CSB is back this week with our roundup of important DVD releases from around the world.

While Kung Fu Panda and Get Smart, are likely to get most of the attention this week, there are several other interesting titles that have recently surfaced. For starters, the entire line of (original) films in the Battle of the Apes series is out this week on Blu Ray (Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes).

Navarre Corporation has released two cult Japanese films this week on Region 1: Sabu’s fantastic film Unlucky Monkey and the bizarro flick Battle Heater (a movie about a deadly space heater, no less).

There are several exciting festival films out this week, most notably Transsiberian, the Woody Harrelson-starring hit from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, which is out this week from First Look. Also out is the gritty documentary Too Tough To Die: a Tribute to Johnny Ramone from talented director Mandy Stein. And Film Movement is back this week with Fraulein, a Swiss film.

I’m delighted to see that Blue Underground is continuing to re-release their films on Blu Ray. This week sees the release of The Final Countdown, which Blue Underground had previously released on DVD in 2004.

Not much going on in the UK this week, though I do note the belated release of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light.

In Hong Kong, Joy Sales has stepped up in recent weeks with a hefty slate of catalog titles. November 5th saw the release of The Iceman Cometh (Yuen Biao), The Invincible Sword (Jimmy Wang Yu), The Wild Ones (Simon Yam) and The Fast Sword (Chang Yi). On October 31st they released Her Vengeance, Angry Monster, Scared Stiff (Chow Yun Fat) and Luck Encounter (Johnnie To). And on 10/22, Joy Sales released The Himalayan (Angela Mao) and The Angry River. Quite a run guys, keep it up!

Popular Korean sequel Another Public Enemy was released on 10/29.

Alright, enough of my babbling. A full listing of this week’s releases is included below. Enjoy!

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Released This Week On DVD and Blu-ray in the USA (November 4, Region 1, NTSC):Batman: the Complete Animated Series (Warner)
1992, USA, Starring: Kevin Conroy

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox) (Blu Ray)
1973, USA, Director: J. Lee Thompson, Starring: Claude Akins, Lew Ayras

Battle Heater (Navarre Corp.)
1989, Japan, Director: Joji Iida, Starring: Pappara Kawai, Akira Emoto

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox) (Blu Ray)
1970, USA, Director: Ted Post, Starring: Tod Andrews, Victor Buono

Budd Boetticher Box Set (Tall T, Decision at Sundown, Buchanan Rides Alone, Ride Lonseome, Comanche Station) (Sony)

Caligula (Image)
1980, Italy/USA, Director: Tinto Brass, Starring: Adrianna Ash, Paolo Bonacelli

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox) (Blu Ray)
1972, USA, Director: J. Lee Thompson, Starring: David Chow, Paul Comi

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox) (Blu Ray)
1971, USA, Director: Don Taylor, Starring: John Alderman, Army Archerd

The Final Countdown (Blue Underground) (Blu ray)
1980, USA, Director: Don Taylor, Starring: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen

Flashbacks of a Fool (Starz/Anchor Bay)
2008, UK, Director: Baillie Walsh, Starring: Daniel Craig, Miriam Karlin

Fraulein (Film Movement)
2006, Switzerland, Director: Andrea Staka, Starring: Mirjana Karanovic, Andrea Zogg

Futurama: Bender’s Grove (20th Century Fox) (DVD and Blu Ray)
2008, USA, Director: Dwayne Carey-Hill, Starring: John DiMaggio, George Takei

Get Smart (Warner) (DVD and Blu Ray)
2008, USA, Director: Peter Segal, Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway

Gregory Peck Collection (Captain Newman MD, Mirage, Arabesque, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cape Fear, The World in His Arms) (Universal)

Killing of a Chinese Bookie (Criterion)
1976, USA, Director: John Cassavetes, Starring: Ben Gazarra, Seymour Cassel

Kung Fu Panda (Paramount) (DVD and Blu Ray)
2008, USA, Director: John Stevenson, Starring: David Cross, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black

Little Fugitive (Kino)
1953, USA, Director: Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, Starring: Richie Andrusco, Ricky Brewster

Moscow Zero (Sony)
2006, USA/Spain/UK, Director: Maria “Luna” Lidon, S: Joss Ackland, Val Kilmer

Planet of the Apes: 40th Anniversary Collection (20th Century Fox) (Blu Ray)
1968, USA, Director: Franklin Schaeffer

Popeye the Sailor Vol. 3 (Warner)
1941-1943, USA,

Shrek the Halls (Paramount)
2008, USA, Director: Gary Trousdale, Starring: Antonio Banderas, Eddie Murphy

Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone (Starz/Anchor Bay)
2006, USA, Director: Mandy Stein, Starring: Johnny Ramone

Transsiberian (First Look) (DVD and Blu Ray)
2008, UK/Germany/Spain/Lithuania, Director: Brad Anderson, Starring: Woody Harrelson

Unlucky Monkey (Navarre Corp.)
1998, Japan, Director: Sabu, Starring: Shinichi Tsutsumi

