Update Megaweek, Day 1: Terry Jones' Monty Python's Life of Brian

Like many of us, I've been revisiting the work of Python/ director Terry Jones since we lost him last week.  So let's do something in his memory and take a look at one of his most beloved films... one that has an interesting history on home video, but could also really use a shot in the arm in 2020: Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Update 4/22/26: Shot received!  Guys, I've been putting off the next Update Week for a while, and the backlog's only built up.  So welcome to the Update Megaweek, which is basically like any previous year's Update Week doubled.  Like always, I've got the most current UHDs and some of the oldest DVDs, from the most requested titles to discs I'm sure nobody but me will ever care about.  And to kick it off, I've got the brand new and very badly needed 4k restoration of The Life of Brian from Criterion.  And, at the same time, I've updated my page on The Dentist movies to include Trimark's original Dentist 2 DVD.

1979's Life of Brian is Monty Python's second film... or third, if you want to count And Now For Something Completely Different, but that's really just a compilation of the best skits from their series for the US market before their TV could be seen in the states.  I've read that Holy Grail is the Pythons' most popular film in America and Brian is in the UK.  For their part, the Pythons themselves seem pretty unified that this is their favorite, in large part because it's the film that has the most to say besides just being silly.

Not that it isn't silly, of course.  The premise is that, a baby was born just across from Jesus Christ, and he keeps getting mistaken for a messiah despite not being one.  The Pythons play almost all the major characters, including Graham Chapman as the titular Brian, Terry Jones as his mum, Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate, Terry Jones as Simon the naked holy man, John Cleese as Reg, leader of The Peoples' Front of Judea and Graham Chapman as Biggus Dickus.  This film has more of a cohesive narrative than the other Python films, although you might say that's immaterial so long as it's packed with great comic moments, which Brian absolutely is.  We get a few animated sequences from Terry Gilliam, though not so many as we'd seen in previous Python efforts, taking more on the role of the physical production and art design.  The locations, shot in Tunisia, where they were able to make use of the sets from 1977's Jesus Of Nazareth, are truly impressive and lend the outrageous comedy a remarkably credible backdrop.  And Eric Idle closes out the whole thing with what became his most famous and popular song, "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life."

Life of Brian debuted on DVD in 1999, with a widescreen but non-anamorphic, barebones DVD from Anchor Bay.  Very shortly afterwards, like just a few months later in 1999, Criterion reissued it as a now anamorphic special edition.  And that was the whole deal until it came time for an HD upgrade.  In 2008, Sony released their Immaculate Edition blu-ray, and that's been the sole go-to release until now, with the same edition essentially replicated in every region around the world.  But no more.  Now in 2026, Brian's back in Criterion's hands: restored in 4k and released on a proper UHD (there's also a 1080p BD option, natch) for 2026.  As they put it in their booklet, it's now presented "in all its holy glory."

1) 1999 AB DVD; 2) 1999 Criterion DVD; 3) 2008 Sony BD; 4) 2026 Criterion UHD.

So yeah, Anchor Bay's DVD is a pale, low res 1.84:1 image floating in a sea of non-anamorphic dead space.  I'm actually surprised it's not interlaced; it almost looks like it should be interlaced.  Criterion's DVD, then, is a still pretty pale, properly anamorphic 1.78:1 (despite claiming 1.85:1 on the case), with just the tiniest slivers of dead space in the overscan area.  You can see it includes more picture around all four sides, but particularly the bottom, no doubt due to its lifted 16x9 mattes.  Sony then mattes their blu back down to 1.85:1, losing a little along the sides with it.  It's also, thankfully, no longer so pale, though it looks like some of that's due to some artificial contrast boosting and a side effect of edge enhancement.  It's certainly the best of the three, but it's also clearly an old master that looks like maybe it was never even made to hold up on blu.  I mean, it's a 2008 blu, so what can you expect?  But even by those standards, it looks like detail is light and they tried to make up for that with some unfortunate tinkering.  It's not terribly terrible, I suppose... the grain is mostly, if gingerly, visible, and the haloing isn't super heavy.  But this is a film ready for a remaster if I've ever seen one.

