청연 (Blue Swallow) DVD Out Next Week... and in May

When news that Bitwin would release 청연 (Blue Swallow), Yoon Jong-Chan's acclaimed (although a complete flop commercially) biopic of Korea's first female aviator Park Kyung-Won, hit the press, I couldn't be happier. Finally! I was waiting for this since 2002, and knowing Yoon's past work -- the psychological thriller 소름 (Sorum) from 2001 -- and the cast involved -- super talented Jang Jin-Young and Kim Ju-Hyeok -- I expected a big, super-duper release with all the usual frills. The result? A nice, shiny, 1 disc release with only the film and a Music Video (admittedly a very nice song by Lee Seung-Cheol, still). Cue litany of swear words.

This 'Standard Edition' will be out on March 14, and if you don't care about special features, it's perfectly acceptable, since it also costs a lot less than your usual Korean DVD. But if you want, need, and demand those special features, then we'll have to wait until May, when a Special Edition with hopefully a truckload of extras (I mean, a film like this must have something like 400 hours of making of footage, right?) will be released. So are you patient (bless you... for I lack that virtue, especially when it comes to films like this one)? Then you've got another two months to wait.

You're not? Then you've got two choices. One is your pre-order here. The other is looking at DVD Prime's recently released Menu Design Shots and saying: "Yeah, sure. I can wait another two months for that. Sure. Maybe."