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Murakawa Tôru’s The Beast to Die begins with a flurry of violence as a man, Date (Matsuda Yûsaku), murders a cop and a band of gangsters with equal indifference. For the rest of the film, Date progresses through a series of assaults and robberies with an impulsiveness that jars with the seeming absence of pleasure that he experiences. Only in its closing stretch does the film suggest a motive for Date’s actions, but by then the accumulated horror of his crime spree has cast any sense of meaning adrift.

Date’s nebulous connection to the world around him extends to scenes of his more quotidian daily activities. The only thing that we see the man take any interest in is classical music, and in an early scene that has the makings of a meet-cute, he strikes up a conversation in a record store with a woman (Kobayashi Asami...

Stars: Riki Takeuchi, Seiji Matano, Masanori Sera, Minako Tanaka, Chikako Aoyama, Ren Osugi, Rikaya Yasuoka, Sho Aikawa, Shiori Sakura, Joji Abe, James Fujiki, Masumi Harukawa, Yûzô Hayakawa, Minoru Ôki, Hideki Saijô, Kiyoshi Nakajoe, Natsumi Nanase, Tetsurô Tanba, Kimiko Yo, Makiko Kuno, Johnny Ôkura, Katsuo Tokashi, Kôji Shimizu, Maiko Kazama | Directed by Toshimichi Okawa, Banmei Takahashi, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Teruo Ishii, Masaru Konuma

In the 1980s and 90s there were tons of direct-to-video releases, driven by the creation and popularity of the VHS tape. and Toei Company, Ltd., undoubtedly most known in the West for the myriad of Henshin and Sentai shows they produce, was at the forefront of the Japanese V-Cinema the direct-to-video industry.

Now, from Arrow Video comes a massive collection of 9 V-Cinema films on one Blu-ray set. Not only does this set include 9 films, but a nice stack of bonus features as well. Let’s take a look at...

Stars: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Ayuko Fujishiro, Atsushi Watanabe, Sentarô Fushimi, Jûshirô Konoe, Yumiko Mihara, Kikugorô Onoe, Hiroko Sakuramachi, Tosshô Sawamura | Directed by Tai Kato

Japanese horror films are some of the most disturbing and nerve-rattling pieces of cinema in history. There is one thing for sure: Japanese filmmakers know how to make horror films that will stick with you for years.

Radiance Film have been releasing Japanese cinema on Blu-ray for a while now. And I must say they never cease to amaze me with the quality of the Blu-rays. Now it is time for a 60s Japanese horror film to receive the same treatment – The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost from 1961.

When the daughter of an elite family takes a shine to poor samurai Iemon, he sees an opportunity to climb the social ladder. He just needs to rid himself of his only obstacle: his loving wife Oiwa. He poisons...

One of the most famous Japanese ghost stories, Yotsuya Kaidan, or The Ghost of Yotsuya, saw two film adaptations in 1959 alone. The directors of those films, Nakagawa Nobuo and Misumi Kenji, respectively, used color to expressionistically convey the anger of the betrayed and murdered wife, Oiwa. To differentiate itself from those productions, Katô Tai’s 1961 adaptation not only was shot in black and white and went with the title The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost, but it shifted the focus from feminine vengeance to the horrors of masculine power and insecurity.

When we first meet Oiwa’s (Fujishiro Ayuko) husband, Iemon (Wakayama Tomisaburô), he’s already accidentally murdered a man in a fight, which led him to be estranged from his wife and her family. Unlike the lead of Misumi’s 1959 adaptation, Wakayama’s Iemon is fully complicit in his wife’s downfall. And his consistently vile behavior is typical...

Toei’s decision in 1989 to begin releasing feature-length productions directly to video—bypassing the ailing theatrical circuit—proved immediately successful. Its first straight-to-video live-action release, “Crime Hunter: Bullet of Fury”, was a profitable venture that laid the foundation for a phenomenon that would profoundly shape the Japanese industry over the next decade: V-Cinema.

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In a style that strongly echoes Cannon Group productions, the movie launches straight into the action. Two police officers, Joker Kawamura and his partner Ahiru (played by a young Riki Takeuchi), arrest a notorious criminal, Bruce Sawamura. As they attempt to transport him to the station, they are ambushed by his gang. A chaotic gunfight follows, resulting in Bruce escaping, Ahiru being killed, and Joker surviving, despite being shot 43 times, and ending up in the hospital.

Defying orders from his superiors to drop the case, Joker resumes his...

Set amid the wreckage of post-World War II Japan, Nakajima Sadao’s The Rapacious Jailbreaker locates the chaos and instability of the era almost entirely within the wild journey of its ruthless, tenacious protagonist, Ueda Masayuki (Matsukata Hiroki). A black marketeer in times of economic turmoil, Ueda is first arrested after murdering two people in a drug deal gone bad, and almost instantly he rejects the idea of serving out his entire 20-year sentence, considering the notion of justice as impossible in a society so wholly corrupt.

