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A DVD presentation of Woody Allen's heavily altered
version of Key of Keys, titled What's Up,
Tiger Lily? This DVD marks the second Toho related
DVD from Image Entertainment, and while it's handled
better than Chushingura,
it still leaves some to be desired. The video presentation
is, unarguably, the DVD's strongest point. The film
is presented in its original 2.35:1, widescreen, aspect
ratio. The colors are vibrant, and artifacting is barely
noticeable. The print used for this DVD is in extremely
good condition, with a very few scratches at all. The
audio, unfortunately, isn't as flawless as the video
presentation. The theatrical audio track, overall, is
very good, but has some moments were it gets scratchy.
The TV version audio track, however, is pretty horrible:
the volume is recorded very low and sounds distant and
scratchy, like someone recorded a TV presentation of
the film with a microphone. The levels are all messed
up, as the high and lows are less distinct making the
TV audio track sound very flat. The extras are pretty
mediocre here. The Audio Comparisons, while interesting,
have the same problem in quality with the TV version.
What makes the extras on this disc stand out is that
it's the only Toho related DVD to feature a Easter Egg
(a hidden extra on a DVD). The Easter Egg here is 10
recipes for egg salad, this special feature can be accessed
by clicking Woody Allen's glasses on the main menu.
Bottom line, this DVD is the best means of watching
Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? with its
superior video quality and the theatrical audio track,
but lacks any really interesting extras. It's also a
shame that Image Entertainment didn't spring for including
the original Key of Keys with the DVD, as that
would have been a extra worth talking about.
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