The Complete (Existing) Films of Sadao Yamanaka To Get Masters of Cinema DVD Release

Eureka Entertainment have announced the long-awaited follow up to one of the earliest MoC DVD titles — Humanity and Paper Balloons, THE COMPLETE (EXISTING) FILMS OF SADAO YAMANAKA featuring the aforementioned film alongside rare footage of other lost Yamanaka films - overall includes the complete surviving works from this legendary director. The set will be released in a 2-disc DVD edition on 20 May 2013.

The brief but prodigious career of Japanese director Sadao Yamanaka resulted in a catalogue of work characterised by an elegant and unforced visual style, fluid editing, and a beautiful attention to naturalistic performances. Although he made 22 films over a six-year period (before dying of dysentery in a Japanese Imperial Army outpost in Manchuria at the age of 28), only three of them survive, collected here for the first time in the West.

Tange Sazen: The Million Ryô Pot is a gloriously comic adventure yarn as the titular one-eyed, one-armed swordsman becomes embroiled in the hunt for a missing pot that points the way to hidden treasure. In Kôchiyama Sôshun, a subversively humanistic adaptation of a classic kabuki play, a small but invaluable knife stolen from a samurai leads to a chain of an increasingly complex and troublesome set of circumstances. His last film, Humanity and Paper Balloons, is an unsparing ensemble drama set among the lowest rungs of Japanese society in the 18th century.

The Masters of Cinema Series is delighted to present these treasures of world cinema in a long-awaited two-disc DVD set, including rarely-seen fragments of two other lost Yamanaka films.

“Humanity and Paper Balloons is a beautifully shot and well told story” – DVD Times

“There really isn't any questions whether this should be part of your cineaste DVD collection. It is tantamount to being imperative.” – DVD Beaver

“Humanity and Paper Balloons is a fascinating time capsule of a movie that not only reframes the feudal period in which it is set to present a harsh critique of the social and political conditions of the time it was made, but also demonstrates just how tight, coherent, and entertaining films from this period actually were.” – Jasper Sharp, Midnight Eye

SPECIAL TWO-DISC DVD EDITION:
• New digital transfers of all three films
• New English subtitle translations
• Rare fragments of other lost Yamanaka films
• A lengthy booklet, including Yamanaka's will, excerpts from his diaries, essays by Tony Rayns, Shinji Aoyama, Kimitoshi Satô, and more
• More extras to be announced closer to release date

Pre-Order/Buy The Complete (Existing) Films of Sadao Yamanaka: THE COMPLETE (EXISTING) FILMS OF SADAO YAMANAKA (Masters of Cinema) (DVD)