But Ueda’s objections aren’t based on purely moral or philosophical considerations, as his is mainly an unbridled, primal rebuff of the abusive, fascistic treatment he sees in prison in his first few days. Prisoners are humiliated via excessive inspections, ignored by doctors, and viciously beaten for the slightest infraction. And through it all, Nakajima paints a vivid and unnerving portrait of...

Like much of Imamura Shôhei’s work, The Eel deals frankly with matters of sex and sexuality, but with an emotional detachment akin to an anthropological study. That detachment is on display from the start, when businessman Yamashita Takuro (Yakusho Kôji) acts on an anonymous note informing him of his wife’s (Terada Chiho) affair and sneaks home one evening to catch her in the act. In a scene scored only to the faint chirping of insects, Yamashita spies on the lovers with an aloof curiosity before calmly heading off to grab a knife and murder the pair. Only the spray of arterial blood that splatters the camera lens jolts the scene from its reverie.

The film jumps to eight years later as Yamashita leaves prison on parole, toting an eel from the facility’s pond that the warden allowed him to keep as a pet for good behavior. While...

Stars: Jun Etoh, Mari Shirato, Kentarō Shimizu, Seiji Miyaguchi, Junko Miyashita, Yoshiro Aoki, Takashi Kanda | Written by Takuya Nishioka | Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda

Mermaid Legend is a 1984 feature from the late Toshiharu Ikeda (Evil Dead Trap) that had never been released in any format internationally or played at a film festival outside of its native home of Japan. In celebration of the film’s 40th anniversary, this rare exploitation film is rightfully given the chance for a brand-new audience to appreciate it.

The story introduces viewers to fisherman Keisuke Saeki (Jun Etoh) and his pearl-diver wife, Migiwa (Mari Shirato). They are newlyweds who may be growing at odds with each other, but love still remains between them. After witnessing a murder late one night, Keisuke finds that nobody believes him. Things worsen when the fisherman is soon killed by greedy land developers, leaving Migiwa framed for her husband’s murder.

In 2002, the hype for Japanese horror films was declining rapidly, as the sequels to series like “Ring” or “The Grudge” were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Even though directors such as Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu came to Hollywood to helm the remakes to their films or their sequels, Hollywood had already adapted J-horror tropes to its own productions. As Jerry White points out, one of the perhaps most disappointing entries in the J-horror remakes was Jim Sonzero’s version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s “Pulse” (2001). Perhaps it was this particular experience which made Kurosawa change genres with his next project “Bright Future”.

Bright Future is screening at Black Movie

In general, Kurosawa is best known for his unique horror films such as “Pulse” or “Cure”, films which years after their release now unfold their true impact. At the same time, the director has also repeatedly explored the gap between youth and adults,...

Third Window Films present the third set of a series of films from the legendary 1980s Japanese production company, all with brand new digital restorations. This collection will be released on February 17, 2025 on Blu-ray and digital.

Bumpkin Soup (1985)

Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A wild and crazy pink film from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a director who would go on to become world-renowned with films such as Tokyo Sonata and Cure.

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

Bonus Features

Interview with actress Yoriko Doguchi Feature length audio commentary by Jasper Sharp Video Essay by Jerry White, author of “The Films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa : Master of Fear” Slipcase with artwork from Gokaiju ‘Directors Company’ edition featuring insert by Jasper Sharp – limited to 2000 copies

Region Free / TWFBD088

Mermaid Legend (1984)

Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, yet...

Considering the link between spirit and body has been one of the main themes in his work, perhaps it was only a matter of time before the Japanese director would explore the world of sports. While “Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer” already dealt with the body being altered through outside forces, in this case post-industrial culture and modernity’s obsession with physical optimization, Tsukamoto’s next project would go in a different direction. However, keen observers will quickly notice many similarities between this film and “Tokyo Fist” which may not only serve as an extension of these issues, but also as a visual allegory for the fragility of our bodies, and their connection to our spirit.

Tokyo Fist is screening at Five Flavours

Another interesting parallel, which, for example, author Tom Mes points out, is how the story of “Tokyo Fist” mirrors its director’s biography too. Even though Shinya...

To celebrate the release of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Shadow of Fire on Blu-Ray and Digital from 30th September, we are giving away 3 Blu-Rays to lucky winners!

Shadow Of Fire Is The latest film from Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and winner of the Netpac Award at the 80th Venice Film Festival.

Part of his War trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing, Shinya Tsukamoto’s latest examines the desperate lives of Japanese citizens in the immediate post–World War II period through the story of a child dealing with unimaginable adversity.

Bonus Features:

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary

• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards

• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event

• Director and cast cinema stage greetings

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

Shadow Of Fire is out on Blu-Ray & Digital 30th September

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The...

