While we’re still waiting and hoping on a Blu-ray presentation of Satoshi Kon’s film Millennium Actress here in North America, the film is getting some real love in Japan this year. Reported over the weekend with progress being made in the 4k presentation of the film, a follow-up revealed that the film is being resorted for a presentation at the Annecy Festival which is being hosted from June 11th through June 16th, 2018. Hopefully, we’ll see more details on a home video release later this year that we’re doubly hoping will include some of the previous English adaptation elements like the subtitle track being included.
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. Sadly, there’s no North American Blu-ray release in the works.
?????????4k?????????????????????^ – ^
— ???? (@choukofu) May 1, 2018
Une projection de Millenium Actress de Satoshi Kon dans une version restaurée en 4K et les 30 ans de Mon voisin Totoro au programme de @annecyfestival #annecyfestival pic.twitter.com/Vlty9X6ZUA
— Olivier Fallaix (@OlivierFallaix) April 23, 2018
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.
[Source: WTK]
