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

No Country For Old Men, which was not only our favorite film of last year here at CSB, but shockingly also the Academy’s pick for Best Picture, is available this week on DVD and Blu-ray. It’s still playing in theaters in many places, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d recommend seeing it in theaters if you can. But it’s also a great dvd pickup — among other things it gives you a change to directly compare the monologue Tommy Lee Jones gives at the beginning about putting “your soul at risk” against the ending. What a great film.

There are several other big recent releases this week worth noting. Judging from it’s box office results, many people must have missed the recent action film Hitman when it played in theaters, though I for one am anxious to check it out on DVD, in large part because I think star Timothy Olyphant did such a great job in Deadwood, he deserves the benefit of the doubt, despite the mixed reviews.

Hitman is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week, along with the Michael Caine-starring Sleuth, August Rush and the comedy Dan in Real Life, starring Steve Carell of 40 Year Old Virgin fame. Another blockbuster release this week is Bee Movie, starring the voice of Seinfeld and oddly not being released in high definition, though there are several different versions of the standard-definition DVD.

The most exciting catalog titles of the week are without a doubt the new batch of Fox Film Noir, which includes Black Widow, Daisy Kenyon and Dangerous Crossing. I have yet to see a film in this line of noir from Fox that I didn’t love. If you’re just arriving at this party, in particular I recommend Call Northside 777, which is based on a true story, and stars Jimmy Stewart as a tough-as-nails beat reporter who is assigned to report on a murder that took place over a decade ago.

As for foreign films, Palm Pictures released the critically acclaimed Chinese film Summer Palace this week, Image has released another of the classic Shaw Brothers martial arts films — The Magic Blade. It’s an excellent fu film, directed by master Chu Yuan, but was also released previously on Region 3 disc by Celestial a couple years ago.

Magnolia released the latest gangster film from British director Nick Love, Outlaw, for the first time in North America. It’s not as good as Love’s previous successes (notably including The Football Factory), but it’s still well worth watching, not the least because it stars Sean Bean and Bob Hoskins.

As for releases around the world, the pickings are pretty slim this week. The most notable Hong Kong release is actually a belated announcement, as March 4th saw the release of Johnnie To’s latest film Linger. There was also a new batch of catalog titles from Joy Sales, of which the most promising is probably A Hearty Response, an 80s film starring Chow Yun Fat. It would seem the biggest Hong Kong release this week is Assembly, but I don’t know much of anything about it.

I can’t say I’m dying to see it, but (theoretically speaking) I love the fact that the success of Shaolin Soccer + the popularity of Yao Ming has resulted in this week’s DVD release of Kung Fu Dunk starring Jay Chou — presumably a basketball equivalent of Stephen Chow’s hilarious football/soccer film. Yesterday also saw the release of Into the Faraway Sky in Japan, and I have included in the listings below several recent South Korean films, though I can’t testify as to any of them. Same story re: a new Thai film out this week called Brave.

In India, I note the recent theatrical release of Black & White (March 7th, I believe) by producer/director Subhash Ghai, which probably means a DVD release of the film is imminent, though I don’t have an exact release date. Similarly, 26th July at Barista, starring Ashish Duggal and Kabbir Sawhney is set for a release anyday now, though who knows exactly when. FYI, the recent Indian film Saawariya, which was initially scheduled to be released by Sony in the USA today in both DVD and Blu-ray, has been postponed to May 6th.

In Europe, several Oscar films are being released this week, though I don’t have any news of any new and exciting European releases this week.

Alright, enough of my babbling. A complete list of this week’s highlights follows below. Enjoy!

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Released This Week On DVD in the USA (March 11, Region 1, NTSC):

13: Game of Death (Weinstein)
2006, Thailand, Director: Chukial Sakweerakul

Appleseed Ex-Machina (Warner) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, Japan, Director: Shinji Aramaki

August Rush (Warner Home Video) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, USA, Director: Kirsten Sheridan

Bee Movie (Dreamworks)
2007, USA, Directors: Steve Hickner, Simon Smith

Black Widow (Fox Film Noir)
1954, USA, Director: Nunnally Johnson

Bobby Deerfield (Sony)
1977, USA, Director: Sydney Pollack, Starring: Al Pacino

Daisy Kenyon (Fox Film Noir)
1947, USA, Director: Otto Preminger

Dan in Real Life (Touchstone) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, USA, Director: Peter Hedges