When two criminals—Kawanishi (Nishimura Kô) and Sabu (Murota Hideo)—first force their way into Misawa’s (Mikuni Rentarô) home, the middle-class salaryman bolts up from his bathtub, standing before his assailants nude and covered in bubbles. This darkly humorous moment lends a bit of levity to the first of many chaotic sequences in Fukasaku Kinji’s The Threat, but more importantly, it speaks to the near-comical, childlike vulnerability of the film’s kowtowing protagonist, who goes from finding an equally spineless underling at work who’s willing to marry his boss’s mistress to complying with every order given by his captors without resistance.

What follows is a remarkably tense and claustrophobic home invasion thriller, in which Misawa becomes the middleman between Kawanishi and a wealthy man, Sakata (Mitsuda Ken), whose infant he and the younger, more impulsive Sabu kidnapped before breaking into Misawa’s house. But coursing just...

Two films from legendary Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) make their way onto bluray & digital from Third Window Films!

Shadow Of Fire

Tsukamoto's latest film and winner of the Netpac Award at the 80th Venice Film Festival

Bonus Features

• Tom Mes feature audio commentary

• “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards

• Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event

• Director and cast cinema stage greetings

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

Vital

Celebrating its 20th anniversary!

Bonus Features

• Making of Vital

• Archival Interview with Shinya Tsukamoto

• Jasper Sharp Video Essay – “An Assault On The Senses”

• Tom Mes Audio Commentary

• Music Clips

• World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival

• Special Effects Featurette

• Trailer

• Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)

• Region B

on Terracotta by clicking on the image below...

The cramped and fragmented compositions of Kato Tai’s 1967 prison drama Eighteen Years in Prison speak to the stifling conditions of Japan in the years following its surrender in World War II. Opening in 1947 and spanning the course of nearly two decades, this unrelentingly bleak and violent film is deeply attuned to how a nation’s men seek to mend their collective wounded masculinity in the wake of a humiliating defeat on the world stage.

Even before Kawada (Andô Noboru), a former kamikaze officer, is imprisoned for stealing copper wire, one gets the sense that the filmmakers see little difference between life inside and outside of prison. American and Japanese officials alike are stealing food and supplies needed by the public, and the chaos and anxieties inherent to in post-war Japan can be felt in the ways in which the men here often collide with one another other as they...

Seven of the genre’s most distinctive titles are packed together in Arrow Video’s upcoming Blu-ray collection J-Horror Rising, which is scheduled to release in the U.S. on October 29.

Arrow previews, “Vengeful ghosts returning from beyond the grave, young women with supernatural abilities, investigative narratives, a terror of technology, and an ominous aura of urban alienation and isolation mark the wave of horror and mystery films that emerged in Japan at the turn of the millennium, collectively labeled as “J-Horror.” Remastered from the best available elements and packed with a host of new and archival extras, J-Horror Rising presents seven of the genre’s most distinctive titles.

“In the ghostly pastoral horror of Shikoku, a young woman returns after many years to her rural birthplace, only to find her best friend from childhood has died by drowning when just sixteen. The dead girl’s mother, the local Shintoist priestess,...

Stars: Vic Morrow, Sonny Chiba, Etsuko Shihomi, Philip Casnoff, Peggy Lee Brennan, Tetsurô Tanba, Mikio Narita, Makoto Satô, Seizô Fukumoto, Hiroyuki Sanada | Written by Kinji Fukasaku, Shotaro Ishinomori, Hirô Matsuda | Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Message from Space, directed by Kinji Fukasaku, is a Japanese science fiction film that blends traditional space opera tropes with unique cultural elements, delivering a visually captivating yet narratively uneven experience. Released in the wake of the monumental success of Star Wars, this film ambitiously seeks to carve out its own niche within the genre.

One of the standout features of Message from Space is its visual presentation. The film showcases an impressive array of special effects for its time, with meticulously designed spacecraft and vibrant alien landscapes that reflect a distinctively Japanese aesthetic. The miniature models and practical effects, though not as polished as those in Hollywood blockbusters, possess a charming quality that adds to the film’s retro-futuristic appeal.

The opening credits of The Shape of Night introduce us to sex worker Yoshie (Kuwano Miyuki) in close-ups under the neon reds and blues of nighttime Tokyo streets. Cigarette between two fingers and a look of cool detachment on her face, she seems ready for whatever the city can throw at her. But as the sequence drags on, her calm shatters and she begins to look around her in darting, nervous glances as she seeks out potential customers. Though she quickly recovers her icy facade, Yoshie reveals a part of herself that she hasn’t fully armored against her work.

From there, Nakamura Noboru’s film flashes back a few years to the start of Yoshie’s current line of work, finding the woman as a fresh-faced factory worker who takes a second job as a bar hostess for extra cash. One night, a charming young man, Eiji (Hira Mikijiro...

As December begins, you might be looking forward to spending time with friends and family over the holidays—and in need of some gift-giving inspiration. Look no further than Notebook's Cinephile Gift Guide, the proverbial online Shop Around the Corner (1940).Below is our third annual, lovingly curated guide to the holiday season. It's sure to spread film-themed cheer, and we hope it's thorough enough to surprise all of the film fans in your life.Jump to a category:Books about cinemaBooks by filmmakers and artistsHome videoMusicHome goods, posters, and gamesApparel Books About CINEMAFirst up is UK culture and music critic Ian Penman’s kaleidoscopic, genre-bending offering to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors. The book has drawn comparisons to Charles Baudelaire and Roland Barthes, but is undoubtedly a sui generis response to a singular legacy.On offer this year from Another Gaze Editions is My Cinema by Marguerite Duras, a...

