Japanese cinema has been tough, because the R2 Japanese discs are usually too damn expensive and they hardly ever put any foreign subtitles on any of their releases. I usually wait for R3 Korean, R3/R0 HK or R1 USA release of Japanese movies before I buy them for these reasons. R3 Korean DVDs are usually identical picture wise to the R2 Japanese and even if they don't include English subs, I am okay as I understand Korean. HK DVDs are usually poor compared to R2 Japanese, but include English subs. They have been getting better with many now anamorphic (imagine that, 10 years after DVDs were introduced). R1 USA is sort of hit and miss PQ wise, but hey, you're guaranteed English subs.

Getting back to the question at hand, I usually cruise through the AsianDVDGuide.com forums or flip through the online catalog at YesAsia. I think the reasons I outlined earlier are probably the reason why there are not too many enthusiast forums for these movies.

Ahh, another HTPC user... Mine's been feeling lonely since I got into HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. I think it's been couple of months since I've seen a SD DVD. One downside to high def discs has been relative lack of Asian content. But this is slowly getting better. Warriors of Heaven and Earth is coming out next month and Curse of the Golden Flower in May. But one movie that I have been dying to see in high def is A Bittersweet Life. It was one of the initially announced launch titles for HD DVD, but since been MIA.

Criterion has a good number of well done Kurosawa DVDs - all Japanese with English subs. Actually they do have quite a good collection of classic Japanese cinema, i.e. Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy.

I have to also recommend Zebraman (if it comes to DVD in the US), Devilman, and Death Note

a few suggestions for you Peter (sorry if these have already been mentioned). All of these are available in through US or Euro online:


- Classics:

Stray Dog
Ugetsu
Kill!
Zatoichi - The Blind Swordsman (series w/ Katsu Shintaro) + the 1998 film w/ Takeshi "Beat" Kintano


- more recent and excellent:

The Twilight Samurai
The Hidden Blade

for anyone with even a passing interest in samurai films, I also highly recommend Patrick Galloway's excellent book: Stray Dogs & Lone Wolves: The Samurai Film Handbook

Quoting katharsis:

Quote:
never heard of Devilman.

SciFi trash

Mibu Gishi Den (When the Last Sword is Drawn) - Very good samurai drama
Wild Zero -- sci-fi/zombie flick
Goyokin -- Overlooked 60's samurai film
Kairo -- not my cup of tea, but it was well received

more to come as I remember them

Some others I enjoyed.... (but I like sci-fi, zombie, and stupid movies)

Battlefiled Baseball
Full Metal Yakuza
Junk
Mechanical Violator Hakaider
Stacy
Odoru daisousasen (Bayside Shakedown) 1 and 2 (but not sure if available internationally, but Japanese release does have subs)
Dragonhead