Oh, thank goodness.  Criterion has gone back to the original 35mm camera negative (and, according to the booklet, "for some sections, a 35mm interpositive").  Grain is finally here and looking right.  And as you can see above, this film finally looks like film.  And look at that guard standing against the pillar in the second set of shots.  His skin looks weirdly splotchy on the blu, but now on the UHD, it's like his complexion cleared up.  Deeper blacks makes the contrast more appealing without actually crushing any detail in the shadows.  Highlights aren't blown out; and yes, that crappy edge enhancement haloing is gone.  Film damage has been cleaned up, too (note that dirt spot above the donkey in the sky of the first set of shots is finally gone).  In every way, this is the upgrade we've been asking for.

Audio-wise, both DVDs give us your basic mono track, with only Criterion offering optional subtitles.  Sony brings a whole bunch of language options, including French and Hungarian dubs and English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai (whew!) and Turkish subs.  But they've ditched the original mono track and now only give us 5.1 remixes, in both TrueHD and LPCM.

So that's another win in 2026.  We've got the original audio mix restored and in HD (DTS-HD) for the first time.  If you still want Sony's 5.1 remix, that's here, too, also in DTS-HD.  And, of course, there are optional English subtitles.

Anchor Bay just had the trailer, but Criterion packed their edition pretty nicely.   We start out with two audio commentaries, one by Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle, and the other by John Cleese and Michael Palin.  Both provide a good mix of insight and laughs.  Then there's a collection of deleted scenes, one of which solves a small mystery that's always followed the film, and all of which have optional commentary.  And there's an excellent, vintage hour-long documentary, simply called The Pythons.  It's a BBC-made feature ostensibly on the Pythons overall, but it interviews the cast while they're on the set of Brian, so the film winds up being as much about the film as the rest of their career.  They also have the trailer, four radio spots, and an insert with notes by critic George Perry.

The Pythons.

The Pythons is interlaced and pretty fuzzy, presumably just taken from broadcast, which I guess is why Sony dropped it from their Immaculate Edition.  Because they've carried over all of the other Criterion extras.  And to their credit, they've come up with some new goodies as well, the best of which is a new, hour-long retrospective, The Story of Brian.  It's also quite well made, and fairly different from The Pythons.  It's great to have the new one, but I still miss the old one (which, for one major advantage, had access to Graham Chapman).  Some of the other extras are nice to have, but not so exciting.  There's an entire script read-through by the Pythons, which sounds neat, but it's awfully long and essentially all the same material as the film.  To be quite honest, I can't say I listened to the whole thing.  Besides that, they've added a photo gallery and a couple unrelated bonus trailers.

And now, happily, Criterion has brought us the best of both worlds.  Both the previously exclusive docs, and all the previous extras, are gathered together on Criterion's new 2-disc set.  And they've even recovered something new: Michael Palin's behind-the-scenes 8mm footage.  It's just over 13 minutes and silent but narrated by Palin.  And we get a 10-page, fold-out insert with notes by Bilge Ebiri (apparently George Perry can suck it, because Criterion didn't keep his).

So this is easily, easily, the new definitive edition: a substantial upgrade with all the features united, and even something new to sweeten the deal.  In fact, I'd go further than calling it definitive and say it's the only one worth having in your collection.

Night Of the Living Dead, 1990: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Perhaps the most exciting of all of Umbrella's fuller-than-their-competitors' special editions is their new release of Night Of the Living Dead, 1990. That's the remake of George Romero's original that was produced by Tom Savini. This time, the Australian blu seems to come out ahead in both picture quality and absolutely in the special features department. I mean, this is an early entry in the popular wave of unnecessary remakes, but this disc has made me re-evaluate and decide, you know, maybe there really is a place for NotLD90 in my collection after all.

Update 5/11/16 - 7/12/18: I've added the US DVD for comparison, confirming this definitely is the same root master.

Update 9/29/25: It's on, now!  Sony hasn't just upgraded the movie to 4k.  They haven't just enlisted the perfect man (Red Shirt's Michael Felsher) to create a slew of excellent, new special features.  They've also restored the gore Savini was originally forced to edit out for his R rating, meaning we're getting to see this film uncut for the very first time!  ...They may have also made an unfortunate decision, but we'll get into all that below.

