Product Description

Against a backdrop of the treacherous mountains, rivers and icy plains of the Siberian wilderness, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Rashomon) stages an extraordinary adventure of comradeship and survival. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17141 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2003-09-02
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 144 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
During an unusual chapter in the career of director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon), the filmmaker went to Russia because he found working in his native Japan to be too difficult. The result was this striking 1975 near-epic based on the turn-of-the-century autobiographical novels of a military explorer (Yuri Solomin) who met and befriended a Goldi man in Russia's unmapped forests. Kurosawa traces the evolution of a deep and abiding bond between the two men, one civilized in the usual sense, the other at home in the sub-zero Siberian woods. There's no question that Dersu Uzala (the film is named for the Goldi character, played by Maxim Munzuk) has the muscular, imaginative look of a large-canvas Soviet Mosfilm from the 1970s. But in its energy and insight it is absolutely Kurosawa, from its implicit fascination with the meeting of opposite worlds to certain moments of tranquility and visual splendor. But nothing looks like Kurosawa more than a magnificent action sequence in which the co-heroes fight against time and exhaustion to stay alive in a wicked snowstorm. For fans of the late legend, this is a Kurosawa not to be missed. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Blush, Kino
Wonderful film, one of my top ten, but this is a terrible DVD. My videotape is MUCH better. Kino must have searched for the worst possible print to transfer; every flaw is preserved and magnified. A ridiculous, cheap, cynical, hack-job on a beautiful film. How did this happen, and why won't someone with a conscience do this film DVD justice?

Technically miserable
Let's make it clear from start : the movie is a pure masterpiece and will top rank in anyone vidéo collection. The point here is the DVD transfer which is a catastrophy. I am not a techno nut & am very tollerant when there is some quality problems here & there. But this DVD has to be a case on what can go wrong : the sound is scratchy at best, the colors are mostly saturated or are totally faded, the picture goes constantly out of focus, ... Things where so bad I checked my hardware with another DVD ! For the price this is a rip-off.

Something isn't right here..
The movie is a classic..one of Kurosawa's best films. Even better than some of his older works but something definately stinks here. How is this DvD actually worth [money]? I mean, make no mistake; this is a Kurosawa, but the quality sometimes looks worst than a bootlegged VHS. Kurosawa's older movies like Hidden Fortress and Seven Samurai look much better than this and those movies are 44 and 48 years old respectively, COST LESS and are black and white.

Sadly this isn't the first Kurosawa movie I've seen been massacred by a poor DvD transfer. Remember Ran? That DvD was a utter disgrace. So was Madadayo and Sanjuro. I'm so sick of these companies seeking a quick profit so they take works of art and destroy them with half assed ports and then charge over inflated prices on top of all that. It makes me sick. And then there are movies like Kagemusha, Ikiru and Throne of Blood (some of the greatest movies ever made) that have yet to be released on DvD and that I find completely unacceptable.

I'm sorry this is beginning sound like a rant but no way is this half assed transfer worth that much money. The movie gets 10 stars but the DvD gets NONE.