Synapse's "Wild Zero" - To Be Anamorphic, Or To Be Not??

I asked Don May Jr about the release of Wild Zero at another forum, about the transfer - anamorphic or not?


Don's reply:


"The Japanese company told us that there were no elements available to make it anamorphic... and we asked.
I have no reason to doubt them because this same company gladly handed over an anamorphic transfer of STACY to us. If one was available, they would've given it to us with no problems.

The film was started as a long-form music video for the band Guitar Wolf and somehow morphed into a feature length film. When the Japanese comapany did the film transfer they didn't do it anamorphic, probably because when it was first conceived, it wasn't going to theatres anyway.

They did not elaborate on why and they said the original elements were no longer available.

I could have "falsified" the 4x3 master and made it anamorphic by lowering the resolution and softening up the picture, but I didn't want to ruin the picture quality on our release by doing that.

Japanese licensors have been notorious in the past for only providing 4x3 versions of films. There is a good number of years (the last 3-5 years or so) where there just WEREN'T that many anamorphic transfers made of Japanese films. The folks at Unearthed Films ran in to a similar situation with JUNK and EVIL DEAD TRAP II... just like the trouble we've had getting 16:9 elements from Japan. Keep in mind that WILD ZERO was made in 1999-2000. In Japan, three years ago, anamorphic transfers were not very common.

I have seen foreign DVD versions of WILD ZERO that claim to be anamorphic, but they are mislabelled and are also 4x3."

END OF POST





While this is a big letdown, I'll be picking this one up as soon as it's released.