I’ve noticed that this is a recurring pattern for any movie which was released in a foreign country previously and then later released in the US. Plex will display the US release date even though on the Match/Fix Match screen, it will display the original release date. Plex needs to be able to use the original release regardless of country.
Specific example: Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow. The original release in Japan was August 21, 2004. Match/Fix Match correctly shows the year as 2004. However, when Plex pulls the metadata, it uses the US release date which is June 6, 2007. This messes up release date sorting of the Naruto movies because even though this was the first movie it shows as having released later than other movies. I have to manually edit the Plex data to fix it.
Another, more recent example, is Pets United. This was originally released in 2019 in China but Plex will use the 2020 US release date even though the Match search shows 2019. IMDB and The Movie DB both list the movie as 2019. I have The Movie DB setup as my agent for the library.
This happens consistently for scenarios like this. I have numerous examples in my library.
I had actually changed from using the Plex Movie agent to TMDB b/c TMDB seems to do a better job matching. The Naruto movie that I mentioned about is a perfect example of this:
The name of the movie is “Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow”
The folder and file name is “Naruto the Movie - Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow (2004)”
I changed back to “Plex Movie” agent
Auto Match doesn’t find any matches at all (TMDB agent finds it 100% fine)
Even if I manually search for just “Naruto” with no year, Plex Movie doesn’t have any results at all
TMDB finds it simply searching for “Naruto” and 2004. Illustrating that TMDB seems to work better, at least for this example.
One other note. The .nfo files in the directory have the correct metadata including the IMDB ID which points to the correct movie. My understanding is that Plex is supposed to use the IMDB ID from the metadata.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<movie>
<plot><![CDATA[Naruto is thrilled when he is sent on a mission to protect his favorite actress, Yukie Fujikaze, on the set of her new movie, The Adventures of Princess Gale. But when the crew ventures out to film in the icy, foreboding Land of Snow, Yukie mysteriously flees! Naruto and his squad set off to find her... unaware that three Snow Ninja lie in wait, with a sinister purpose that will force Yukie to face her hidden past!]]></plot>
<outline />
<lockdata>false</lockdata>
<dateadded>2020-07-31 20:47:57</dateadded>
<title>Naruto the Movie: Ninja Clash in the Land of Snow</title>
<originaltitle>劇場版 NARUTO 大活劇! 雪姫忍法帖だってばよ!!</originaltitle>
<director>Tensai Okamura</director>
<trailer>plugin://plugin.video.youtube/?action=play_video&videoid=hoP4P5n-8xk</trailer>
<rating>6.7</rating>
<year>2004</year>
<mpaa>TV-14</mpaa>
<collectionnumber>23616</collectionnumber>
<imdbid>tt0476680</imdbid>
<tmdbid>16907</tmdbid>
<premiered>2004-08-21</premiered>
<releasedate>2004-08-21</releasedate>
<runtime>83</runtime>
<country>Japan</country>
<genre>Comedy</genre>
<genre>Action</genre>
<genre>Animation</genre>
<genre>Adventure</genre>
<studio>Pierrot</studio>
<studio>DENTSU</studio>
<studio>Aniplex</studio>
<studio>Shueisha</studio>
<studio>TV Tokyo</studio>
<studio>Toho Company, Ltd.</studio>
<studio>Bandai Visual</studio>
I figured out the problem with the Plex Movie agent. For some reason it is not compatible with Windscribe VPN. Turned off the VPN allows it to return results. Is there a workaround for allowing it to work with VPN on?