J-Horror is among the most renowned internationally genres of Asian cinema, with the popularity of titles like “Ringu”, “Ju-on”, “Pulse” and so many others still echoing quite intensely. As such, it is quite interesting, even today, to shed a more thorough look to the roots, the motifs, and the reasons of success of these movies, also because some of the most central directors are still at large.

Check also this article Is J-Horror Coming Back? Six Movies that Suggest So

As such, I have to begin the review by stating that shooting this documentary seems like a colossal endeavor, both for arranging interviews with the likes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takashi Shimizu, Teruyoshi Ishii, Joji Iida, Masayuki Ochiai, Shinya Tsukamoto, and Mari Asato, and for tracking down Rie Ino'o, who played Sadako in the first two films, and Takako Fuji, who played Kayako in a number of entries of “Ju-on”. Add...

The Film

When Battle Royale came out in 2000, I was 19 and just really getting into foreign language films. Like many of my generation of cinephiles, it was an early part of my DVD collection. While I enjoyed it though, I have to confess that I’ve not been back to it for over 15 years, and I never used it as a jumping off point to discover more of its director Kinji Fukasaku’s work. On this evidence, that was an error.

After a failed rebellion in which 37,000 Christians are massacred, their leader Amakusa Shiro (Kenji Sawada) returns from the dead, pledges his soul to the Devil and becomes a demon who can resurrect others to join him in his quest for vengeance. This is an interesting jumping off point for the film, because for much of the opening half hour, as Shiro gathers his band of demons (including swordmaster Miyamoto Musashi...

There are more than enough corpses to fill a cemetery once the smoke clears in Yakuza Graveyard, but in Fukasaku Kinji’s caustic thriller national honor is the central casualty. With Japan’s severe economical crisis spreading across both sides of the law, a shooting can become a transaction. “If you kill someone, you owe damages” is how a drug-addicted prostitute justifies detective Kuroiwa’s (Watari Tetsuya) responsibility for her after he’s killed her pimp—just one of the film’s many relationships defined in business as opposed to moral terms.

Assigned to the local crime beat to cool his rogue-cop jets, Kuroiwa quickly finds himself wedged between the Nishida and Ushin families, warring yakuza groups with unsavory links to the police department. His allies include Iwata (Umemiya Tetsuo), a bellicose underworld torpedo with whom the detective bonds over bruises, booze, and Yankee hookers, and Lady Snowblood herself, Kaji Meiko,...

The Film

I’m trying to remember the title of a movie. There’s a bomber, who puts a device on public transport. If it registers a speed over… ah I forget what the exact marker was, but anyway, that arms the bomb, then if it goes below that speed…Boom! So the cops have to figure out who this guy is, and how to disarm the bomb. I think it was called “The bus that couldn’t slow down”, but it might have been a bit snappier than that.

That aside, 1975’s The Bullet Train definitely bears some striking similarities to, you know, that bus movie. Ken Takahara plays Okita, he’s 40, has lost his company in a bankruptcy and is recently divorced. Recruiting two friends (Kei Yamamoto and Akira Oda) to help set it up, he develops a plan to hold a bullet train with approximately 1500 passengers to...

Samurai Reincarnation [Makai TENSHŌ] (Masters of Cinema) Special Edition Blu-ray is available to Pre-order now from the Eureka Store http://bit.ly/42x5ua2

In the aftermath of a failed rebellion, Amakusa Shiro (Kenji Sawada) is crucified, but returns as a vengeance-filled demon with the power to resurrect the dead. Shiro uses his power to assemble a team of undead warriors—including legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi (Ken Ogata)—and the only one who can stop them is the wandering samurai, Yagyu Jubei (Sonny Chiba).

A spectacular chanbara fantasy epic from Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale), Samurai Reincarnation makes its UK debut from a stunning 2K restoration as part of the Masters of Cinema series.

Special Edition Blu-ray Features:*

Limited Edition Slipcase (First print run of 2000 copies) featuring artwork by Takato Yamamato | 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a 2K restoration of the original film elements | Uncompressed original Japanese mono audio | Alternate English dubbed audio...

Announced by Arrow Video this morning, Ju-On: The Grudge Collection is due out this December, featuring a brand new 4K restoration of Japanese classic Ju-On: The Grudge.

This one is a UK Release, headed our way on December 19, 2022.

“Ju-On”: the name given to a deadly curse spawned when someone dies in the grip of a violent rage. All who come into contact with it are doomed… Collected together for the first time, writer-director Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge series represents the flesh-crawling pinnacle of Japanese chillers that swept the globe at the turn of the millennium.

