Japan and France dominate this week's top DVD releases. Choose from the films of Japanese masters Akira Kurosawa and Masato Hagiwara, and classic French comedy by the always hilarious Jacques Tati.
1. Ikiru
Considered by some to be Akira Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, Ikiru presents the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an exploration of a man’s death. Takashi Shimura portrays Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer forced to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days.
2. M. Hulot's Holiday
Pipe-smoking Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing clown, takes a holiday at a seaside resort where his presence provokes one catastrophe after another. The first entry in the Hulot series is a masterpiece of gentle slapstick.
3. Mon Oncle
Slapstick prevails when Jacques Tati’s eccentric hero Monsieur Hulot is let loose in the ultramodern home of his brother-in-law, and in an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. Tati directs and stars in the second Hulot movie, a delightful satire of mechanized living.4. The Cure
A spine-tingling horror thriller from one of Japan’s most talked about filmmakers, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Set in a bleak, decaying Tokyo, a series of murders have been committed by average, ordinary people who claim to have had no control over their horrifying actions. The DVD includes an interview with Kurosawa, filmography, accompanying liner notes by Tom Mes, and the trailer.5. Blackmail Is My Life
Kinji Fukasaku's 1968 unconvential crime thriller. "Blackmail Is My Life" centers on a quartet of young daredevils who've discovered blackmail as a means to enjoy the booming economy from which they've been excluded.