Published at: March 6, 2001, 2:58 a.m. CST by staff
Hey folks, Harry here with good news... hopefully. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Mamoru Oshii's AVALON has been picked up for North American distribution, possibly for release later this year.
Now this is both good and bad. Good because it means the film will be seen in the U.S. Bad because Miramax has a long history of dubbing and re-editing their foreign releases to 'make them more fitting for the American public'
My hope is that the performance of CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON and the way Tom Bernard and Sony handled that film... that perhaps Miramax will treat Oshii's film with the same respect. Dubbing the movie would make me personally furious as Oshii chose to shoot the film in Polish specifically because he was tired of people telling him he had to make movies in either Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin or English. The language was chosen to serve the story that he set out to tell.
We here at AICN promise to keep an eye on the treatment of Oshii's first live-action film and hope that Miramax will treat the audience as well as the film with the respect it deserves and not as some cheap thing that it owns. When you buy art, it isn't to change, it is to preserve and exhibit, not to alter.
For more on AVALON including trailers and reviews Click Here!!!!
