[quote=“Bad Lieutenant, post:65, topic:335”]Does anybody know anything about this release?
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Received my copy last week and finally had the chance to sit down and watch it. This is a Columbia “Premium” release which means it contains a nice little booklet in Japanese about the film. The image and the absolutely essential English audio track are of excellent quality and, ignoring the cuts, this is easily the best version of the film I have seen.
As for the cuts, this is the slightly longer Columbia cut whose two complete cuts are the monastery scene and the one of Cuchillo with his wife. The other cuts seem to involve the shortening of other scenes, but the movie still remains wholly coherent.
Personally, I do not find the cuts overly offensive apart from two which I find really upsetting. The first has been mentioned many times, but it is the second that is, in my opinion, far worse:
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The shortening of the initial scene with the three bandits from which the excellent shot of Van Cleef placing the bullets on the log has been removed.
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The slight shortening of the chase through the cane fields and the duel between Cuchillo and Shep. In particular, the truly excellent shot of Cuchillo crouching down as the camera then pulls up and over him to reveal the vastness of the cane fields and his pursuers has been removed! Why the editors at Columbia would see fit to edit these, but leave the ranch scene with Nieves Navarro intact is beyond me!