The films introduce the anonymous family house in the suburbs of Tokyo where an unspeakable evil lingers alongside its residents, the ghastly mother-son pairing of Kayoko and Toshio Saeki. Shimizu’s disconcerting approach to plotting, unnerving eye for the uncanny details in the dark corners of the frame and an innate talent...

Kaizo Hayashi’s To Sleep So As To Dream (1968) will be available on Blu-ray March 22nd from Arrow Video.

Two private detectives hunt for an actress trapped within the reel of a silent ninja film in the dreamlike debut of Kaizo Hayashi, a magical double-handed cinephilic homage to the movie worlds of the 1910s and 1950s.

When private eye Uotsuka and his sidekick Kobayashi are approached by an aged former actress, Madame Cherryblossom, to go in search of her kidnapped daughter Bellflower, their investigations lead them to the studios of the mysterious M. Pathe company. Here Uotsuka has a strange vision in which he comes face to face with the beautiful star of a 1915 chanbara film that appears to have no ending. From then on, things begin to get a little strange…

Among the most impressive and critically regarded Japanese films of the 1980s, To Sleep so as To Dream...

Ursprünglich hätte Regisseur Toshiaki Toyoda der neue Stern am Himmel der Shogi-Spieler werden können, hatte er doch, wie viele andere junge Männer, hart trainiert und Jahre seines Lebens in den das Spiel, dessen Strategien und Taktiken investiert. Dann jedoch zog er nach Tokio und begann eine ganz andere Karriere als Filmemacher, die 1999 fulminant mit seinem Spielfilmdebüt „Pornostar“, auch bekannt unter dem Titel „Tokyo Rampage“, begann. Mit diesem ersten Film machte er nicht nur auf sich aufmerksam, sondern setzte den Grundstein für ein wütendes Kino, welche, mit reichlich Verweisen auf die japanische Pop- und Jugendkultur, auf Themen wie Gewalt, Verbrechen, soziale Isolation und Ungleichheit verwies, die Toyodas Werk bis heute prägen und zu einem der wohl wichtigsten zeitgenössischen Filmografien machen.

Im Zentrum der Handlung steht Arano (Koji Chihara), ein junger Mann, der eines Tages im Tokioter Stadtteil Shibuya erscheint. Unauffällig und den Kopf vergraben in der weiten Kapuze seines dunkelgrünen Regenmantels...

Salor Suit and Machine Gun

A perky high-schooler takes on the mob in “Sailor Suit and Machine Gun”, a one-of-a-kind genre-bender that riffs on the yakuza film, coming-of-age drama and ‘idol movie’, inventively adapted from Jiro Akagawa’s popular novel by director Shinji Somai, a massively influential figure in Japanese cinema whose work has been little seen outside his homeland.

Hoshi Izumi is a young innocent forced to grow up quickly when her father dies and she finds herself next in line as the boss of a moribund yakuza clan. Wrenched from the security of her classroom and thrust into the heart of the criminal underworld, she must come to terms with the fact that her actions hold the key to the life or death of the men under her command as they come under fire from rival gangs.

Presented in both its Original Theatrical and longer Complete versions, and...

In 2002, there was possibly no way of avoiding the presence of Japanese director Takashi Miike in his home country, given the incredible output of eight films released that year. Starting off with the final entry in the “Dead or Alive”-trilogy 2002 included such features as “The Happiness of the Katakuris”, “Agitator” as well as “Graveyard of Honor”, a re-interpretation of the original directed by Kinji Fukasaku in 1975. While some of the entries of that year have more or less disappeared into obscurity, perhaps one of the most notable development in Miike’s career is the occurrence of two films – “Graveyard of Honor” and “The Happiness of the Katakuris” – based on an already existing film. But then again, a “remake” by Takashi Miike is never just a “remake”, it is always something quite unique.

In an interview during the 2002 International Rotterdam Film Festival, Miike finds a moment of...

Hello, everyone! To kick off this month’s horror and sci-fi home media releases, we have an eclectic array of titles coming out this week. In terms of recent genre films, Rlje Films is releasing both Lucky by Natasha Kermani and Simon Barrett’s Seance on Tuesday, and if you’re a fan of the original Transformers movie (like this writer is), Shout! Factory has put together an incredible-looking Steelbook to celebrate the film’s 35th anniversary as well.

Arrow Video is keeping busy with two different sets of genre classics with their Sergio Martino Collection and The Daimajin Trilogy, and Code Red is showing some love to Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker this Tuesday with a special edition Blu-ray release.

Other titles headed home on August 3rd include Night Feeder, Dead Again, It Wants Blood, and Tailgate.

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker Aka Night Warning: Special Edition

Terror begins when a...

The Daimajin Trilogy will be available on Blu-ray July 27th from Arrow Video

The Daimajin Trilogy saw Daieis Kyoto studios bringing its own iconic movie monster to life in a unique but short-lived series that transplants the Golem legend to Japans Warring States period of the late-16th century.

