Sunday, September 19

Dawn of the Dead (1978) - South Korean Yonsei Digital Media Co. DVD

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Never thought I'd find this at my swap meet rounds this morning. This is, of course, George A. Romero's seminal Dawn of the Dead on a shady grey market disc from the friendly Korean country. I remembering seeing this release on a few Korean DVD importer sites a few years ago, but never placed an order due to it looking like a bootleg. This NTSC/R0 disc arrived just before Anchor Bay issued their remastered Divimax edition. I guess Yonsei wanted to capitalize on the import market since the domestic discs were still out-of-print and expensive on the collector's market.

Knowledgeable horror video nuts probably recognize this cover's similarity to Anchor Bay's original director's cut flipper with art from Fulci's Gates of Hell and Zombie sneaked in there. The version included is actually Anchor Bay's hybrid 128 minute cut that's essentially the 127 minute theatrical cut with extra snippets of Joe Pilato and the dimwit asking for smokes at the dock. So yeah, the transfer is most likely ripped from the old stateside "U.S. Theatrical Version" release. Non-anamorphic, interlaced widescreen with zero extras on a dual layer disc. Still nifty to find a couple miles away (for two bucks!) and it'll sit with my other foreign discs of Dawn. Always found it interesting as well that these old discs have a much more neutral color appearance while Anchor Bay's Divimax casts a somewhat piss yellow hue over the entire feature. I'm betting the former is what's actually intended...

1 comment:

Anthony1138 said...

Nice find for $2. I always wondered if this was a boot of the AB disc, so thanks for the confirmation.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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