Slash And Burn: Buying Japanese DVDs

If you're at all interested in Japanese film you're going to quickly discover that there are lots of films you just can't get at your local Tower Records. Even if you have a Mecca of cool like Amoeba or any other retailer with a large collection of hard-to-find DVDs nearby, you're still going to be hitting walls because a lot of Japanese movies just aren't released in the US. This doesn't have to stop you from seeing the movies you're reading about here or elsewhere, but it does require a bit of legwork on your end.

I'd like to point out that I am by no means an expert in this field. This is all stuff I've picked up along the way in my search for Japanese movies. If you have additional or counter information, please let me know.

When you've exhausted your US distributors like Criterion, AnimEigo, Panik House, and Kino, it might be time to start looking overseas for DVDs. Quite a few region-free versions of DVDs get printed up overseas and these can be played in your DVD player, no matter what your country of origin. However, if you're really serious, you're going to need to either, 1) hack your existing DVD player to ignore territorial lockout codes or, 2) buy a region-free player. I'm poor so I've opted for option one but as soon as I can afford it I'm going for a region-free player. Why? Region-free players can decode both NTSC and PAL, for one, so you can watch films from Europe as well as Asia. With hacks there's always the chance of something else going wrong in the player too.

I found my hack at www.videohelp.com, a user-updated site with a number of hacks for turning off the region code (as well as other things). Find the "DVD Hacks" link under the Lists header on the tool bar on the left, and then search for your model. Hacking my player was extremely easy. It was all done via the remote, and in less time than it takes to get all the plastic and security stickers off a new DVD, I was watching overseas DVDs.

Regions
Which region are you? Here's a breakdown of the codes:

0—Playable in all players
1—United States, Canada, Bermuda and US territories
2—Middle East, Western Europe, Central Europe, Egypt, French overseas territories, Greenland, Japan, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland
3—Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea and Taiwan
4—Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Oceania, South America
5—Africa, former Soviet Union countries, Indian subcontinent, Mongolia, North Korea
6—Mainland China
7—Unused
8—International venues (aircraft, cruise ships, etc.)

Why do these codes exist? Because movies are released to theater at different times throughout the year and go to DVD at different times. It prevents people in, say, Mongolia from buying the latest Harry Potter film on DVD before it's shown in theaters. This doesn't really stop anyone though, especially in the so-called Tiger countries of Asia where copyright laws are roundly ignored.

It should be noted that among the Asian countries, mainland China is PAL, so if you plan on watching any non-Taiwanese or Hong Kong Chinese DVDs, you're going to need a good all-region player with the ability to decipher different broadcast standards.

Japan DVDs
Let's start with the source, Japan. This is the obvious place to begin, as this is where the movies come from, right? There are a few roadblocks to buying and watching Japanese DVDs, even assuming you've already got yourself set up with a hacked or region-free DVD. Those roadblocks are: price and language.

Japanese DVDs are extremely expensive. If you've ever tried to buy anything imported from Japan you'll know how expensive their products can be. This isn't just because they're imported—the items are expensive to begin with. In Japan, domestic price is extremely high. Look at the back of a Japanese DVD and you'll probably see the price printed in the box copy. My copy of Ashura says 3800 yen. That's about $35 right now, though a few years ago it was more like $38. That's baseline. Add in import and shipping costs and you're looking at close to $50 for a single-disc DVD.

Language is the other prohibiting factor. Most Japanese DVDs are not subtitled in English. Unless you're fluent in nihongo (and if you are, congratulations) you're going to wish you had saved a few bucks and bought something you could understand. This isn't to say that Japanese DVDs are never subtitled in English. They do exist but they are by no means the norm.

Hong Kong/Taiwan DVDs
So what to do? Thankfully, Hong Kong and Taiwanese pressings of Japanese movies are cheap and plentiful, and almost always have English subtitles. I read somewhere that the reason Hong Kong movies were always subtitled in English is because Hong Kong was a British colony. I guess they've decided to keep up with the tradition.

