enter the Dragon in your memory for all eternity, much the same as The Phantom Menace ruined the entirety of the Star Wars franchise for me.

If you want to cross that threshold, then be my guest.

Yellow Menace DVD Commentary Track - Enter the Dragon

(’Right-click’ to save to your computer / Runtime: 1:42:28 / 36mb total)

(Note: this was recorded while watching the Warner Brothers Two-Disc Special Edition. I doubt there will be any problems if you watch this with another version of the film, but just an FYI…)

VIZ PICTURES ANNOUNCES DVD RELEASE OF LIVE ACTION FEATURE FILM - HONEY & CLOVER

Romantic Comedy Based On Popular Manga Series Depicts Five Art Students And Their Transformations From Adolescence To Adulthood

San Francisco, CA, May 12, 2008 – VIZ Pictures, an affiliate of VIZ Media, LLC that focuses on Japanese live-action film distribution, has announced the DVD release of HONEY AND CLOVER today. The live-action film, directed by Masahiro Takata and based on a best-selling manga series by Chica Umino, features English subtitles and will carry an estimated retail price of $24.98. Special bonus features on the disc include cast interviews, and a dedicated website about the film is available at www.honeyandclover.us.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re looking for something to blow that $300 tax stimulus check on, here are a couple of suggestions - Dragon Dynasty is releasing two Shaw Brothers kung-fu classics on 5/27, namely Come Drink With Me and Heroes of the East. Both are acknowledged classics and these releases look double-extra-sweet.
Read the rest of this entry »

Having been leaned on by Toho’s legal department in the past (I won’t go into the details, but they’re out there, somewhere…I’m sure…) I can empathize with DVD publishing company Cosmo’s pain.

Toho is after Cosmo again, this time for a trio non-Kurosawa flicks, namely Mikio Naruse’s “Mother” (1952), Senkichi Taniguchi’s “Escape at Dawn” (1950), and Tadashi Imai’s “Till We Meet Again” (1950). Toho claims that all three films, all sold on DVD by Cosmo, are protected by Japanese copyright law. Guess we’ll find out who’s right soon enough…