• Dec 23
• Kurosawa’s RAN coming to Blu-Ray in the US
• Posted by Adgy - 23/12/09 at 06:07 PM

We're not sure how it happened, but it looks like Lionsgate somehow acquired the rights to release Akira Kurosawa's epic King Lear adaptation Ran on Blu-Ray in the US and they're planning to do so on February 16th of next year.

According to akirakurosawa.info, the Blu-Ray disc will include Chris Marker’s making-of documentary “A.K.”, a documentary on Kurosawa called “Akira Kurosawa: The Epic and the Intimate”, a Portrait of Kurosawa by Japanese cinema expert and interpreter Catherine Cadou, a documentary on Samurai art called simply “The Samurai”, an interview with a Japanese art of war expert, and a 20-page collectible booklet. Basically, the same features available on the UK Blu-Ray release.

You may remember that Criterion had originally announced plans to release Ran on Blu-Ray early this year, but the release ended up being cancelled right around the expected date of release and their DVD release went out of print at the same time. Seems they lost the distribution rights somehow. It'll be interesting to see if Lionsgate can match the quality that we probably would have gotten from a Criterion release, especially in regards to the transfer. Guess we'll find out in February.

Pre-order here.