Forum - View topicNEWS: GKIDS Confirms Perfect Blue Film's U.S. Theatrical Release
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GeorgeC
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Amen on the OOP sentiment! This film has been out of print for WAY too long in North America. As far as the kids label goes... Yeah, GKids might want to rethink that and create a sub-label for home video release so that if they DID license Perfect Blue for home video and release the movie it's NOT going to be confused with the Studio Ghibli releases which themselves had titles which presented problems for Disney resulting in them NOT being released in the US (issues with coming of age, possible nudity, and the whole issue of slow death and starvation in Grave of the Fireflies which I'm sure Disney wasn't sad to see licensed by another company!). This title would confuse families and maybe create some furor that GKids WOULDN'T want. Agreed -- definitely not a kids film and they have to be clear on that. On the other hand, I can't remember there being an ultra-graphic violent scene in Perfect Blue but it's been a while since I've seen the film. It was mostly psychological violence but it is an intense title and definitely NOT a lower than an R-rating for subject matter. It would be irresponsible to rate it lower than R but it's not the hardest "R" title, either. What we see image-wise isn't that graphic with bodies blowing up or blood squirting. Akira and Fist of the North Star have that but I can't recall there really was much of anything graphic beyond some nudity and a simulated rape (acting by the female lead) in the Perfect Blue anime film; the live-action Perfect Blue (inferior to the anime film, btw) has a stabbing scene but even that isn't horrifically graphic. Nudity by itself would still create issues within a family label. You bring up an excellent point... It's something they should consider in light of recent events with Disney and the fact that THEY were brought back to Earth with the reality that the general public perceives them as a family label. A major blow was dealt to LucasFilm (now a Disney subsidiary) when the people in charge FORGOT that Star Wars was seen as a general audiences franchise. Then, there's the more recent Marvel controversy with Guardians of the Galaxy and the fired director. Again, there are PR disasters companies want to reasonably avoid especially if they want to retain their reputation for the product they release. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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Controversy with Star Wars didn't have anything to do with it being targeted at general audiences and Star Wars has been rated PG13 since Revenge of the Sith. As long as GKids makes it clear on the labeling on the Blu Ray cover art that this is a film for adults, I doubt this is going to cause much trouble for GKids. . While GKids does typically license family films, they mostly focus on obscure niche animation that don't get wide releases like Disney or Pixar films do, so the majority of their films are outside the casual audience that wouldn't pay attention to the film rating to begin with anyway. Disney didn't have any issues with releasing Princess Mononoke with their label on it in spite of it being a very violent movie and being sold at stores next to My Neighbor Totoro. GKids just need to come up with a new label for their line of adult films like Sentai is doing with their kids animation line but they don't need to change the name of their entire company.
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Spawn29
Posts: 551 |
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At Otakon, I did told G-Kids that they can ask Shout! to release it under Scream Factory since they are linked with the company. They told me that "That's something we could look into".
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Something like Scream Factory makes more sense than releasing it under the GKids label.
Frankly, releasing it under the Scream Factory label may actually help sell the film to the "right crowd." People are still funny about labels that have the words "kids" or "children" in them. This film really is more of a thriller. There was a reason Satoshi Kon was called the anime equivalent to Alfred Hitchcock. They unfortunately do have to play a political game like Disney does but they sort of locked themselves into that by naming the company "GKids"! The good news (I don't know if this was mentioned in the article or anywhere in the forum so far) is that this release is based on a new digital scan of the movie. That means (in theory) it should be a MUCH better screening of the film than what we're using to seeing on the old DVDs. This film has a less-than-perfect history on home video. The picture's generally too bright on the DVD releases and the Blu ray's are not reference standard, either, whether we're talking the Japanese releases OR the UK Region B Blu ray which is supposedly better than the Japanese Region A edition. At any rate, IF GKids has the home video (likely), we wouldn't see it until spring next year earliest probably. |
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GeorgeC
Posts: 795 |
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Saw the film today, the subtitled screening at a local theater.
THey were showing it locally in three area theaters. It's held up! Just as good as ever. Now, the new presentation is supposedly from a new digital scan of the film... I'm not going to make an absolute judgement on the film but I have to say that in general I have been disappointed by digital screenings half the time. Is it just me, or do they look overly dark and desaturated at times?!? Projection on large screens digitally just doesn't look as good to as 35mm or 70mm projection. The light kicks up the color on film! The digital scan of Perfect Blue also seem TOO light, desaturated to my eyes but we won't know if there were improvements until the Blu ray presumably comes out in 6 months. There have been two previous Blu ray release -- Japan and the UK with reports that the UK release is different, superior to the Japanese original release -- and the implication with the words "new scan" is that this is a remaster of the film. It could also be that what I saw in this film is a consequence of deliberate color and balance choices by Satoshi Kon and his production crew. The film has a soft look to it which makes sense since Perfect Blue is both a thriller and a dream-state movie -- you never know quite what is real or in the imagination of the lead character. Paprika from what I remember was a very different color-designed film. Concerns about the visual presentation aside, Perfect Blue still remains one of Kon's best films... |
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