Last year we had the exciting news of a 4K theatrical presentation for Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress film, a project that never got the full proper treatment it did with the North American release. With the new dub getting shown theatrically earlier this month along with the subtitled version, Eleven Arts and Shout! Factory have now set the home video release plans for it. The film is set for a DVD/BD release and digital release on November 19th, 2019. Extras for the bilingual release include
- Masao Maruyama Full Interview
- Taro Maki Full Interview
- Laura Post (Eiko) Interview
- Abby Trott (Young Chiyoko) Interview
The film has Kevin Hoffer directing with Carrie Keranen as the supervising director produced at VSI Los Angeles. The dub cast includes:
- Abby Trott as Chiyoko Fujiwara (Young)
- Erin Yvette as Chiyoko Fujiwara (Adult)
- Cindy Robinson as Chiyoko Fujiwara (Elder)
- Christian Swindler as Genya Tachibana (Old)
- Ben Diskin as Kyoji Ida
- Laura Post as Eiko Shimao
With Eleven Arts setting up home video release avenues recently for other projects, this is certainly exciting as the potential of owning it on home video in Blu-ray has been long in the making.
Bandai Visual Japan released the film on Blu-ray back on February 21st, 2014. The feature, which was released in North America by DreamWorks back in 2003, was priced at 6090yen and will feature the 87 minute feature with four minutes of extras (trailers, TV spots) as well as a feature-length commentary track by Satoshi Kon, sound director Masafumi Mima, and Chiyoko Fujiwara’s voice actresses Miyoko Shoji, Mami Koyama, and Fumiko Orikasa which was used in the previous DVD limited edition set years ago. The feature itself will provide a 5.1 mix in Dolby TrueHD as well as the original stereo mix in PCM. The transfer worked off of a new telecine print.
Check out our review of the film here.
Plot concept: Chiyoko Fujiwara was once a major movie star who dominated the Japanese cinema world. Thirty years ago, she abruptly disappeared from the screen and public view.
One of her greatest admirers, Genya Tachibana, is a documentary filmmaker who has traveled to the isolated mountain lodge where she makes her home to interview her. There, he presents her with an old key, and as if they key had opened a door to her memories, Chiyoko starts telling the story of her life, interweaving moments from her past and future and passing through the boundary between reality and the movies that had made up so much of her life.