Night '90 plays it very close to Night '68. It's not quite shot-for-shot Psycho, but it really plays it beat-by-beat, with cast members even cast for their resemblance to the original characters. So, what does Night '90 bring to the table? Like, why even watch it if you have the original? Well, updated effects for sure. Expect some new, awesome looking zombies like they never could've created in 1968. And the other thing are Savini's twists. Savini knows most fans are familiar with the original, so he's constantly subverting your expectations and giving you little surprises.

A great example of this is right in the beginning. Again, Night '90 follows Night '68 very closely, right down to the details. Barbara and Johnny are visiting their mother at the graveyard even though Johnny doesn't want to. He teases her, including the famous line, "they're coming to get you, Barbara," while pointing to a stumbling old man walking towards them in the distance. Of course, in '68, this turns out to be the first zombie, Bill Hinzman, who kills Johnny and chases Barbara to the farmhouse. But in the remake, it's just an old man who says "sorry," and walks away before the real zombie pops out of frame left and attacks zombie. Of course, he then kills Johnny by cracking his head against a tomb stone and then chases Barbara just like the original. The film stays on the original's tracks. But it's just got all these little alterations and tweaks to keep fans guessing. And the ending, which I won't spoil, is significantly different.

Seeing this for the first time in widescreen (I used to own the VHS, but Umbrella's 2016 blu was the first time I'd watched it since then), has improved by opinion of this film a little bit. Not that I hated it before, but it struck me as having a made for TV movie look. And it is pretty heavy on close-ups, but the cinematography's a tad more impressive now. Even said close-ups are now less boxy, and it's a fairly well-made production over-all. The soundtrack feels like a quick cable TV project, but it's serviceable. Patricia Tallman and especially Tony Todd are rather good in this film, and even the rest of the cast are a little hokey but express their characters well. And let's face it, the original had a lot of the same problems in that area, so we haven't lost any ground there. The original's stark, grainy black and white look is iconic, and this film can't recapture that; but '90 wisely doesn't try, and instead makes it's own, gentle color look. In a way, it makes the film feel a little delicate and old fashioned, but at least it's distinct rather than a poor man's knock-off.

Splat!

And now in 2025, my opinion has risen another little bit.  Because we're finally able to see it uncut.  And let's face it, more gruesome special effects is the whole selling point of Savini's remake.  So, the new running time is just twelve seconds longer, but there's more to the story than that.  It's not just a story of adding a few bloody frames back in, though there is that.  When Tallman and Todd are fighting the two zombies they find in the house, there's six of those extra seconds, which is essentially a single, nasty shot of Tallman wresting her fire-poker out of the farmer zombie's head, which again, is exactly what we were paying to see in 1990.  But other times footage has been replaced.  So when Tom is shotgunning zombies at the gas pumps, they cut to Tony Todd swinging his torch at zombies back at the porch.  But here, instead of that Todd shot, we get a big, gooey Maniac-style shotgun head explosion.  So, now addition to the run-time, but a big addition to the fun factor.

There's also one change I'm not so fond of.  The first four and a half minutes of this film have been turned black and white, as a tribute to the original.  Then it suddenly switches to color during the first attack.  And it's just cheesy; simply a bad idea in my opinion.  The opening shot of this film is a very low saturation shot of the moon, which I think was already there to suggest the film going from black and white to color, but also nice and subtle, just there for those who want to see it.  Now, eh, it's just revisionist "Greedo shot first" tinkering.  To be fair, Sony has included both this uncut director's cut and the original theatrical version for purists, both scanned in 4k, which is definitely the correct impulse.  But I just wish there was a way to watch the restored, uncut version without the black and white tinkering.  But oh well.  It's a compromise that still definitely beats never getting to see the original, censored footage.

So, like I said, Umbrella's blu was my first time with Night Of the Living Dead 1990 on disc. But it was hardly this film's first time at the rodeo. There was a fullscreen laserdisc, then Columbia Tristar put out a DVD release.  The first edition was a flipper disc, fullscreen on one side and anamorphic widescreen on the other.  It had a Savini commentary and 'making of' featurette, and was later reissued in 2006 as just a single sided widescreen disc, which was essentially duplicated in the UK and other regions. Then Twilight Time put it out on blu for the first time in 2012, with the commentary and ditching the featurette; but most notably it's very dark, with a strong blue hue over the entire picture. Then came Umbrella's blu from Australia in 2016.  I have the solo disc, but they also put out a limited edition 2-disc version which pairs this with the original 1968 Night Of the Living Dead, also on blu. That disc includes a full-length documentary on the original called Reflections On the Living Dead, which was originally released on VHS as The Night of the Living Dead 25th Anniversary Documentary. Anyway, finally, we have Sony's wicked new steelbook UHD/ BD combopack, just in time for Halloween.

