Which one to get…

Above is the German Blu-ray of ULYSSES (1954). It comes with 2 discs: one with a HD digital transfer from the original negative, at 100 minutes runtime, and the other is of a digital transfer with additional scenes, at 109 minutes. The audio included are Italian, German and English. The Blu-ray is region B, which means it’s not playable in standard Blu-ray players in North America.

On the other hand, there’s a Blu-ray from Japan, @103 minutes. The cover is amazing. The only audio: Italian. The Blu-ray is Region A which means it can be played with Blu-ray players in North America.

The deciding factor would be the price: the German one is 15.99 Euro while the Japanese one is 5100 Yen, or $51.00.

I really liked the HERCULES Blu-ray from Japan and I’m tempted in getting the Japanese one. Hmm…decisions. Why are Blu-rays so expensive in Japan?

Look at what just arrived in the mail…

I just received the two Blu-rays, HERCULES (1958) and HERCULES UNCHAINED (1959), from Japan via Amazon. I’m currently watching the first film while I’m writing this. Very interesting. The image is a clear improvement over what’s available even though the image has some scratches and a few defects, and some filters of sorts. I’ll write more on these Blu-rays in the near future. No English track. Only in Italian. I’ve seen this movie so many times that it doesn’t matter.

And this too…

More on this in the future…

Addendum:

I’m now watching HERCULES UNCHAINED and the quality is definitely poorer than HERCULES. Not a true Blu-ray transfer.