asianxcore

Obviously no word yet on if this will be Region Locked, but this is exciting news.'

http://www.cult-labs.com/forums/arro...le-royale.html

Doctorossi

Yeah, baby! Sign me the hell up!

riotinmyskull

get the fuck out of here! please be region free!

JJE-187

Hopefully it's Region Free.

mrhan

It's been a decade since I got this; time for an upgrade. Hopefully, both cuts are included.

LickTheABCs

If it's region free, I'm there like a knife in the nuts.

islandclaws

Want. Badly.

Matthew Chmiel

Arrow's most recent titles have all been region free, correct?

If this is region free, I'm going to be rolling around like a pig in shit.

jrsl76

Man, I hope they release the theatrical cut which imho is far superior than the supposed directors cut. This will give me an opportunity to replace my Tartan NTSC DVD version that someone never returned to me. Now if Criterion will Blu Salo, that guy will be off my shit list.

gryffinmaster

Negative. Departures is region-locked.

TomOpus

If region-free, I'm there. For either version.

The Reaper

Hell yeah, I'm all over this, too.

Rypro 525

if they can finally release a watchable verison of the directors cut, i'm all over it, as the PAL verison had some of the worst motion blurring i've ever seen, as it was an NTSC print converted poorly to PAL

Matthew Chmiel

But hey, at least Toei had nothing to do with Depatures so we might be a chance! I just say fuck it, Arrow needs to pull a Tartan, release a version playable in America and quickly discontinue it. I'm quite contempt with my two NTSC R0 copies, but I'd like to move up to 1080p.

I'd prefer the theatrical cut as it's a tighter running film.

TheDuke

Oh, so this is only going to be released outside of the states? Whatever.

Matthew Chmiel

There hasn't even been an official release inside the states on DVD/Blu-ray/VHS/whatever up to this point.

TheDuke

I know, I got really excited when I saw this but I guess if I want it I'll have to import it and buy a region free play. Not really something I'm in to.

mhg83

Any update? This would be a day one purchase for me.

zombeaner

Amazon UK has it listed with a release date of 11/15 and supposedly it contains both cuts of the film.

gryffinmaster

Oh, man. I'm hoping that the muddy US distribution issues will drive Arrow to release this as a region-free disc.

manicsounds

Sorry to say, but since this isn't out in Japan on BD yet, there is no chance of it being region free... For Japan, in October, they will rerelease Battle Royale in theaters in 3D (! why?).

The theatrical and special versions being included was confirmed by Arrow films, but other extras haven't been confirmed or announced yet.

GenPion

I hope this is true. I've actually never seen the film, but really want to. The book is one of my all time favorites. Of course, In my head, I envision myself directing a version of it someday so a part of me even wants to avoid seeing the film. That's probably not the best logic.

islandclaws

If this is region-locked it will be the reason why I invest in a multi-region BD player.

Bob_Bobbson

Yeah, see it anyway. It's great.

On a similar note, I actually started writing an American adaptation of it at one point. Maybe we should team up. (Then again, that was about 7-8 years ago and at this point I probably lost what little of the script I wrote )

P.S. This might not be the thread for it, but does anyone know the reason why no one has ever licensed it for release in the US?

tylergfoster

I think the American studios just weren't offering very good deals in terms of what the original rights holder got out of it, and they were making bank on imports.

However, when I was in high school and it was relatively new, people liked to use its unavailability in the R1 as proof it's "banned" in the US, which obviously is not true.