1) 2006 US Columbia Tri-Star DVD; 2) 2016 Australian Umbrella BD;
3) 2025 Sony BD; 4) 2025 Sony UHD.

The good news is the blue overcast is thankfully gone from the 2016 release! It's still a detailed, HD transfer. It does have occasional speckling and noise (look closely at the zombies' forehead in that second shot), but it's relatively minimal. It's clearly an older master - as you can see, it's the same one they used on the DVDs - but it's fine even for blu-ray standards, possibly a bit better than Twilight Time's even if you take the dark blue shading out of the equation. Like, if I were giving letter grades, it would be a strong B. Oh, and a lot of sites are listing this as 1.85, but it's actually framed at 1.77:1, which to be fair, is what it says on the back of the case.  The DVD, meanwhile, is slightly window-boxed in the overscan areas to 1.81:1, so you can see Umbrella's blu restores a little bit of vertical information to the picture.

And now Sony frames it at exactly 1.85:1, like it should be.  As you can see, it's a little cooler than the other versions on this page, generally looking the most authentic of all (especially on the UHD, which retains a bit more of the reds than its accompanying BD).  That light film damage on the Umbrella disc has been cleaned up.  And thanks to being a fresh, 4k scan, the transfer finally retains the film grain, which helps this film look more genuinely filmic than previous releases, which help's this film's case for not just being a cheap knock-off.  Hey, look, it's a real movie!

Audio-wise, Sony has the core Dolby 2.0 mix, while Umbrella brings the same as Twilight Time gave us: DTS-HD 5.1.  Sony has it, too, but they've also gone big with a new TrueHD 7.1 mix.  And for purists, the theatrical version (only) also has the 2.0 mix in DTS-HD, as well as the 5.1 and 7.1s.  Only Twilight Time has the isolated musical score track, though, which is pretty much their thing.  Every disc offers optional English subtitles.

As for foreign language options, the DVD also has Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai subs, plus a Portuguese dub.  And the 2025 set has German, Italian and Spanish dubs along with Danish, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish subs.

But now let's get into extras, because there's some great stuff to dig into. First of all, again yes, Umbrella retains Savini's audio commentary, which except for a couple stretches of silence, is quite good, and addresses a lot of the topics viewers would have about the remake. And they also bring back the 'making of' featurette that Twilight Time dropped, which is also quite good, showing you a lot of the creation of the film. It's like a serious, 25-minute piece, not just one of those typical promo featurettes that plays like a padded version of the trailer.

But then Umbrella kicks in with a bunch of all new extras (which are, interestingly, credited to Severin Pictures). First off is a new on-camera interview with Savini. At first it seems like he's just going to rehash all the things he said in the commentary and featurette, and he does for the first couple minutes. But then he starts getting serious about all the plans he had for this film that the producers made him cut, why that happened and why he thinks they were wrong. He talks about the divorce he was going through during the shoot and his disappointments with the film, whether Romero really ghost-directed the film, and also how he's finally come around to really appreciating it only recently. It goes for almost half an hour and is much more open and honest - thanks I'm sure to the extra passage of time - than the other pieces. Really, if you only check out one extra about this film, this is the one.

Then you've got a fun interview with John Vulich & Everett Burrell, who're on camera together and clearly having a good time. They're very forthcoming, too; and you can imagine the scrutiny you must be under as the effects team when Tom Savini is your director. Patricia Tallman, who was interviewed in the 'making of' featurette, has her own on-camera piece here, too. She's very cheerful and proud of the film, but also addresses things like when Romero took over shooting at the end because Savini had to "go take care of" his divorce. And there's also an eight-minute "behind the scenes" featurette, which is really a collection of video tape footage that the special effects guys took of the shoot. It's tightly edited, so we really just get the interesting moments without like twenty minutes of set-up for an insert shot or actors asleep in their make-up chairs. There's also the original theatrical trailer and reversible cover art, clearly by the same artist as the Night Of the Creeps cover.

