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Benny Chan’s A Moment of Romance swiftly establishes the narrow perimeter of the world that triad member Wah Dee (Andy Lau) inhabits. Though Dee cuts a profile of louche cool in his denim jackets and sleek motorcycle, the gangster getaway driver moves through the emptiest and least exotic realms of the criminal underworld. His stomping grounds generally consist of rundown buildings and day-rate hotels where he works and sleeps, and his only visible means of letting off steam consists of heading to a nearby quarry to watch a kind of demolition derby with all the other fast-living losers who occupy the bottom rungs of triad life. He treats his bosses with the usual differences demanded by organized crime’s rigid power structures, and they in turn speak to him as little more than an indentured servant.

When one of Dee’s superiors, Trumpet (Wong Kwong-leung), stages a jewelry store robbery,...

After the critical acclaim of his 1969 feature “Eros + Massacre”, Kiju Yoshida went even further in the second part of his political trilogy, “Heroic Purgatory”. The creative freedom the director enjoyed in his collaboration with Art Theater Guild would result in a work which, if you believe film scholars such as David Desser, is even bolder than its predecessor, continuing the filmmaker’s predilection on breaking the rules of cinema, from narration to elements of the mise-en-scène. In many ways, “Heroic Purgatory” seems to be a companion piece to the kind of cinema colleagues such as Nagisa Oshima were making at the time, establishing a rather bleak image at the end of a tumultuous decade, which was somewhat skeptical of the lasting social and political change the large amount of protests had tried to achieve in the past years.

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Although the feature is difficult to...

Yasuzo Masumura’s searing outrage didn’t abate in the 1960s; this unflinching view of the WW2 Japanese counterpart of a ‘M.A.S.H.’ unit cuts straight to the ugly truth of war, as the unending destruction of human bodies and minds. The horrors of ad hoc amputations match the behaviors of the demoralized patients. Masumura’s top muse Ayako Wakao is the traumatized battlefield nurse who becomes intimate with a surgeon who can only cope with his work by becoming a morphine addict. Excellent analysis by Rony Rayns and David Desser brings us closer to the director’s obsession with disturbing truths.

Red Angel

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1966 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Akai tenshi / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from / 39.95

Starring: Ayako Wakao, Shinsuke Ashida, Yusuke Kawazu, Ranko Akagi, Daihachi Kita, Takashi Nakamura.

Cinematography: Setsuo Kobayashi

Production Designer: Shigeo Mano

Art Director: Tomoo Shimogawara

Film Editor: Tatsuji Nakashizu

Original...

The Japanese wartime drama Red Angel (1966) will be available on Blu-ray January 18th from Arrow Video

Directed by Yasuzo Masumura, Red Angel takes an unflinching look at the horror and futility of war through the eyes of a dedicated and selfless young military nurse.

When Sakura Nishi is dispatched in 1939 to a ramshackle field hospital in Tientsin, the frontline of Japan’s war with China, she and her colleagues find themselves fighting a losing battle tending to the war-wounded and emotionally shellshocked soldiers while assisting head surgeon Dr Okabe conduct an unending series of amputations. As the Chinese troops close in, she finds herself increasingly drawn to Okabe who, impotent to stall the mounting piles of cadavers, has retreated into his own private hell of morphine addiction.

Adapted from the novel by Yorichika Arima, Masumura’s harrowing portrait of women and war is considered the finest of his collaborations with...

“Hey listen! Some great news! Chi-Hao’s beat up Chen Lang down at Chen Sun House.”

Shawscope Volume One , a 10-Disc Mega-Box Set with Twelve Movies featuring Hong Kong’s biggest stars will be available December 28th from Arrow Video

After an undisputed reign at the peak of Hong Kong’s film industry in the 1960s, Shaw Brothers (the studio founded by real-life brothers Run Run and Runme Shaw) found their dominance challenged by up-and-coming rivals in the early 1970s. They swiftly responded by producing hundreds of the most iconic action films ever made, revolutionizing the genre through the hard work of top-shelf talent on both sides of the camera as well as unbeatable widescreen production value, much of it shot at ‘Movietown’, their huge, privately-owned studio on the outskirts of Hong Kong.

This inaugural collection by Arrow Video presents twelve jewels from the Shaw crown, all released within the 1970s,...

Fetch Publicity releases the first 4K Blu-ray release outside of “Irezumi,” (1966) Yasuzo Masumura’s early masterwork, outside of Japan. The Blu-ray will be available on 21 June 2021.

From us: Yasuzo Masumura may be practically unknown to the west, but he is quite famous and respected in Japan, with filmmakers like Shinji Aoyama and Nagisa Oshima considering him as one of the precursors of the Japanese New Wave of the sixties, and one of the most important creators in postwar Japan. Irezumi is of the first films that established his exploitation style, which was later implemented in his most well known ones, like “Hanzo the Razor: The Snare” and “Blind Beast.”…“Irezumi” is an exploitation film of rare quality that will definitely satisfy fans of the genre, as it paved the way for the surge of the category that occurred in the 70’s.” (Panos Kotzathanasis)

From Fetch: Drawn from...