When Did You Last See Your Father (Sony Pictures Classics)
2008, UK/Ireland, Director: Anand Tucker, Starring: Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent

Woman Under the Influence (Criterion)
1974, USA, Director: John Cassavetes, S: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk

Other Blu-Ray: Vexille, A Christmas Story, Monster’s Ball, Almost Famous, Heroes Season 1 & 2

Other TV on DVD: The Wild Wild West (complete series), Route 66: Season 2, Complete Fraggle Rock, Howdy Doody Show

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Released Recently On DVD in South Korea (Region 3, NTSC) (All are believed to have English subtitles unless otherwise noted):Another Public Enemy (CJ Entertainment)
2008, South Korea, Director: Kang Woo Suk, Starring: Sol Kyung Gu, Jung Jun Ho

Eye for an Eye (Tae Won Entertainment)
South Korea, Director: Kwak Kyung Taek

Texture of Skin (Tae Won Entertainment)
2005, South Korea, Director: Seong Gang Lee

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Released Recently On DVD in China/Hong Kong (Region 3 and often Region 0, NTSC) (All are believed to have English subtitles unless otherwise noted):Angry Monster (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1991, Hong Kong, Director: Wong Lung Wai, Action

The Angry River (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1971, Hong Kong, Director: Wong Fung, Starring: Mao Ying

The Fast Sword (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
Hong Kong, Director: Huang Feng, S: Chang Yi

Her Vengeance (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1988, Hong Kong, Director: Lam Loi Choi, Thriller

The Himalayan (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1976, Hong Kong, Director: Huang Feng, Starring: Angela Mao

The Iceman Cometh (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1989, Hong Kong, Director: Clarence Ford, Starring: Yuen Biao, Maggie Cheung

The Invincible Sword (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1971, Hong Kong, Director: Hsu Tseng Hung, Starring: Jimmy Wang Yu

The Longest Night in Shanghai (Mei Ah) (Region 0)
2008, China, Director: Zhang Yi Bai

Luck Encounter (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1992, Hong Kong, Director: Johnnie To, Comedy

Scared Stiff (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1987, Hong Kong, Director: Lau Ka Wing, Suspense

The Wild Ones (Joy Sales) (Region 0)
1989, Hong Kong, Director: Francis Sung, David Lam, Starring: Simon Yam

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“Are you speaking in code? What do you mean by saying some DVDs are Region 2, PAL or NTSC?DVDs are encoded by region — there are 6 Regions for DVD. A Region 2 disc will not play in a Region 1 country and vice-versa unless you have a special “all region” DVD player. If you’re not sure if you have an “all region” DVD player or not, then don’t worry about it, you don’t have one. These are not things you stumble across by accident, so you would only have one if you had sought it out.

Generally speaking, Region 1 is the USA and Canada, Region 2 is most of Europe and Japan. Hong Kong and South Korea fall under Region 3. Mainland China has Region 6 all to itself (and to date I’ve never been able to find a Region 6 DVD that wasn’t actually a VCD or Region 0 bootleg), and the rest of the world chops up Region 4 and 5 (Australia is Region 4). As an added twist, a DVD that is not region coded is marked Region 0 and in theory can play everywhere (but see the PAL/NTSC explanation below).

Whether you can play DVDs that are “PAL” vs. “NTSC” is another potential hurdle — most of Europe is PAL and most other countries release in NTSC. The actual difference is a technical one and relates to the number of frames per second that the film is recorded at. Almost all of the “all region” players also convert between PAL and NTSC (they wouldn’t be much use otherwise), but if you don’t have such a player, then you will likely only be able to play either PAL DVDs or NTSC DVDs, depending on where you live (or bought your TV), even if the DVD is Region 0.

By the way, these problems all potentially apply to high definition format releases as well, but exactly how they will apply is still in flux (they have the ability to be region coded, but to date many have not been, and in any case I have not yet heard of an all-region Blu-ray player).

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“Why aren’t you listing films from the country of _________”We love international movies from all over the world, and if I had my way, everything from popular Nigerian action movies to Taiwanese television dramas would be on here each week. But often release information is not available to us in advance (or at all), and truth be told we sometimes run out of time to cover what we do know. As a result, many hugely important film industries too often are not covered above (including for India, Iran and much of Europe, to name just a few). Please do not interpret this as an affront to you, your country, your mother or anything else. On the contrary, if you have any helpful information or links, please email us — we’re dying to know more.

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“Hey! This isn’t a full list of this week’s titles! Where’s my Tae Bo exercise video!!!!”Here at Cinema Strikes Back our goal is to sift through the masses of dvd information so you don’t have to — to cut straight to the good stuff, or at least what us handful of film geeks think is the good stuff. That means that many dvd releases are left off the list, either because they suck or more likely because we don’t know better. Although I can’t promise we’ll include everything sent to us (”ARRGH, How could you not include Postnatal Rescue or Topless Fight Club in this week’s lineup!”), we always welcome feedback, and I invite you to email me here if I’ve forgotten any important releases this week.