And now in 2025?  Sony carries over all of the old stuff from the DVD and yes, from the Umbrella, save one, but let's put a pin that.  Because, besides all that old stuff, we've got a bunch of new stuff, including a new Savini commentary, for the slightly longer director's cut.  And we've got all new, on camera interviews with co-stars Bill Moseley, William Butler, McKee Anderson & Heather Mazur, amiable zombies Greg Funk and Dyrk Ashton, producers John A. Russo & Russell Streiner and editor Tom Dubensky.  Now, Sony does seem to have dropped that eight-minute "behind the scenes" featurette, BUT Felsher has cut that footage into a couple of the interviews, so I'm not sure that every frame is accounted for, but you're really not missing anything.  Sony's disc also comes in a nice looking steelbook case.

I once called Umbrella's blu "the definitive release of Night Of the Living Dead 1990, at least for now." Well, that "now" has turned to "then," because Sony's new release is a strong improvement in every category: picture, audio, special features... and they're put the censored footage back in!  If you care enough to have this film in your collection, this is the one you have to have.

Import Week 2025, Day 3: Bright Star

Angel At My Table and The Piano may be her most famous films, but Bright Star is probably my favorite Jane Campion (to really call it, I'd have to go back and rewatch Portrait Of a Lady).  At the most basic level could be described as a John Keats biopic, but it's so much deeper than that.  It's also actually the story of Keats' fiancee rather than the poet himself.  It's also a rich exploration of Keats' work, poetry in general and a tragic romance, while still being quite sharp and witty.  There's a debate in-film about whether poetry should spark the head or the heart, this film does both.  I wasn't particularly familiar with any of the cast, but they're all pitch perfect, even the kids.  And as beautifully shot as this movie is, it's really the strikingly original soundtrack, which has some nice strings and stuff, but most notably features a full vocal choir performing these gently lyrical pieces of Mozart.

So like yesterday's post, this is another DVD-only release from Sony, who released this as a new release in 2010, and at least it's not entirely featureless (more on that below).  But it did come out on blu that same year in different parts of the world, including Australia, Germany and Norway.  I went with the Pathe disc from France because they gave it the fullest special edition.  They released it as both a BD and BD/ DVD combo-pack, plus a stand-alone DVD version and a single disc BD reissue in 2015.  I went with the combo-pack, so we can look at three versions today.

1) 2010 US Sony DVD; 2) 2010 FR Pathe DVD; 3) 2010 FR Pathe BD.

As is the norm for Import Week, these discs are using the same master for their transfers, so the biggest distinction between the two DVDs is just that the French one is PAL.  It's not the only distinction, though, as the Sony disc is 1.84:1, which Pathe corrects to 1.85:1 (the Sony has a basically imperceptible vertical stretch, which you'd only catch in a direct screenshot comparison like this).  But PQ-wise, the only real pertinent difference is the BD bumping the image up to HD.  It sharpens the picture and gives the edges cleaner lines.  This film sometimes has a softer look, which can disguise the benefits, but there are also a number of gorgeous, richly detailed wide shots that significantly benefit from the additional clarity.

The blu also bumps the 5.1 track up to DTS-HD, and the French discs both include a French dub in 5.1, also in DTS-HD on the blu.  The one downside is that Sony included optional English and English HoH subtitles, while the Pathe only has optional French ones.  French discs often have a bad (and deserved) rep for forced subs, but they're perfectly removable here; they don't even default to on.

Working With Jane

So again, the Sony isn't entirely bereft.  It has one deleted scene and three very short featurettes (ranging from two to three minutes each) which interview Campion.  Stitched together, that's a 7-minute interview with the director, which is better than nothing.  It also has a whole bunch of bonus trailers, but none for Bright Star itself.

Pathe, on the other hand, has a whole bunch more.  It has the same deleted scene as the Sony, plus another one.  And it has a really nicely-crafted half hour behind-the-scenes documentary entitled Working With Jane.  And it has three of Campion's early short films: A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983) and An Exercise in Discipline (1982), making this a bit of a treasure trove for Campion fans.  It also includes a photo gallery and the film's French-language trailer.  Plus it comes in a cool, purple case.  I think some also came in a slipcover, but AmazonFR didn't send one with mine.