Yoshihige Yoshida was 22 years old when he joined Shochiku film studios as an assistant director. At that time, around 1955, Yasujiro Ozu was a nemesis for many young filmmakers at the facility. Ozu resembled commerce and conservatism, a person that does not care for the sociopolitical uproar of the postwar youth and probably the least role model for the yet to be founded “Shochiku New Wave”. Nonetheless, Yoshida, as a part of this new generation of directors, was deeply touched by Ozu’s words and tried to comprehend the meaning of his views on the world and cinema. 30 years after the passing of Yasujiro Ozu, he began to develop a theory about his films. It took five years to finish and is titled “Ozu’s Anti-Cinema”. The book is based on personal encounters with the director leading from Yoshida’s beginnings at Shochiku to the last visit at Ozu’s deathbed.

In 1972, Japanese director Akio Jissoji concluded his Buddhist trilogy, whose previous entries were “This Transient Life” and “Mandala”. As viewers are now finally able to experience these films on blu-ray format thanks to a recent release by Arrow Academy, we can take a closer look at an important entry within the Japanese New Wave Movement, which many of us associate with names such as Seijun Suzuki and Nagisa Oshima since they, among others, remain the most known or popular artists of that time (at least for many Western audiences).

In general, Jissoji addition to the movement, or rather Japanese cinema as a whole, is a bridge between modernity and tradition, between the revolutionary ideologies of the 1960s and the system of beliefs which have defined the country for so long (and still do). As film scholar David Desser points out in his introduction to “Poem”, Jissoji has managed to create...

Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy will be available on Blu-ray August 20th from Arrow Academy

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series Ultraman and 1998 s box-office success Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which This Transient Life, Mandara and Poem, forming The Buddhist Trilogy are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, This Transient Life is among the Art Theatre Guild s most successful and most controversial productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who...

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan’s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series “Ultraman” and 1988’s box-office success “Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis”. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which – “This Transient Life“, “Mandara” and “Poem”, forming “The Buddhist Trilogy” – are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, “This Transient Life” is among the Art Theatre Guild’s most successful – and most controversial – productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who defy the expectations placed on them: he has little interest in further...

Akio Jissôji created a rich and diverse body of work during his five decades in Japan’s film and television industries. For some, he is best-known for his science-fiction: the 1960s TV series Ultraman and 1998’s box-office success Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis. For others, it is his 1990s adaptations of horror and mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, such as Watcher in the Attic and Murder on D Street. And then there are his New Wave films for the Art Theatre Guild, three of which – This Transient Life, Mandara and Poem, forming The Buddhist Trilogy – are collected here.

Winner of the Golden Leopard award at the 1970 Locarno Film Festival, This Transient Life is among the Art Theatre Guild’s most successful – and most controversial – productions. The film concerns a brother and sister from a rich family who defy the expectations placed on them: he has little interest in further education or his father’s business,...

Chicago – If one looks at the spine of a Criterion Collection release, he will see a number that indicates the order in which films have been inducted into the most important DVD/Blu-ray series in history. With over 500 films in the collection (this week’s “Paths of Glory” is #538), one might wonder where it all began. “Grand Illusion,” which Criterion no longer has rights to, is #1 but their second inductee has recently been transferred to Blu-ray and the two-disc release for “Seven Samurai” is a beauty.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

One of several films by Akira Kurosawa than can accurately be called “incredibly influential,” “Seven Samurai” inspired not just other films directly but is one of those movies that’s often cited by modern filmmakers as why they became involved in the movie industry in the first place. “Seven Samurai” is mesmerizing, a film that transports the viewer through Kurosawa’s amazing storytelling ability.

The first time I saw Seven Samurai was just over three years ago. In the three years since I have watched it a couple more times and was eager to return to it once again as it's one of a handful of films I instantly thought of as soon as Criterion revealed it would begin releasing films on Blu-ray. For me, it was up there with The Seventh Seal and 8 1/2 and go figure, now all three all available in high definition, and each the better for it. I guess it's time to start a new list...

For those that already own the three-disc DVD edition you aren't going to find anything new with this release. From the 60-page booklet to a second disc loaded with special features this is the exact same release with one major difference, there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to picture quality.

Retaining an excellent amount of grain,...

Here we are again: another mid-month Criterion Collection new release announcement, with some incredible titles to talk about. Many of today’s announced titles have been teased at in one way or another, over the past few months.

First up we are finally going to see Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Criterion Collection #2, Seven Samurai finally making its high definition debut in the states. This release was something that Criterion mentioned back in December, as the Ak 100: 25 Films of Akira Kurosawa was released, and the Yojimbo / Sanjuro films were about to be announced on Blu-ray. In the post, Jonathan Turell mentioned that they wanted to have Seven Samurai ready on Blu-ray for Kurosawa’s birth month as well, but that it wouldn’t be ready until later in the year. The Seven Samurai Blu-ray was also teased at earlier this year when Amazon suddenly added a pre-order page for it,...