Most legitimate HK and Taiwanese DVDs can be had for around $15. I say legitimate because bootlegging is rife. Bootlegged copies seem to run around $10. More on bootlegging later.

Even when buying legitimate HK DVDs, quality can sometimes be lacking. For the most part, the films are widescreen and, in the case of recent releases, mixed in 5.1 sound. But prints can be dark or grainy and, with older films, badly in need of remastering. Subtitles can be pretty bewildering at times. I'm not sure if the English is directly translated from the Chinese subtitles, or if these DVD producers actually employ trilingual translators, but suffice it to say that if an Ozu or Kurosawa title is available through Criterion, you're going to be a lot happier with the Criterion translation than the Hong Kong one.

All this being said, I've found Hong Kong DVDs to be the best option for getting Japanese movies that haven't been released here yet. The price is right and, more importantly, the selection is great. Many titles, including hard-to-find classics, are readily available.

A brief word on VCDs: I hate them. Sure, they're cheap, but the quality is so terrible I'd rather not have the movie than watch it as a VCD. Some DVD players won't play VCDs either, so if you want to get into this nether region of video quality, beware.

Other Countries
As I don't have a player that can translate PAL DVDs, I'm unfamiliar with discs from mainland China or other countries, like England. When buying discs from mainland China, always check that there are indeed English subtitles. It's not always the case like HK titles. The British market seems to be more receptive to Japanese classics than the American market, as I've seen a few Mizoguchi titles in Amoeba's imports bin as well as others that aren't available in the US (or even Hong Kong).

Buying Overseas DVDs
Now you know what to buy. But where do you buy them? If you're in a major metropolitan area like New York or San Francisco, there are undoubtedly shops that cater to Japanese and Chinese expatriates near you. San Francisco has both a Chinatown and a Japantown, as does Los Angeles. San Francisco's Chinatown is a great place to look for DVDs. Not only will you find Chinese and Japanese films, but also Hong Kong pressings of Thai films and those from other Asian countries, as well as the occasional Bollywood film. Clement St. in the Richmond is another San Francisco area with good DVD shops.

If you don't live near shops like these, or you just can't be bothered, there's always the Internet. I've found ordering HK movies off the Internet to be even cheaper than buying them from shops in Chinatown, although it's certainly not as fun. My site of choice is YesAsia.com, a site based in Asia but with warehouses all over the world. Their HK movies run around $13 each, and if you buy three or so you get free shipping. And, because there's probably a warehouse near you, shipping is fast.

And then there's eBay. I currently have a love/hate relationship with eBay. Back in the day, you knew exactly what you were buying by reading the copy. Now you have to ask a lot of questions to make sure that what you're getting isn't scratched or even a DVD-R copy. It's all online stores now. The individual seller seems to have disappeared, and with him a level of upfront honesty. Buyer beware, right?

DVD-Rs/Bootlegs
The deeper you get into Japanese film, the more you'll realize just how many movies have been released to theater over the years, and how few of them are actually available on DVD. Enter the bootlegger. I recently purchased a copy of Black Cat's Revenge off eBay and was surprised to see, upon opening, that it was a DVD-R. I wasn't really angry—I was too excited about seeing the movie—but I was pleasantly surprised at the level of quality of the image. It even had a previews section which was, apparently, spots for upcoming films on a satellite channel. I guess this company records Japanese movies off satellite, complete with subtitles, and then packages them and sells them. How deep into this you want to get is really up to you. I'm ambivalent. DVD-Rs don't last nearly as long as regular DVDs, so though you may be paying $15 for a DVD-R, it might not last more than a few years. However, there's really no other way to see a lot of these films unless you have the luxury of curating a rep house theater. What this experience has taught me is that I really need to get satellite TV.

Non-DVD-R bootlegs are readily available online as well as in some shops. The quality on these tends to be the same as legitimate copies. What gives it away is that the box art is obviously laser-copied. My feelings about bootlegs run like this: I'd rather not buy a bootleg if the option exists for a legitimate copy. Sometimes it's the only option, and then the obsessive collector in me overrides my inner moralist, who never really had much of a say anyway.

Happy hunting.

—Adam Douglas