Pathe doesn't include the three featurettes from the Sony, though.  So if you want to be a hardcore completist, you can pick up the US disc and pair 'em together for a fuller special edition.  But honestly, they're awfully short, so I'd only consider it if it was a cheap used copy.  Or if, like me, you already had the DVD and are just double-dipping to the blu as an upgrade.

Import Week 2025, Day 1: Return To Seoul

Okay, gang, it's time for a new "Week:" Update Week 2025!  For starters, as you can see, we've got 2022's Return To Seoul, where the import blu is superior to the domestic release.  Every Day hereafter will go another step even further: each release is DVD-only here in the states, and only available on blu via import.  Of course, as always, this is written from my local US-centric point of view in regards to what constitutes an "import."  Depending on where you live, dear reader, you may instead be learning some ways you're better off than your American compatriots.  Either way, you're going to be looking at some lesser known, yet higher quality, releases of some great films, so let's get started.

Return To Seoul is the second, but really the international break-out, feature by Korean writer/ director Davy Chou.  Park Ji-min is a French citizen whose holiday gets diverted to her birth country of Korea, where she gets unexpectedly gets put on the path to finding the parents who put her up for adoption/ emigration as a baby.  What's great about this film, besides its luscious photography and incredible lead performance, is how militantly unsentimental it is.  This is the polar opposite of some sappy, Hallmark family drama, and the plot goes in some directions I can guarantee you won't predict unless you've had it spoiled for you.  Is it dark?  Yeah, but more to the point, it just stubbornly refuses to replace honesty with your typical Hollywood romanticism.  This is the rare movie with an ending that hits because it cut no emotional corners along the way.

So Sony Pictures Classics released this on DVD and blu in 2023.  I've just got the DVD for us today, because it was barebones and so undesirable.  I mean, I would've gotten the BD if that was all there was, but in the UK, Mubi released it just a couple months later as a nice, little special edition.  There's also a French 2-disc set, which looks enticing as it also includes Chou's debut, 2016's Diamond Island, but neither blu is English-friendly at all, so that's off the table.  But Mubi's in the UK, so it's perfectly English, right down to the packaging (I don't know why, but I see some people online get really hung up on that).

2023 US Sony DVD top; 2023 UK Mubi BD bottom.

This is a new release, so it was safe to expect the same DCP to be used as a master on every release of this, as we can see is the case between Sony and Mubi.  It was also shot digitally, so there's no questions of film scanning or grain hunting.  But you can definitely see the quality jump between SD and HD.  First of all, Sony is slightly horizontally pinched to 1.83:1, while Mubi has the exactly correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  But more critically is just the jump in resolution.  Chou's imagery is full of fine detail, which gets soft and distilled on the DVD.  Furthermore, the many underlit club and night scenes get hazy, where it's harder to discern facial expressions on the Sony.  So it's really worth spending that little bit extra for a blu.

Of course, it helps that both blus have the original 5.1 audio in DTS-HD.  The DVD is obviously lossy.  Mubi also throws in a 2.0 mix, also in DTS-HD.  Both discs include optional English subtitles, parsed out into three separate versions on the Mubi: full, HoH and only for the non-English dialogue.   Sony drops the third, but throws in French and Spanish subtitles for international viewers.  So all in all, I'd say that makes the Mubi slightly preferable for English-language viewers.

Cambodia 2099

But of course where it really shines is in the extras.  All Sony has is the trailer, and a collection of bonus trailers.  Though, to be fair, the trailer is curiously absent from the UK release.  But that's hardly competitive to what Mubi's got, starting with an on-camera interview with Chou.  He speaks in English, though there are still optional English subtitles as well.  Then there's his 2014 short film, Cambodia 2099.  Presented in 1.86:1 HD with removable subs, it's not as powerful a work as Return, but it's still rather good.  Finally, there's a behind-the-scenes look at the rehearsal for Ji-min's famous dance scene.  Interestingly, here her friends are also dancing, which they do not do in the final film.  Mubi also springs for the fancier packaging, including six art cards and a slipcover.

So sure, if you just want to watch the film, the US release will do just as well.  But fans who care will definitely want to spring for the Mubi. And if you're thinking of getting any of these international releases this Import Week, I'll just throw in a gentle reminder that you might want to do so before our president locks us ever deeper into our tariffed off fortress nation.