Dangerous Crossing (Fox Film Noir)
1953, USA, Director: Joseph Newman

Devil Man (Media Blasters)
2004, Japan, Director: Hiroyuki Nasu

Five Days (HBO)
2007, USA, Directors: Otto Bathurst, Simon Curtis

Hitman (20th Century Fox) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, France/USA, Director: Xavier Gens, Starring: Timothy Olyphant

Magic Blade (Shaw Brothers/Image)
1976, Hong Kong, Director: Chu Yuan

Nancy Drew (Warner Home Video)
2007, USA, Director: Andrew Fleming

No Country for Old Men (Paramount Vantage) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, USA, Directors: Coen Brothers

Outlaw (Magnolia)
2007, UK, Director: Nick Love, Starring: Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins

Sleuth (Sony) (Also available on Blu-ray)
2007, USA, Director: Kenneth Branagh

Stargate - the Ark of Truth (MGM)
2008, USA, Director: Robert Cooper

Summer Palace (Palm Pictures)
2006, China, Director: Lou Ye

Tin Man (Rhi Entertainment)
2007, USA, Director: Nick Willing

Also Available on Blu-ray: Dogma, Gattaca, I Robot, Independence Day

Also Available on HD-DVD: Fletch, In the Valley of Elah, Michael Clayton

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Released This Week On DVD in the UK (March 10, Region 2, PAL):

American Gangster (Universal) (Also available on HD-DVD)
2007, USA, Director: Ridley Scott

Atonement (Universal) (Also Available on HD-DVD)
2007, UK/France, Director: Joe Wright

Horton Hears a Who (Warner)
1970, USA, Directors: Chuck Jones/Ben Washam

Into the Wild (Paramount)
2007, USA, Director: Sean Penn

Mr. Brooks (Fox)
2007, USA, Director: Bruce A. Evans

Planet Terror (Momentum)
2007, USA, Director: Robert Rodriguez

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Released This Week On DVD in Japan (March 10, Region 2, NTSC):

Into the Faraway Sky aka Toku No Sora Ni Kieta
2007, Japan, Director: Isao Yukisada

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Released This Week On DVD in Hong Kong (March 4-13, Region 3, NTSC):

Assembly (MegaStar) (Released March 13th)
2008, Hong Kong, Director: Feng Xiaogang, Starring: Zhang Han Yu, Deng Chao

Bite Till Die: Card of Death (Panorama)
2008, Thailand, Director: Oxide Pang

Crazy Romance (Joy Sales, Region 0) (Released March 6th)
1985, Hong Kong, Director: Tommy Leung, Starring: Leslie Cheung, Chan Pak Cheung

A Hearty Response (Joy Sales, Region 0) (Released March 6th)
1986, Hong Kong, Director: Norman Law, Starring: Chow Yun Fat, Joi Wang

King of Chess (Joy Sales, Region 0) (Released March 6th)
1992, Hong Kong, Director: Yim Ho, Starring: Tony Leung Kar-Fai, John Sham

Kung Fu Dunk (PMP) (Released March 10th)
2008, Hong Kong, Director: Yen Ping-Chu

Linger (Kam & Ronson) (Actually released March 4th)
2008, Hong Kong, Director: Johnnie To

Vengeance (CN Entertainment, Region 0)
2006, Thailand, Director: Preaw Sirisuwan

Virgin Snow (IVL) (Also released March 4)
2007, Korea/Japan, Director: Han Sang-hee

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Released Recently On DVD in South Korea (March, Region 3, NTSC):

Bank Attack (KD Media) (Released March 3rd)
2007, South Korea, Director: Park San-Jun

M aka Mr. M (KD Media) (Released March 3rd)
2007, South Korea, Director: Lee Myung-Se

My Father (Enter One) (Released March 3rd)
2007, South Korea, Director: Hwang Dong-Hyuk

Punch Lady (KD Media) (Released March 10th)
2007, South Korea, Director: Kang Hyo-Jin

Seven Days (KD Media)
2007, South Korea, Director: Won Shin-Yun

Virgin Snow (PMP) (Also released Feb. 13th)
2007, Korea/Japan, Director: Han Sang-hee

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Released Last Week On DVD in Thailand (March 6, Region 3, PAL):

Brave (J-Bics)
2007, Thailand, Directors: Thanapol Maliwan, Afdlin Shauki

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Additional Links:
::: DVD Calendar — a Look at What’s Coming Up
::: Discuss This Week in DVD with Others in the Movie Forum Lounge
::: Not registered for the forum? Click here to register!!

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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.