| Accessories By Manufacturer | |
|
|
Email Newsletter
Get info on Sales, Events, New Products, and More!
|
|
|
|
|
| Dersu Uzala | 
 enlarge | Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Maksim Munzuk, Yuri Solomin, Svetlana Danilchenko, Dmitri Korshikov, Suimenkul Chokmorov
Studio: Kino Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.85
You Save: $11.10 (37%)
New (27) Used (9) Collectible (1) from $17.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 32181
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: Russian (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 144
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.6
MPN: KICD01772D
UPC: 738329017224
EAN: 0738329017224
ASIN: B00004Y7HL
Theatrical Release Date: December 20, 1977
Release Date: September 2, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW AND FACTORY SEALED
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
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
Product Description
Studio: Kino International Release Date: 09/02/2003 Run time: 137 minutes
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 58 more reviews...
 I want to correct some reviewers December 27, 2008
I hesitated to buy this movie due to criticisms on it's visual quality. I bought it anyway because it was Kurosawa. I'm glad I did. For the most part, the transfer was fine. There were scenes which appeared fogged, but that was because it was shot in fog and/or extreme cold conditions. The rest of the time I couldn't find what other reviewers were complaining about. An interesting study of two men from completely different backgrounds who grow to respect and love each other. My only negative comment is that I couldn't activate an added feature.
 A classic remastered December 21, 2008
This was one of my all time favorite movies. What a treat to get to own it on DVD. There is a small amount of poor quality at the beginning, but the rest is fine.
 Interesting, but not his strongest work. August 20, 2008
Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975)
As much as I understand the importance of Akira Kurosawa in the greater language of film, I have to say that I've never really gotten his movies the way other people seem to; Rashomon is a movie I've watched a number of times trying to glean what it is that makes it, as many critics would have it, one of the hundred finest films ever made, and I just can't wrap my head around it. It's a good movie, to be sure, but I guess I'm missing something. I felt the same way about Dersu Uzala, now that I've seen it for the first time; I enjoyed it well enough, but nothing about it struck me as being for the ages.
Uzala himself (Maksim Munzuk) is a woodsman, who makes his living trapping and serving as a guide in the wilds of Taiga. He is hired by Vladimir Arseniev (Yuri Solomin), a captain in the Russian army, as a guide, and the two form a friendship during their time together that is renewed on occasion as the two run into each other. The real plot of the story develops when Dersu Uzala develops cataracts; with his eyesight getting worse and worse, his continued survival in the woods becomes untenable, and so Arseniev offers to put up Dersu, who's never lived anywhere but the woods, in his house in the city. Cue culture clash.
Dersu Uzala won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1975, beating out such luminaries as Wajda's The Promised Land and Kumai's Sandikan 8. I'm glad I wasn't a member of the Academy at that time; that would've been a tough call. (For the record, I should mention I'm not a member now, either.) I'm relatively sure I would've gone for one of the others, though; as I said above, Dersu Uzala is a good film, interesting if a bit slow to get to the real meat of the matter, but nothing about it grabbed me in the way slow films sometimes do (a perfect example of this is the work of Bela Tarr, in which nothing at all happens most of the time, but I can't tear my eyes away from the screen). Kurosawa gives us interesting, well-acted characters in a fantastic framework, and with some of the more stunning scenery I've come across in recent months, but there's that ineffable something about Kurosawa's movies that I just don't grasp. And I still don't know why. ***
Kurosawa in the Wilderness July 4, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
After the critical and popular failure of Kurosawa's previous movie, Dodes-ka den, Kurosawa attempted suicide. After he recovered, he immersed himself in rehabilitating his image. His next movie was this collaboration with Russia's Mosfilm Studios. Filmed in Siberia and set in the early 1900's, Dersu Uzala tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a polished Russian military officer and a primitive Manchurian hunter. while it never reaches the heights of Kurosawa's bonafide masterpieces, Dersu Uzala is an excellent story of friendship and the clash of civilization vs. primordial.
Dersu Uzala was a tremendously ambitious shoot lasting two years and oblidging the crew to live in Siberia for months at a time. The result is a movie that is clearly trying to be a masterpiece but doesn't quite make it. The cinematography is brilliant, as one would expect from a Kurosawa movie. He knew how to shoot a movie and was blessed to work with truly gifted cinematographers throughout nearly his entire career who needed only minimal instruction. Kurosawa may well be the best outdoor filmmaker ever.
There are are two extremely impressive scenes. The first is a blizzard scene where Uzala saves the captain's life. The second is a river rescue scene that looks so harrowing, it's amazing noone drowned filming it. Alot of the rest of the movie is a series of marching about and campfires. It would seem there is only so much to do in the wilderness.
The movie is a dual character study but Maxim Munzik, Dersu Uzala, is given the flashier role and more interesting dialogue and he rises admirably to the challenge. Yuri Solomin, Capt. Arseniev, has the more straight-arrow character and the more pedestrian dialogue. Consequently, Arseniev tends to fade to the background and I didn't really get to know him as well as I would have liked. No real effort is made to delineate the soldier's under Arseniev's command.
Dersu Uzala is a must watch for any Kurosawa fan and an excellent, beautiful and unique movie in it's own right.
Not Kurosawa's best but still worthy June 18, 2008
You can sense Akira Kurosawa was not at his best during the filming of this movie, eventhough it is still a beautiful story that is well told. Acting was ok though it lacks the "connecting" intensity in the relationship between these two men who are supposed to be kindred spirits despite being from two very different worlds.
|
|
|
Site by: Troy Peterson | |