In Daimajin, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, the young son and daughter of the benevolent feudal lord Hanabusa flee to the mountains when their parents are slain by the treacherous usurper Odate. Ten years later, when the elderly priestess who has harbored them is also murdered, the rage of the slumbering ancient god that lies beneath the crumbling giant stone idol hidden deep in the forests in the mountains is invoked. In Return of Daimajin, Kenji Misumi brings his usual stylistic flourish, as the wrathful deity is roused from his new home on an island in the middle of a lake by...

Asian Cinema Education is an invitation to a journey through contemporary Asian cinema and an encouragement to learn how to talk and write about it. The platform was created to fill in the blanks in the knowledge of modern Asian cinema. This is a unique opportunity for all Asian film lovers and future film critics to debate the key phenomena in the cinemas of South and Southeast Asia hand-in-hand with experts and film organizers.

Check the Facebook group of the project

The project was initiated by film festivals promoting Asian culture in the EU: Five Flavours Asian Film Festival from Poland, Camera Japan Festival from Holland, Udine Far East Film Festival from Italy, and Helsinki Cine Aasia from Finland. The organizations are a part of the informal Network of Asian Film Festivals in Europe (Naffe). Their mission is not only to create a gripping film program, but also to infect...

We have an eclectic array of home media offerings coming out this week, led by the latest from Neil Marshall, The Reckoning. Shadow in the Cloud, featuring Chloë Grace Moretz, is also headed to Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday, and if you missed the previous release of the Shinya Tsukamoto set from Arrow, they are releasing a standard Special Edition version of Solid Metal Nightmares as well.

Other Blu and DVD releases making their debut on April 6th include Doors, Sleepless, Dawn of the Beast, Lurking in the Woods, and Killer Karaoke.

The Reckoning

After losing her husband during the Great Plague, Grace Haverstock (Charlotte Kirk) is unjustly accused of being a witch and placed in the custody of England’s most ruthless witch-hunter, Judge Moorcroft (Sean Pertwee). Forced to endure physical and emotional torture while steadfastly maintaining her innocence, Grace must face her own inner demons as the Devil...

Tom Mes, in his book “Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto” writes: The international breakthrough of Tsukamoto and Tetsuo came at a time when Japanese cinema seemed all but forgotten by foreign minds. The monolithic Akira Kurosawa and a few survivors of the generation that had come to prominence in the 1960s – the filmmakers who made up the Japanese New Wave, most notably Nagisa Osima and Shohei Imamura – still gained praise during the ’80s, but it can be argued that the 1983 Palme d’Or for Imamura’s The Ballad of Narayama in Cannes had less impact than the award for Best Film from Tetsuo at the relatively modest FantaFestival in Rome. The reason is that not only was Tetsuo a film by a director from a new generation, it also brought a new generation of foreign fans to Japanese film. Rather than being built on the remnants of the past,...

“You’re not in touch with your feelings.”

Considering the majority of his work deals with the link of the body, our consciousness and the (often urban) environment, making a film about sexuality was perhaps just the logical next step in the career of Shinya Tsukamoto. In fact, the director admits having thought about that idea ever since the production of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”, especially since both works demonstrate narrative and formal parallels. Much like this film’s premise the story for the project, which would later be called “A Snake of June”, also consisted of a minimalist environment in which a character is stalked and finally confronted by a villainous person.

“A Snake of June” is streaming on Mubi

However, it took him longer than expected to make “ A Snake of June”. In the end, this time benefited the project to a certain degree, Tsukamoto admits, for his relationship towards the opposite sex,...

Shinya Tsukamoto is a particularly significant filmmaker for the contemporary Japanese industry, since his “Tetsuo” turned international interest once more toward the country’s cinema, after a rather disastrous decade during the 80s. Furthermore, it created a completely new audience for Japanese filmmakers, this time not among those who had previously dealt with Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi, but younger ones, who were searching for films that would eventually take the title of cult.

Tom Mes paints a rather thorough and analytical portrait of the prolific artist, starting from his childhood and encompassing all his capacities, that also include stage plays, acting and voice acting, particularly for TV and radio commercials, which Tsukamoto still refers to as his main source of income. In that fashion, the book begins with how Tsukamoto grew up and his first influences (Ultra Q), his relationship with his brother, mother and the rather...

Burst City is an explosive Molotov cocktail of dystopian sci-fi, Mad Max-style biker wars against yakuza gangsters and the police, and riotous performances from members of the real-life Japanese punk bands The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers and Inu.

In a derelict industrial wasteland somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo, two rival punk bands and their unruly mobs of fans gather for a Battle of the Bands-style protest against the construction of a nuclear power plant, bringing them head to head with the yakuza industrialists behind the development of their turf.

This extraordinary celebration of Japan’s punk music scene of the early 1980s thrust Sōgo Ishii (now known by the name of Gakuryū Ishii), the underground filmmaking wunderkind behind such works as Half Human: Einstürzende Neubauten (1986), Angel Dust (1994) and Electric Dragon 80,000V (2001), to the next level and is regularly cited as an early landmark in Japanese cyberpunk cinema.

