‘Ah-Dee!’ translates as ‘All done!’

I’ve been trying to catch Asian films at home on DVD (in between catching up on old “Stargate SG-1” and “X-Play” episodes). In recent weeks I’ve watched the Korean film “Friend” (“Chingoo”) , the film that won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2004, Korean director Chan-woo Park’s “Oldboy ,” and the Japanese anime “Whisper of the Heart,” which is based on a Hayao Miyazaki screenplay.

Which is why I’m excited about a new collection of an old trilogy that is just coming out. Called the “Taisho Trilogy,” the three films by Japanese director Seijun Suzuki – 1980’s “Zigeunerweisen,” 1981’s “Kagegro-za” and 1991’s “Yumeji” – are billed as Suziki’s “return to form” after his 1960s sojourn making “astonishing masterpieces of yakuza psychedelia” such as 1966’s “Tokyo Drifter” and 1967’s “Branded to Kill.”

The “Taisho Trilogy,” the press notices say, owes more to the cinema of Luis Buñuel than it does to Akira Kurosawa , with critics applying adjectives such as “absurdist,” “esoteric,” “haunting and exciting, voyeuristic and surreal.” But as cautious as that might make me, I have to admit this: It still sounds more interesting than watching most anything playing in today’s theaters.

Here are just a few ways you can get the trilogy, with the various list prices: Amazon.com ($63.99 plus shipping and handling); BestPrices.com ($57.78 plus S&H); tlavideo.com ($71.99); Kino on Video ($59.96); DVDAsian.com ($59.95); Olive Films ($62.95).

By the way, the above titles, all being approximations of various Asian languages, are spelled differently depending on where you find them. Even the IMDB lists variations in Korean, Japanese and English. Being no expert in any language other than the baby talk I shared many years ago with my then-infant daughter, I write the words as I find them.

Below: Dae-su Oh (Korean actor Min-sik Choi) reacts with an understandable sense of paranoia after being released from a 15-year imprisonment. Thing is, no one ever tells him what “crime” he is supposed to have committed. And the conceit of Chan-wook Park’s film “Oldboy” is that he uncovers the reason only after a long and painful search.

Tartan Films publicity photo