Camera Japan are very pleased to announce two screenings before the start of the 2020 edition of Camera Japan on 23 September.

On 26 August, they will team up with LantarenVenster to screen the animated romantic drama Ride Your Wave (きみと、波にのれたら, 2019) by Yuasa Masaaki (湯浅政明).

Tom Mes will give a talk about anime before the start of the screening. The talk will be in English and the film is also subtitled in English. Tickets are available online via the website of LantarenVenster.

On 10 September, they will present a Film & Curry event at the Paviljoen aan het Water at Brielselaan 157 in Rotterdam. They know you must have missed their legendary vegan curry, so be sure to grab the chance and bag seats at this Camera Japan exclusive!

At the event, they will screen Like Father, Like Son (そして父になる, 2013) by Kore-eda Hirokazu (是枝裕和). The film won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, received...

“Zombie for Sale“

Synopsis:

An infectiously funny slice of modern Korean cinema where Train to Busan, The Quiet Family and Warm Bodies collide to create a memorable rom-zom-com from first time director Lee Min-jae.

When the illegal human experiments of Korea’s biggest Pharmaceutical company go wrong, one of their “undead” test subjects escapes and ends up in a shabby gas station owned by the Park family – a band of misfits spanning three generations who hustle passers-by to make ends meet. When the Park family uncover their undead visitor, he bites the head of their household, who instead of transforming into an undead ghoul becomes revitalised and full of life! The family then hatch a plan to exploit this unexpected fountain of youth, allowing locals to pay to be bitten too, until things go wrong…

With a cabbage-munching zombie who prefers ketchup over blood, and a dysfunctional family that gives...

Jasper Sharp is a writer, curator and filmmaker specialising in Japanese cinema, and co-founder of the Japanese film website Midnighteye.com. His book publications include The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003), joint-written with Tom Mes, Behind the Pink Curtain (2008) and The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Film (2011). He is the co-director of The Creeping Garden (2014), alongside Tim Grabham, a documentary about plasmodial slime moulds. He has programmed a number of high profile seasons and retrospectives with organisations including the British Film Institute, Deutches Filmmuseum, Austin Fantastic Fest, the Cinematheque Quebecois and Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

We spoke with Jasper no longer after his talk – in recent, more social times – on Ero Guro for the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies in London, and we discussed about how he got sucked into the wild side of Japanese Cinema, the years of Midnight Eye, his latest passions and more.

Hi Jasper. In...

“Last Run” is a stand out film in Miike’s oeuvre, for a number of reasons, which, unfortunately, have very little to do with quality. The script of the film was kickstarted by a screenplay competition organized by TV Tokyo and Nikkei newspaper, who asked their readers to submit a feature-length story about a business-related topic. The winner was Keiwa Okada, who was inspired by the true story of a Japanese collector who paid Us$ 18.8 million for a 1962 Ferrari 250 Gto, the largest sum ever paid for a single car at the time. Miike, the ultimate Director-for-hire was the right man for the job. However, the production was a good opportunity for him, since the big budget (for a TV movie) allowed him to shoot abroad and with a foreign crew for the first time, and particularly in Ferrari’s hometown, Modena, and Imola, where the homonymous racetrack is.

Despite being based on a true event,...

Probably Tom Mes’s biggest trait as a writer is the fact that he manages to combine academic-level analysis with a style of writing that is quite easy to read. This has been exhibited in his previous book about Takashi Miike, Shinya Tsukamoto and Meiko Kaji, but seems to have found its apogee in his latest effort, about the cult-samurai movie series, “Lone Wolf and Cub”.

To begin with, the research is as thorough as possible and spares no detail about not only the movies, but every aspect that surrounds them. In that fashion, the first part of the book begins with the story of the manga and its two creators, Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, continues with the concept of Bushido and its presentation (and deconstruction) in Japanese cinema, and concludes with the life stories of director Kenji Misumi, who directed the first three entries, and Tomisaburo Wakayama,...

In collaboration with LantarenVenster, Camera Japan will screen Tokyo Godfathers at 19:00 on Tuesday, March 24 at LantarenVenster in Rotterdam.

Tokyo Godfathers is a modern classic by Kon Satoshi, a renowned director of Japanese animation. Kon, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 46, also directed Perfect Blue and Paprika.

Storyline:

One Christmas Eve, three homeless people – a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin, a former drag queen named Hana, and a dependent runaway girl named Miyuki – discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage. A search for the parents of the child ensues. During their efforts their respective pasts catch up with them as they learn to look ahead to the future.

Anime is usually seen as something typically Japanese, even representing the country and its culture. But the Japanese animation industry has a long history of interaction with Asia, North America, and Europe. From the early days of Astro Boy,...

In 1999, Miike suggested to the producer of Shinya Tsukamoto’s film, “Gemini” to shoot a documentary on the film’s production process, since he was very interested in the director’s method of filmmaking. Miike was granted permission, but since it was impossible for him to attend the entire shooting period, he allocated recording duties to Seiji Minami, who remained present for the entire production, shooting with a small Dv camera. In the end however, only 17 minutes of the documentary were included in the Japanese version of the DVD of Gemini. (Source: “Agitator” by Tom Mes)

The documentary starts with some clips from the movie accompanied by the great theme by Chu Ishikawa, before Miike starts presenting the actual shooting process. Since Tsukamoto was also the Dp of the film, a number of scenes feature him shooting the action in guerilla fashion, on top of carriages moved...

In February, Arrow Video send a wonderful Valentine to genre film fans, with a bells and whistles release of a classic J-horror trilogy.

The One Missed Call Trilogy- An iconic trilogy of J-horror films comes to Blu-ray for the first time! Tapping into the same brand of terror as the Ring and Grudge movies, visionary director Takashi Miike presents a modern, high-tech twist on that mainstay of Japanese folklore, the yurei or vengeful spirit, in the form of its own iconic antihero – the terrifying Mimiko.

In the first instalment in the trilogy, 2003’s One Missed Call, student Yoko receives a phone message from her future self, ending with her own death scream. Two days later, she dies in a horrific rail collision. As the mysterious phone curse spreads, claiming more young lives, Yoko’s friend Yumi joins forces with detective Hiroshi, whose sister met the same gruesome fate.

Kintaro Yajima (Katsunori Takahashi) once was the leader of an infamous biker gang, but as he became a father, he exchanged his bike for a business suit and began working for Yamato Construction. Behind the scenes, a politician along with a rival company schemes to destroy Kinatro’s employer by taking away or canceling all government contracts the firm has or competes with alongside other companies. During this time, Kintaro’s boss sends his employee to work with Igo (Tsutomu Yamazaki), a former friend of Yamato and manager of the company, who over the years has been more fond of gambling and/or drinking than taking care of business affairs.

While Kintaro has trouble getting through to Igo, Yamato loses more contracts, which jeopardizes the company as a whole along with the livelihood of its employees. Brave and confident in his abilities, Kintaro tries to fight what he sees as...

“He admires you. That’s why he entered the Yakuza world.”

On the DVD release of “Full Metal Yakuza” by Artsmagic, the Japanese director addresses the origin story of the film, a tale which could be seen as one of the high time of Asian economy before it collapsed, according to Miike. As he was waiting in an office of a production company for V-cinema releases which went straight to VHS, Miike was aware of a couple of pages from a script which had the title Full Metal Yakuza written on top of them. He quickly read through the pages and decided he would make the film one of his projects, one which he finally realized in 1997.

Considering the genesis of the project as well as the narrative and technical aspects of many of Miike’s films, it is perhaps all too easy to label his film...

In their hometown of Osaka, a group of teenagers celebrates their graduation from school and their road into adulthood. Led by loudmouth Riichi (Koji Chihara), the three boys try to make ends meet collecting debts from local businesses, offering their services as bodyguards and eventually attempting to take on more solid jobs when, for example, Kotetsu (Kyosuke Yabe) gets a job as a bartender.

However, especially Riichi struggles with the reality after school. While his girlfriend manages Ryoko (Sarina Suzuki) to get a job at a local hair salon, his attempts at a regular job fail. When he cheats on her with a childhood friend of his, he becomes estranged from Ryoko as well as the other friends. Eventually, the separation and the fact he is beaten up several times by his former enemies, result in Riichi being severely depressed and lacking the necessary drive to move on in life.

Climbing in the ranks of the yakuza has nothing to do with working hard or sticking to a certain code, but rather the opposite, as Reijiro Masaki (Kiyoshi Nakajo) sees it. When his original clan was disbanded, he was named the second-in-command of the Hattori family by their leader (Koji Shimizu). The path to this position has been defined by murder, but Masaki has tried his best to stick to principles like loyalty while doing so, which has resulted in Hattori respecting him. However, since he was a former enemy, the other lieutenants of the family, especially Hazama (Takeshi Caesar) are disgruntled by the decision as they see it as an insult.

Despite the heavy resistance within his new family, Masaki proves to be a valuable addition. Willing to stick to a certain code of honor and applying it to those men under him, Masaki quickly gains a large group...

The fact that Miike made this film the same year as “Ley Lines“, “Audition” and “Dead or Alive” may come as a complete surprise initially, but once one looks at the credits, the reason will come out: Hisao Maki, the “nemesis” of Miike’s quality is once more in charge of the script, and as usual, the result is quite bad.

The paper thin story revolves around Jun Shirogane, an ample-bosomed wrestler and champion of karate who is recruited by Minamida, a secret agent who happens to be an ex-lover, in order to fight criminals outside the law. In order to so while undercover, she joins a female wrestlers troupe (where she takes the name Silver), who eventually travel to the area her first target is located: Nancy Otori, a dominatrix who has enslaver men in power with her S&m tricks. The clash between the two women is inevitable,...